love

When beginning to write games using LÖVE, the most important parts of the API are the callbacks: love.load to do one-time setup of your game, love.update which is used to manage your game's state frame-to-frame, and love.draw which is used to render the game state onto the screen.

More interactive games will override additional callbacks in order to handle input from the user, and other aspects of a full-featured game.

LÖVE provides default placeholders for these callbacks, which you can override inside your own code, simply by specifying their fully qualified name:

function love.load()
   hamster = love.graphics.newImage("hamster.png")
   x = 50
   y = 50
end
function love.draw()
   love.graphics.draw(hamster, x, y)
end

Modules

love.audio Provides of audio interface for playback/recording sound.
love.data Provides functionality for creating and transforming data. Added since 11.0
love.event Manages events, like keypresses. Added since 0.6.0
love.filesystem Provides an interface to the user's filesystem.
love.font Allows you to work with fonts. Added since 0.7.0
love.graphics Drawing of shapes and images, management of screen geometry.
love.image Provides an interface to decode encoded image data.
love.joystick Provides an interface to connected joysticks. Added since 0.5.0
love.keyboard Provides an interface to the user's keyboard.
love.math Provides system-independent mathematical functions. Added since 0.9.0
love.mouse Provides an interface to the user's mouse.
love.physics Can simulate 2D rigid body physics in a realistic manner. Added since 0.4.0
love.sound This module is responsible for decoding sound files.
love.system Provides access to information about the user's system. Added since 0.9.0
love.thread Allows you to work with threads. Added since 0.7.0
love.timer Provides high-resolution timing functionality.
love.touch Provides an interface to touch-screen presses. Added since 0.10.0
love.video This module is responsible for decoding and streaming video files. Added since 0.10.0
love.window Provides an interface for the program's window. Added since 0.9.0

Types

Data The superclass of all data.
Object The superclass of all LÖVE types.
Variant The types supported by love.thread and love.event.

Callbacks

Config Files Game configuration settings.
love.directorydropped Callback function triggered when a directory is dragged and dropped onto the window. Added since 0.10.0
love.displayrotated Called when the device display orientation changed. Added since 11.3
love.draw Callback function used to draw on the screen every frame.
love.errhand The error handler, used to display error messages.
love.errorhandler The error handler, used to display error messages. Added since 11.0
love.filedropped Callback function triggered when a file is dragged and dropped onto the window. Added since 0.10.0
love.focus Callback function triggered when window receives or loses focus. Added since 0.7.0
love.gamepadaxis Called when a Joystick's virtual gamepad axis is moved. Added since 0.9.0
love.gamepadpressed Called when a Joystick's virtual gamepad button is pressed. Added since 0.9.0
love.gamepadreleased Called when a Joystick's virtual gamepad button is released. Added since 0.9.0
love.joystickadded Called when a Joystick is connected. Added since 0.9.0
love.joystickaxis Called when a joystick axis moves. Added since 0.9.0
love.joystickhat Called when a joystick hat direction changes. Added since 0.9.0
love.joystickpressed Called when a joystick button is pressed.
love.joystickreleased Called when a joystick button is released.
love.joystickremoved Called when a Joystick is disconnected. Added since 0.9.0
love.keypressed Callback function triggered when a key is pressed.
love.keyreleased Callback function triggered when a keyboard key is released.
love.load This function is called exactly once at the beginning of the game.
love.lowmemory Callback function triggered when the system is running out of memory on mobile devices. Added since 0.10.0
love.mousefocus Callback function triggered when window receives or loses mouse focus. Added since 0.9.0
love.mousemoved Callback function triggered when the mouse is moved. Added since 0.9.2
love.mousepressed Callback function triggered when a mouse button is pressed.
love.mousereleased Callback function triggered when a mouse button is released.
love.quit Callback function triggered when the game is closed. Added since 0.7.0
love.resize Called when the window is resized. Added since 0.9.0
love.run The main function, containing the main loop. A sensible default is used when left out.
love.textedited Called when the candidate text for an IME has changed. Added since 0.10.0
love.textinput Called when text has been entered by the user. Added since 0.9.0
love.threaderror Callback function triggered when a Thread encounters an error. Added since 0.9.0
love.touchmoved Callback function triggered when a touch press moves inside the touch screen. Added since 0.10.0
love.touchpressed Callback function triggered when the touch screen is touched. Added since 0.10.0
love.touchreleased Callback function triggered when the touch screen stops being touched. Added since 0.10.0
love.update Callback function used to update the state of the game every frame.
love.visible Callback function triggered when window is shown or hidden. Added since 0.9.0
love.wheelmoved Callback function triggered when the mouse wheel is moved. Added since 0.10.0


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