Can love2d programs be run as normal Lua programs?

Question

Sorry, this is a total Lua-noob question, but from what I have learned about LÖVE so far, it seems that in order to use it, you must run the love executable on a folder/.love file with a main.lua file in the root.

Is it possible, as an alternative, to write an arbitrarily-named Lua script and just require("love") instead, or do you have to start your app with the love executable? (And if so, how?)

Answer 1

You really need to run it with love.exe

It is possible to build love as a shared library so you could, in principle, write an openlib wrapper over it. However, to get it to work in a reasonable fashion as a lua module would need a fair amount of work.

I wouldn't want to put you off doing this if that's of interest to you but it's not really intended to work that way.