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Packaging Games

tua package builds the project and packages the output for players. It always writes a .love archive, and it can also fuse a standalone Windows or macOS build with a LOVE runtime you provide.

tua package

built 6 file(s)
packaged dist/my-game.love (184.2 KiB)

Packages go to dist/ in the project root. tua init adds this directory to .gitignore.

In VS Code, Tua: Package Game... asks which package to build and runs the same command in a task. For fused builds it uses tua.love.windowsRuntime or tua.love.macosApp, and asks for the runtime when the setting is empty.

What Goes In

The archive holds the build output directory: generated Lua, copied assets, bundled runtimes such as tuatween.lua, and your conf.lua. These are left out:

  • source maps (.lua.map and .lua.map.json), which only the debugger uses;
  • Tua sources and tua.toml, for projects that build in place;
  • dist/ itself, hidden files, and symbolic links.

The output must contain main.lua at its root, which LOVE runs. Entries are stored uncompressed, since images and audio are already compressed, and carry a fixed timestamp, so the same build produces a byte-identical archive.

--name sets the file name; it defaults to the project directory's name.

tua package --name "Star Dust"

Windows

Download the 64-bit zipped LOVE 11.5 for Windows from love2d.org, extract it, and pass that directory:

tua package --target windows --love ~/Downloads/love-11.5-win64

dist/windows/my-game/
  my-game.exe     love.exe with my-game.love appended
  SDL2.dll, OpenAL32.dll, love.dll, lua51.dll, mpg123.dll, msvcp120.dll, msvcr120.dll
  license.txt

Zip the my-game folder to distribute it. The executable still carries the LOVE icon and version details; change them with a resource editor if you need to.

macOS

Pass LOVE's love.app:

tua package --target macos --love /Applications/love.app --identifier com.example.mygame

This writes dist/macos/my-game.app, a copy of love.app with my-game.love in Contents/Resources. Its Info.plist is renamed to the game, uses the --identifier bundle identifier (default io.tua.<name>), and no longer claims .love files.

Changing love.app invalidates its signature. On a Mac, tua package signs the result ad hoc so it runs on that machine. Before distributing it, sign it with your Developer ID and notarize it, or players will see a warning that the app is damaged or from an unidentified developer.

Other Platforms

Players on Linux, or anyone with LOVE installed, can run the .love file directly with love my-game.love. Mobile and web builds use LOVE's own Android, iOS, and love.js toolchains, which take the .love archive as input.