Lu

Lua

beginner

Tiny language, giant reach — games, mods, embedded everywhere.

Lua is a scripting language so small (the whole interpreter is ~300KB) that apps embed it to make themselves scriptable. Roblox, World of Warcraft addons, Neovim configs, Redis scripts — all Lua. It's one of the friendliest first languages, and the standard path into game scripting.

Game ScriptingRobloxMods & AddonsEmbedded ScriptingNeovim Config
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0/8 lessons

Setup

Install the standalone interpreter to learn the language itself. For games, LÖVE (love2d.org) is the beloved free 2D engine; Roblox Studio has Lua (Luau) built in.

Bash
winget install DEVCOM.Lua
# Or scoop install lua

lua -v            # Lua 5.4.x
lua hello.lua     # run a file
lua               # interactive REPL

# For games: download LÖVE from https://love2d.org

Lessons

1
Hello, Lua
Lua's entire syntax fits on a postcard. If you've never programmed before, this …
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2
Conditions & Loops
if/then/end, while, and two flavors of for. Lua uses keywords instead of braces …
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3
Tables — The Only Data Structure
Lua has exactly one data structure: the table. It's an array, a dictionary, an o…
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4
Functions
Functions in Lua are values — store them in tables, pass them around, return sev…
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5
Strings & the Standard Library
Lua's standard library is deliberately tiny — string, table, math, io, os. Small…
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6
OOP & Metatables
Lua doesn't have classes — it has metatables, hooks that change how tables behav…
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7
Your First Game with LÖVE
LÖVE (love2d) is a free 2D game framework: you write three callback functions — …
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8
Lua Cheatsheet
The whole language on one page — it fits.
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