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Lua Academy · Lesson

Handling Input

Respond to keys and mouse.

Two Ways to Read Input

LÖVE offers two input styles. Polling asks "is this key down right now?" each frame, ideal for continuous actions like movement.

Events are callbacks that fire once when something happens, like love.keypressed, ideal for one-shot actions like jumping or shooting.

Polling the Keyboard

love.keyboard.isDown(key) returns true while a key is held. Call it inside love.update for smooth, continuous response.

Because it is checked every frame, holding the key keeps the action going. This is the natural fit for moving a player around.

function love.update(dt)
  if love.keyboard.isDown('right') then
    player.x = player.x + player.speed * dt
  end
end

All lessons in this course

  1. The LOVE Game Loop
  2. Drawing Shapes and Images
  3. Handling Input
  4. Movement and Collisions
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