macOS

A Lua project needs no compiler. Download the Lua bundle - arm64 for Apple silicon, amd64 for an Intel Mac - unzip it, and put your script where the executable looks for it:

my_game/
├── data/
│   └── main.lua
└── natiny

./natiny

natiny runs data/main.lua from beside itself, so relative paths inside the script mean the same thing whichever directory you started it from. Name another file to run that one instead:

./natiny data/experiment.lua

The binaries are not notarised, so the first launch is refused. Open it once from Finder with Control-click → Open, or clear the quarantine flag:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine natiny

To ship, ship the folder. Nothing has to be installed alongside it: everything the executable uses is part of macOS.