Is it ok to submit an iOS app as a game? It’ll be free of course. (At first anyway. If I made something that generated enough interest after the contest and I made it a polished game, I might change my mind. )

The 2 issues are:

It has to go through Apple’s review process first which can take longer than a week. This may cause the game to not be ready by the final deadline.

Only iOS users would be able to play the game. This limited availability would probably disqualify the game anyway.

I could use Love2d so that I could still code in lua, it would just be a bit different.

Well… you can use a team, but I’d like the doodle you’re using to be made by the whole team, not just one person.
If you do that, you can work as a team.

This is just for fun, so the rules are nice and relaxed.

You can use whatever engine you want. We here at Ludum Dare welcome all sorts of different engines, even in the main compo.

Lots of newbies ask that, though, so no worries. Any engine is fine as long as it’s available to others; it doesn’t have to be FREE, just available.

Game Maker, Unity, Flixel, all sorts of things are welcome here. Heck, we use them A LOT.

Don’t have a doodle yet but I’m planning on having my mom check if she has any old drawings from when I was a kid so I can use one of those…

I never doodle as I almost never use pens or pencils… when I do it’s usually very abstract. Will see if I can still come up with something.