iphone.mitchallen.com

If you want to play around with the Cocos2D Game Engine, the first thing that you need to do is download and unzip it to your Mac.

You can get the library / project from here:  http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-iphone/

Then if you are like a lot of people you are going to want to run the examples next.  But if you are new to Xcode you will probably be perplexed as to how to do that.

The information is buried in one of the links from the previous post (see http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/737).  But I will bring that information forward and reiterate here.  Thanks to PhilM of that forum for this info.

1. Download and unzip the latest cocos2d-iphone-x.y.z project from http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-iphone/
2. Double click on cocos2d-iphone.xcodeproj to launch the project in Xcode
3. On the Xcode main menu select: View / Customize Toolbar ...
4. Drag Active Target and Active Executable to the toolbar (the person who wrote the original note also likes to use Active SDK)
5. I like to also set at the bottom Show: Icon & Text and check Use Small Size – then click Done
6. Now you can select any target from Active Target, click Build & Go and it will run in the simulator

Remember while running the examples to look at the code under the tests folder in the project.

Next I’d recommend looking at this tutorial:  http://monoclestudios.com/cocos2d_whitepaper.html

Then I’d recommend reading up on shared libraries: http://www.clintharris.net/2009/iphone-app-shared-libraries/

Even though I’m trying to master 3D game development, I’m also interested in developing 2D games.  I’ve been looking at various iPhone game engines and am currently exploring Cocos2D.  The thing I like most about it is the price – you can download it for free.  See the project page for licensing info.

I’m still exploring the SDK, so don’t have a lot of code to show myself.  So to get you started, here are a few links:

• http://code.google.com/p/cocos2d-iphone/ – the project source with info and pointers to other resources.
• http://www.cocos2d.org/doc/programming_guide/
• http://morethanmachine.com/macdev/?tag=game-demo-tutorial-series – some tutorials to get you started.
• http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org
• http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:index
• http://monoclestudios.com/cocos2d_whitepaper.html – a great first tutorial.
• http://lukehatcher.com/2009/04/coloring-sprites-with-cocos2d-iphone/ – an article on getting multiple sprites for free.
• http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=2233 – an article on understanding how memory management is used.
• http://www.clintharris.net/2009/iphone-app-shared-libraries/ – a general article on iPhone shared libraries.
• http://iphonedev.net – tutorials.
• http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/737 – “Things you wish you knew when you started with cocos2d?” – some useful tips from the forum participants.
• http://maniacdev.com/2009/07/a-look-at-8-different-iphone-game-engines-2d-and-3d/ – a nice summary of the most popular game engines for the iPhone.
• http://blog.sapusmedia.com/2008/12/how-to-use-tilemap-editor-for-cocos2d.html – how to use the tilemap editor.
• http://kwigbo.com/wp/2009/03/15/cocos2d-alternative-map-editor/ – alternative tilemap editor
• cocos2d-iphone-discuss about tile map editors.

Tags: Cocos2D

The authors of Beginning iPhone Development have released an updated eBook that covers the 3.0 operating system and related SDK. As a previous owner I was allowed to buy the eBook for half off.

You can find the eBook here:

http://apress.com/book/view/1430224592

One of the authors — Jeff LaMarche – has started on online tutorial in his blog for OpenGL ES programming. You can find the Table of Contents here:

http://iphonedevelopment.blogspot.com/2009/05/opengl-es-from-ground-up-table-of.html

Tags: Apress, LaMarche

Head Cheese Brian Greenstone from iPhone game developer Pangea Software talks about Enigmo, the game that made the company $1.5 million.

Tags: Enigmo

The authors of the book OpenGL(R) ES 2.0 Programming Guide have updated their Web site to cover the new iPhone 3G S. The site can be found here:  http://www.opengles-book.com. 

From the site you can download a new chapter in PDF format titled “OpenGL ES 2.0 on the iPhone 3G S” which describes what you need to do to compile specifically for the new hardware.  The site also contains updated examples ported to the iPhone that you can download and run.

Two things to note about the examples – if you just try to compile and run them without reading the PDF file first you may have a problem.  The chapter points out that you need to compile the Common project first in order for things to run.

Second – I had one small problem with the MipMap2D example.  The file MipMap2D.c was in the project folder – but for some reason the project link was broken.  So I just added the file again and I could compile and run it.