Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

alaahershy

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 19, 2013
38
0
Hi, I just wondering if somebody here know what is the simplest,easiest and open source engine to make 2d Games for iPhone, I know some of objective C, and I heard a lot about Cocos 2D but I found it hard in some ways so any help...
 
You're best bet is buy a book on leaning iOS programming and start there. There are no short cuts or programs that have little learning curve. It all takes some level of effort and training
 
I've been slowly learning unity using this video tutorial series:

http://www.walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_training___free__.html

The unity engine runs on all computers, smartphones, and consoles.

You need no prior experience at all to follow those videos, and unity is free so long as you make under $100K/year from your games.

Unity is good for both 2D and 3D games.
 
I saw a demo from a game developer where he showed off Apple's sprite kit and when it was discussed, they seem to be concluded that what Apple was offering was a great way to go.

You might want to take some time to dig into this and see if it will work for you.


There's many advantages to using native Apple APIs, including access to the latest chips and device changes.

"Despite cocos2d-iphone not having added any significant feature for years, it was constantly being changed. Practically every new version introduced some changes that forced developers to change their code."

http://www.learn-cocos2d.com/2013/06/apple-create-spritekit/
 
Sprite Kit is Apple's new (to iOS 7) API for just this purpose.

In terms of the concepts it is pretty similar to cocos2d, but I think it's more approachable. (Mainly because the cocos2d API is not stable... which means code samples and tutorials you find are often out-of-date. Also, last I checked it did not support ARC -- they might have released the ARC-friendly version since then so this objection might be out-of-date).

Limitations of Sprite Kit: it's iOS 7-only and not likely to be ported to other platforms
 
I would skip sprite kit and go right to Cocos2d or cocos2d-x.
They work essentially the same as sprite kit was heavily inspired by cocos2d.

The benifit (as mentioned) is that your game can be ported to other platforms much easier. Also cocos2d is widely used so it may be a good idea to learn it :).
 
I'd like to bring up how cross platform the different suggestions you've received so far are:

Sprite Kit: iOS and OS X
Cocos2D: Everything supported by Sprite Kit + Android, Linux, Windows, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Web Browser
Unity: Everything supported by Cocos2D + Wii, Wii U, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Sprite Kit looks interesting, but I'm using Unity because:

1 - Although my gameplay mechanics are all 2D, I'm thinking about making the art be 3D. If I'm going to want it to look nice, I'm going to have to make 3D models and produce sprite sheets from those to make a good looking 2D game - why not just take those 3D models and stick them right in my game (there are reasons, IE, I'll need to think about lighting and stuff if I don't go the pre-rendered approach, plus pre-rendered is faster. But it's a possibility and I'm not closing off the option until the game is much closer to complete.)

2 - If my game ends up being successful on Mobile and Desktop, I might want to port it to Consoles as well (the entry fees are a lot higher for those, but how freaking cool would it be to say you've made a game available for consoles?) If I use Unity to start with, this should be a near non-issue... about the only change I'll need to make is... actually, none, since I'm having joystick support anyways, just for incase the user has a controller for iOS or their computer. I might have to figure out how to make it work without an X/Y cursor for the 360 and PS3, since neither of them have anything standard (unlike touch for Wii U and mobile, mouse or trackpad for computers, or IR pointer for Wii.)
 
Last edited:
One other upside of the Unity platform is that it's VERY popular and it's not likely that Apple or any others will ban it from their platform.
 
Cocos 2D is also VERY popular, and well supported. Lots of help, documentation etc. And can't really be banned by apple or anyone else since it is just plain jain Objective C, and openGL.


There is also Cocos2D-X, this is a cross platform version of cocos2D. Written in Javascript that can be compiled into native apps. Also quite good. We're switching our engine to Cocos2d-X soon :D
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.