Posts Tagged ‘android’
cocos2d-x is the natural evolution of the cocos2d-iphone engine to C++ and it is stable and producing multiplatform games.
cocos2d-iphone is a great Objective-C game engine (and the first really) that began as a python engine called cocos2d and was ported to Objective-C + iOS early on in the iPhone SDK days. Arguably Unity and cocos2d are the two biggest indie engines on the App store. Cocos2D is a very simple engine and coming from Flash development many of the concepts are similar (i.e. Sprite, Actions/easing, Layers/Scenes (although slightly different), etc). But getting your Objective-C game to Android and other platforms is not a fun task. There are other options like andengine for android from cocos2d port but each port only gets you so far as you still have two codebases for one game on iOS and Android.
Unity obviously can open up platforms for you but cocos2D-x can also do that for 2D games across iOS, Android, Blackberry Playbook, Windows, Linux and more! This is possible because like oolong engine and other custom multiplatform engines for mobile the core is in C++ with presentation view wrappers/stubs in Objective-C++/C for iOS, Java/C++/NDK for Android, etc. The list of games shows that it is stable and a well treaded engine including games like Hero Academy from Robot Entertainment.
cocos2D-x even has a port of cocos to C#/XNA for Windows Phone development using all the classes you know and love from cocos2d. That is actually pretty sweet to have similar logic to reach Windows Phone (Unity and others bypass because there is no native access by developers sadly still, must, use, XNA — strange considering Unity pushes C# development quite heavily but I digress).
drawlogic originally mentioned cocos2d-x over a year ago in a post about cocos2d-javascript just in an ‘other ports’ category but it has really come along and is quite stable as the game lists are showing. Take it for a spin if you need a cross platform 2D game! If I need to work on cocos2D games I would definitely go with the C++/Objective-C++ engine since it is now stable and gets you many platforms, I also still like developing in C++ which is very common in games for performance and multiplatform performance especially.
- cocos2d-x downloads
- cocos2d-xna downloads
- cocos2d-iphone
- the original cocos2d from sweet python
- list of cocos2d-x games
- list of cocos2d-iphone games
Other mentions
- Unity
- andengine – cocos2d based android 2d engine
- oolongengine (C++ ios engine)
A sweet engine for getting started with Android game development is the andengine 2D OpenGL ES engine. This is very simple and compares with cocos2d-iphone for iOS development in 2D with OpenGL ES. They both support a wide range of 2d techniques with an OpenGL renderer. Some great videos are posted on the andengine google code page showing a box2D example, multiplayer example and more.
Mobile games are on slower hardware, similar to later 90′s computers so native is a great way to go for 3d and 2d game development because of this limitation at the current time and well into the next few years. Take this time to learn you some native gamedev. andengine isn’t native directly as it is Java based but compiled with the Dalvik JIT virtual machine. Another way to go native on Android is the Android NDK which allows C and C++.
- andengine download at google code
- andengine examples at google code
- andengine blog
- Mercurial repository at google code
- cocos2d-android port of cocos2d-iphone with BSD license
- rokon android is another BSD licensed android game engine
The engine also has extensions that can be easily added and some great ones exist already.
Unity is showing no signs of slowing down in making a consolidated, easy pipeline for game developers and creators to bring their wares to the masses on the top platforms. Already Unity 3D is the best 3d web browser plugin at the current time with export paths to web, desktop (mac and PC), iPhone/touch and Wii. But now we will see support for PS3, iPad (obvious as it is a iPhone/touch) and Android (most likely with the help of the C++ NDK rather than the Java SDK). XBOX 360 support was announced last year.
This is pretty huge even for such a small and innovative company. I guess it means it will be time to buy an upgrade soon. Unity so far has been giving feature after feature for free for current license holders, this one seems big enough to justify a major version increase.
Gamasutra comments on other great features:
This third iteration will also incorporate Umbra Software’s occlusion culling product, which is designed help performance for games with large, open scenes and complex geometry. The platform’s top-end version, Unity Pro, will include both Umbra and Beast at no additional cost.
Unity Technologies updated its Unity iPhone for version 3.0 to include streaming audio support for smaller build size, Bluetooth multiplayer support, faster in-game GUIs”, and a 2D sprite engine. Furthermore, the company’s iPhone product will offer performance improvements that promise to provide faster frame rates.
The company says that with its new platform support for PlayStation 3, iPad, and Android, it offers developers an opportunity to target a larger install base than any other game engine. Unity’s game engine currently can produce games for Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Wii, with support for Xbox 360 announced last October.
