The idea of programming a risk-like game for iOS has been around my mind for more than a week, so I thought I should do something about it. I'm not an experienced iOS developer (I haven't done a real project, only tutorials), but I got some notions about both the language and Cocoa Touch.
So, the thing I want to do is a board game, similar to dicewars (see http://www.gamedesign.jp/flash/dice/dice.html). The maps will at some point have hexagonal-tiles, but if it is to much pain for starters, I don't have a problem with regular tiles for the beginning. I want the maps to be dynamically generated, not made in advance. There won't be much on the game screen : the map, divided in areas, the dices, and a HUD.
The main thing I'm grasping with right now is what to use to do the graphic stuff. I have no background in game programming, and very limited in 2D. For my purposes, should I go with Core Graphics/Animation, OpenGL, Cocos2D, or something else ? I would like to avoid starting with a technology, and halfway through the project, realizing another would have be more adapted.
I'm also listening to any advice about game dev in general, map generation, IA programming.. etc. If you have links that answers my question, feel free, I haven't found anything conclusive so far
tl;dr:
I'm wondering how should I do 2D for a simple board game similar to dicewars/risk. No need for collision stuff, just something to draw a map, update it, and display a hud.
Thanks for your time!
I'd suggest Cocos2d: Very easy to get started, has more than enough functionality to cover your requirements (including tile-maps built into the engine), has an active community, and has been the framework used by many successful games.
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I'm familiar with the basics of objective-c and cocoa touch and I want to start now my first large iOS project.
I want to build an iPad app with a histogram like you know it from several photo apps where you can see e.g. the distribution of brightness in a picture. But it needs to be smart, i.e. scrolling horizontal, setting borders and pinching for zoom-in and zoom-out.
Is it possible to handle this requirements with iOS7 standard API or do I need a 3rd party framework like Core-Plot to achieve a histogram I described, and if so, which one would you prefer and why.
Thanks for your help!
Is it possible to handle this requirements with iOS7 standard API or do I need a 3rd party framework
It's certainly possible to do it all yourself with no help from anybody except the frameworks that Apple provides. Whether that's the best solution for you, only you can decide. I think these are the relevant considerations:
You seem to have some fairly specific requirements and it sounds like you may need fairly fine control over exactly how this histogram looks and works. These are good reasons to create the histogram yourself.
You're still fairly new to Objective-C, Cocoa Touch, etc. That's a good reason to look for something that's already written. You'll save a lot of time and frustration, but you may have to be a little more flexible in terms of what you're willing to accept; it's unlikely that anybody has already written exactly the thing you want.
I'd suggest taking a shot a building what you want, and if it turns out to be a bigger thing than you're ready to tackle, you'll at least have a better understanding of what's involved.
To get started, read up on UIBezierPath. All you really need to do is to create a view that accepts an array of numbers and draws the corresponding graph. Don't worry about zooming and scrolling yet, just make a view that draws the graph. Once you have that, you can read up on UIScrollView, which will give you the scrolling and zooming with almost no work.
I'm thinking in doing my first ios game, I am new in ios programming and I need your advice.
The game will be very simple and 2d, imagine something like a card games.
My doubt is if i should use UIKit, spritekit, cocos2d... What is the recommended for 2d simple games with few animations?
Thanks you :)
i would recommend cocos2d, since it is widely used by many developers and can also be used for serious game development, so when you feel that you've picked it up and gotten familiar with the api, it will be something that you can continue using after the first one is released.
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/games/
As you can see, many successful games and it has a nice collection of features build it, so that is always handy even tho' in your first title and development training program you would also like to get as close as possible to basics which is the best way of learning, it will also allow you this.
I would not even consider UIKit as THE platform to approach at all.
as for spritekit, that could go ether way, i wouldnt use it, but it is not useless if you know what i mean.
As per your requirement, i would really suggest you CORONA SDK. Specially for simple and 2D game development. It's very fast and easy to understand and you can create game faster then cocos2d and objective-c development. Also it's support cross platform.
http://coronalabs.com/
With Corona, you will develop mobile apps in record time.
I am a beginner in Obj C development, though quite experienced (over 10 years) with other ECMAscript based languages and OOP development.
I want to build a simple flipbook style animation, controlled through swiping motion. I'm sure extremely simple for any advanced ObjC coders.
Can anyone with extensive ObjC-CocoaTouch experience give me some higher level recommendations?
ie,
1 -general application design, should I start with a simple view based application, or navigation based or?
2 -should I use 3rd party animation frameworks such as Cocos2D, or stick with built in classes and methods?
3 -if using built in methods, classes, what is the recommended way of achieving a animation, that will be controlled via swipe and touch gestures?
4 -I want to eventually have multiple 'flipbooks' that I can 'instantly' swap with one another, ie to give the net effect of an object changing color, etc, but not sure how to approach this from a memory management point of view, related to #1 above
Except for point 3 above, I'm not expecting any actual code examples. Just general guidelines to follow and perhaps, what are some next steps I should take in my goal as an ObjC code samurai.
While I am no expert I can think of a few things you could pursue to get the effect you want. Sounds like you want have a somewhat immersive experience for users. Cocos2D would definitely fit that bill. Me and my team at Get Set Games have been using it for the past year and have not been dissapointed with it. We haven't done the flipbook effect you speak of but quite possibly someone in the Cocos2D forums has implemented are at least attempted this. Forums are accessible here.
Having said that I think starting with the iPhone SDK UIKit framework and basic examples that come with it are great. There is a great array of samples on scrolling, swiping, etc. If you want to hook in Cocos2D or other frameworks later that's definitely an option.
For something like this app http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=323242790&mt=8, what sort of game framework is needed? It's all 2D and I've read how popular Cocos is. The problem is I'm not a game programmer and there aren't any good Cocos tutorials out there. Would Cocos be able to create a game like the one linked above?
If someone uses CoreAnimation (Quartz 2D), do they have to create the physics from scratch?
I don't see any games with the Unity 3D logo on startup, which must display if you use the Indie license. What is the style of game Unity works best with?
For a beginner, should they start with Cocos or something such as Unity, which has lots of free resources (images, sounds, etc).
I'm no expert in iPhone development but have been studying it, and will try to chip in my 2 cents.
Yes, it seems that Cocos would be very suitable for what you are planning to do, and it would most definitely be able to make something like that Cartoon Wars. Plus it also gives you two choices of integrated physics engines to choose from. Streaming Colour's Owen Goss is developing a game using Cocos and vlogging the experience, he occasionally comments about physics-engine related issues http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/ .
You can also pick CoreAnimation, but then you are on your own to do the physics. If I'm not mistaken, the NimbleBit http://www.nimblebit.com/ guys developed their games (Scoops, Moon Drop) directly in Quartz.
Unity, despite being a 3D engine, is also suitable for the job. Zombieville USA was developed using it (more details here http://www.thecareergamer.com/?p=513 ) and has a cutout animated feel that resembles the link you shared. I guess all those games that don't display the indie Unity logo simply were made using the full version. It seems that using Unity allowed them to develop Zombieville in a very small amount of time. Also, in Unity you are not stuck with Objective C and allowed to use C# as well.
Good luck!
Don't code it from scatch. Use Unity.
Depending on which version of Unity you buy you can exclude the Unity logo on startup.
http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses
Start with Unity. It's a solution that can target users of all levels since it supports very advanced enhancements.
My impression of the games I've seen with Unity is that they are slow to start. That's OK if there's a big game experience but not for something I want to play within a few seconds.
Based on my research, I've decided to use Cocos for simple 2D games. There are a lot of good postings in the forum, even though there are no explicit tutorials
I also asked a question a while back about 3D engines - Oolong vs SIO2, got some useful answers and when I get time will be trying SIO2, although that won't be until next year at this rate (non-gaming projects in the way and I'm going to walk with 2D before flying in 3D).
I'm programming this game in OpenGL, mostly working inside an single EAGLView (I'm not that familiar with Views and other Cocoa concepts, my work to this point only involved using OpenGL to draw my game and calculating the logic myself).
I'm being told for adding a ton of features:
Send mails to Your friends when You achieve certain objectives in the game.
Interact with facebook ( I'm being told that I will provided with all the libraries I need).
Interaction with store kit !, buy weapons, Items, etc..
I would like to know, how effort and time will take to add those features... It's complicated to use GameKit ..StoreKit..MediaPlayer and other frameworks ?, considering that I only have worked with OpenGL to this point ?
Short answer: no, it's not hard to add those features.
Longer answer: depending on your background, if object-oriented concepts are new to you, it may take you longer to learn how to use the objects and frameworks. The only thing you can really do is read over the documentation and look at tutorials and decide how complicated it looks. Really, though, it's all well designed and thought out and if you have a programming background, a couple of the examples should give you plenty to start with and you'll get it all soon. And then come on back with your specific questions and smarter devs than I will answer them.
The hard part is all the details: weapons, items, etc.