Cocos2d-x offers you, as a game developer, an open source engine that enables you to effortlessly build powerful 2D games and publish them on a multitude of popular platforms. In today's fast-paced world, what more could a game developer need?
This book gets you started by introducing the continually evolving HTML5 platform and familiarizes you with the Cocos2d-html5 framework.
This book is written to get you well versed with the many versatile features of Cocos2d-x, by demonstrating the creation of nine different games—from arcade style games to new age physics games and from simple puzzle games to strategic tower defense games! All the while, focusing on gameplay and letting Cocos2d-x do all the heavy lifting for you.
For the finale, you will learn how to build your games for Android and Windows Phone 8, bringing you to a full circle on Cocos2d-x.
Chapter 1, A Colorful Start, introduces the HTML5 version of the Cocos2d family by creating a simple and colorful puzzle game. You will learn how to set up your environment to develop using the Cocos2d-html5 engine. You also get familiar with the various actions you can use to get things done in an instant.
Chapter 2, How to Fly a Dragon!, concludes your HTML5 journey and will show you how to use sprite sheets, how to implement simple gravity, and use rectangular collision detection.
Chapter 3, Not Just a Space Game, shows you how to create a multiplatform Cocos2d-x project. You will also learn to create a level-based arcade game where you learn how to parse XML, play particle effects, and extend the engine by inheriting from its primary classes.
Chapter 4, Back to the Drawing Board, shows you just how easy it is to make a game that completely uses primitive drawing for its entities. You will also learn how to implement simple accelerometer controls and how to add difficulty progression to an endless game.
Chapter 5, Let's Get Physical!, guides you through the process of using Box2D to build a physics game. You will also learn about state machines and object pools.
Chapter 6, Creativity with Textures, shows you how to fire OpenGL commands and render your own sprite. You will also learn to use Box2D to make a picturesque side-scroller game.
Chapter 7, Old is Gold!, introduces you to the Tiled map editor and the basics of a tile-based game. You will also learn how to implement a reusable tile-based collision detection algorithm.
Chapter 8, Box2D Meets RUBE, introduces you to RUBE, which is a powerful physics editor. You will use it to create levels for a slingshot type physics game. You will also learn about ray casting and how to implement explosions in Box2D.
Chapter 9, The Two Towers, shows you how easy it is to implement a tower defense game in Cocos2d-x. In the process, you will learn how to implement scalable architectures for your enemies and towers. You will also learn how a simple gesture recognizer works and how you can control the speed of your gameplay.
Chapter 10, Cross-platform Building, shows you how to set up your environment and build one of your games on Android and Windows Phone 8.
The source bundle will contain all the source code and project files to run each game. However, you will need to install the following software to run the games:
A computer running Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. However, you will need a computer running Windows 8 in order to build on Windows Phone 8.
WebStorm, or a similar JavaScript editor, and at least one browser to run the HTML5 games in the first two chapters.
Microsoft Visual Studio to run the projects on Windows PC and Windows Phone and Eclipse to run the projects on Android.
This book is written for people who have basic experience in Cocos2d-x and want to use it to implement a wide variety of high-quality games. The book revisits some of the basic concepts, but we hit the ground running. As such, some basic understanding of Cocos2d-x is recommended. In addition, since the first couple of chapters are on Cocos2d-html5, some knowledge of JavaScript is strongly recommended.
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: " If you expand the Classes folder inside pumpkindefenseComponent, you will notice that the actual sources are missing."
A block of code is set as follows:
createTileData:function(){
this.tileData = [];
// generate tile data randomly
for(var i = 0; i < (NUM_COLS * NUM_ROWS); ++i){
this.tileData[i] = 1 + Math.floor(Math.random() * MAX_COLOURS);
}
}Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
export NDK_ROOT=/Android/android-ndk-r10
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: " By default, you will see a whole lot of packages selected, out of which Android SDK Platform-tools and Android SDK Build-tools are necessary."
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