This book is designed to introduce you to the basic standards of using the Corona SDK across iOS and Android platforms. You will enhance your learning experience by building three unique games in easy-to-follow steps. Apart from developing games, you will also dive into learning about social network integration, In-App Purchasing, monetizing, and shipping your applications to the App Store and/or Google Play Store.
Chapter 1, Getting Started With Corona SDK, begins by teaching users how to install Corona SDK on both Mac OSX and Windows operating systems. You will learn how to create your first program in just two lines of code. Lastly, we'll go through the process of building and loading an application to an iOS or Android device.
Chapter 2, Lua Crash Course and the Corona Framework, dives into the Lua programming language that is used to develop in Corona SDK. We'll go over the basics of variables, functions, and data structures in Lua. This chapter will also introduce how to implement a variety of display objects within the Corona framework.
Chapter 3, Building our First Game: Breakout, discusses the first half of building your first game, Breakout. We'll learn how to structure game files in a Corona project and create game objects that will display on screen.
Chapter 4, Game Controls, continues on with the last half of building your first game, Breakout. We'll cover game object movement as well as collision detection between objects in the scene. You will also learn how to create a score system that will implement win and lose conditions of the game.
Chapter 5, Animating our Game, explains how to animate a game using movie clips and sprite sheets. This chapter will go in depth with managing motion and transitions while creating a new game framework.
Chapter 6, Playing Sounds and Music, provides information on how to apply sound effects and music to your applications. It is vital to include some type of audio to enhance the sensory experience of our game's development. You will learn how to incorporate audio through loading, executing, and looping techniques with the Corona Audio System.
Chapter 7, Physics: Falling Objects, covers how to implement the Box2D engine in Corona SDK using display objects. You will be able to customize body construction and work with physical behaviors of falling objects. In this chapter, we'll apply the uses of dynamic/static bodies and explain the purpose of post-collisions.
Chapter 8, Operation Storyboard, discusses how to manage all your game scenes with Storyboard API. We'll also go into detail on menu design, such as creating a pause menu and main menu. In addition, you'll learn how to save high scores within your game.
Chapter 9, Handling Multiple Devices and Networking your Apps, provides information about integrating your applications with social networks such as Twitter or Facebook. Other social capabilities that will be discussed are incorporating achievements and leaderboards with OpenFeint. This will enable your app to reach a bigger audience globally.
Chapter 10, Optimizing, Testing, and Shipping your Games, explains the application submission process for both iOS and Android devices. This chapter will guide you on how to set up a Distribution Provisioning Profile for the App Store and manage your app information in iTunes Connect. Android developers will learn how to sign their applications for publication so it can be submitted to the Google Play Store.
Chapter 11, Implementing In-App Purchases, covers monetization of your game by creating consumable, non-consumable, or subscription purchases. You will apply In-App Purchases in the App Store using Corona's store module. We'll take a look at testing purchases on a device to see if transactions have been applied using the Sandbox environment.
You will need the following items before you can start developing games with Corona SDK for Mac:
If you are installing Corona for Mac OS X, be sure that your system is as follows:
Mac OS® X 10.6 or later
Intel-based system that runs Snow Leopard or Lion
64-bit CPU (Core 2 Duo)
OpenGL 1.4 or higher graphics system
You must be enrolled in the Apple Developer Program
XCode
A text editor such as TextWrangler, BBEdit, or TextMate
You will need the following items before you can start developing games with Corona SDK for Windows:
If you are running Microsoft Windows, be sure that your system is as follows:
Windows 7, Vista, or XP operating system
1 GHZ processor (recommended)
38 MB of disk space (minimum)
1 GB of RAM (minimum)
OpenGL 1.3 or higher graphics system (available in most modern Windows systems)
Java 6 SDK
A text editor such as Notepad++ or Crimson Editor
You must be enrolled as an Google Play developer if you want to submit and publish apps for Android devices.
The game tutorials require resource files that are available with this book and can be downloaded from the Packt website.
Lastly, you will need the latest stable build of Corona SDK: Version 2011.704. This is applicable for test drivers and subscribers.
This book is for anyone who wants to have a go at creating commercially successful games for Android and iOS. You don't need game development or programming experience.
In this book, you will find several headings appearing frequently.
To give clear instructions of how to complete a procedure or task, we use:
Action 1
Action 2
Action 3
Instructions often need some extra explanation so that they make sense, so they are followed with:
This heading explains the working of tasks or instructions that you have just completed.
You will also find some other learning aids in the book, including:
These are short multiple choice questions intended to help you test your own understanding.
These set practical challenges and give you ideas for experimenting with what you have learned.
You will also find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Continue changing values of the current display object, textObject."
A block of code is set as follows:
Hello World/ name of your project folder Icon.png required for iPhone/iPod/iPad [email protected] required for iPhone/iPod with Retina display main.lua
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
textObject = display.newText( "Hello World!", 50, 40, native.systemFont, 36 )
textObject:setTextColor( 124,252,0 )
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
--This is number 4
--This is number 5
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Once you have done so, under the Corona Simulator menu bar, select Window | View As | iPhone 4".
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