I spent a little time this weekend doing some experimental work using Cocos2D to work on an iPhone/iPod game and have come to a similar conclusion to the one I did many years ago when I first started using Torque. Basically, I re-affirmed the idea that, “when you need to get work done fast (and easily), stick with a full-featured solution (that you know) and don’t try to make features on your own.” OK, maybe that wasn’t the same conclusion (“you can write an engine or a game, but not both”), but the heart of it is the same. ”Work on the game, not on engine stuff.”
As one would expect, as soon as I switched back to TGB I started to make superior progress. In just a few hours I put together the first ‘mock’ level, player and enemy prototypes, as well as one of three (initial) bots that will be part of the game. As I get further along, I’ll begin to elaborate on the details of the game, but at this time I’m still in the early prototyping and testing phase. I don’t mind sharing, but I also don’t want to say something early that turns out to be totally different later.
Meanwhile, if you’re an iPhone developer using iTGB and if you have any tips you’d like to bestow upon me, please do. I don’t currently own a license, but when I get the TGB version further along I’ll be picking up a license and taking the dev and testing to my Mac + iPod.
- edo out
PS – I should note. Cocos2D was fun to work with, but I realized I needed to focus on bottom-line first (i.e. getting the game done). I haven’t abandoned the idea of doing something with it and I’m studying Objective-C.
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Funny, I came to the same conclusion a few weeks ago. I wasted about 2 weeks of debugging and messing around with Cocos2D. After much frustration, i I bought the iTGB for $750. I’ve been mesmerized by the whole of differences. You definitely get what you paid for, bug free, and fully feature platform. I rarely spend any time figuring out the framework, or debugging… surprisingly most of the scripts just works on iTGB! Extending the C++ wasn’t that hard either.
… Btw.. great sites, great resources you’ve shared. Thank you so much.