So, I'm busy developing games and game ideas on the iPhone and iPad.
At some point I'll post something useful and somewhat detailed on iPhone/iPad development using the Cocos2D game engine and the integrated physics engines Box2D and Chipmunk...
But right now, I'm having too much fun digging into Cocos2D to do anything. I haven't even had time to pay much attention to the iPhone OS4 licensing debate/debacle.
I've been playing around with OpenGL programming on the iPhone for a month or two, getting some crazy wonderful results on a 480x320 screen—and now on the 1024x768 iPad screen, and although it's been fun to work at the OpenGL level—and I enjoy thinking about game engine design, I don't want to write a game engine. I don't want to build event structures and layering and physics and sprite management and background and effects audio and scene transition handling and... (I'll leave the process of continuing this list as an exercise for the reader).
Why, when I can use any of the kick ass game frameworks out there? I'm primarily looking into developing 2D games with book tie-ins—top down and isometric rpg games, scrollers, etc.
Think interactive book trailer. Here's what I'm thinking: wouldn't it be cool to get a sense of the characters and world for a book coming out this summer through a fun, easy-to-get-into adventure on your desktop, notebook, or mobile device? Picture an app with sample chapters (or all of them!), author info, world and character notes, wrapped around a game.
All the naysayers on "Enhanced eBooks" be damned, I say!
Enter Cocos2D for iPhone (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org), a strongly supported, full-featured 2D game engine for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Keep in mind that at this point, even though I've just started, I have a full working game "scene". I'm actually building a game while I'm exploring Cocos2d features--along with some of the features of the physics engine, Box2D.
I've created some background art, a few animated sprites, and spent several hours building a game—screenshots below. I have a main character who can walk or swim around the ocean floor, has a choice of weapons--with sound effects and scheduled reload times, a batch of skeletal bad guys who want to kill this character with terrain and character following behavior, and some sinister music playing in the background. I can drag my animated character around the screen with transitions into swimming, landing, and pulling out a crossbow—weapon of choice for underwater combat. I have a bunch of events set up, including game pausing and interruption handling, display effects, and scene completion—when all the bad guys are out of action, and my character's still standing...or not (see the second screenshot below)
All in a matter of hours. That's how badass Cocos2D is.
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/about
But right now, I'm having too much fun digging into Cocos2D to do anything. I haven't even had time to pay much attention to the iPhone OS4 licensing debate/debacle.
I've been playing around with OpenGL programming on the iPhone for a month or two, getting some crazy wonderful results on a 480x320 screen—and now on the 1024x768 iPad screen, and although it's been fun to work at the OpenGL level—and I enjoy thinking about game engine design, I don't want to write a game engine. I don't want to build event structures and layering and physics and sprite management and background and effects audio and scene transition handling and... (I'll leave the process of continuing this list as an exercise for the reader).
Why, when I can use any of the kick ass game frameworks out there? I'm primarily looking into developing 2D games with book tie-ins—top down and isometric rpg games, scrollers, etc.
Think interactive book trailer. Here's what I'm thinking: wouldn't it be cool to get a sense of the characters and world for a book coming out this summer through a fun, easy-to-get-into adventure on your desktop, notebook, or mobile device? Picture an app with sample chapters (or all of them!), author info, world and character notes, wrapped around a game.
All the naysayers on "Enhanced eBooks" be damned, I say!
Enter Cocos2D for iPhone (http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org), a strongly supported, full-featured 2D game engine for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Keep in mind that at this point, even though I've just started, I have a full working game "scene". I'm actually building a game while I'm exploring Cocos2d features--along with some of the features of the physics engine, Box2D.
I've created some background art, a few animated sprites, and spent several hours building a game—screenshots below. I have a main character who can walk or swim around the ocean floor, has a choice of weapons--with sound effects and scheduled reload times, a batch of skeletal bad guys who want to kill this character with terrain and character following behavior, and some sinister music playing in the background. I can drag my animated character around the screen with transitions into swimming, landing, and pulling out a crossbow—weapon of choice for underwater combat. I have a bunch of events set up, including game pausing and interruption handling, display effects, and scene completion—when all the bad guys are out of action, and my character's still standing...or not (see the second screenshot below)
All in a matter of hours. That's how badass Cocos2D is.
Screenshots of a working piece of a game:
And if the bad guys get you...
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/about
You sir are a jack of all trades...the fact that you can grasp all of this is great...and that you are an eager learner and participant in art in multiple forms...I find it frustrating that often art students don't have the desire to dig in, even if they don't know something to at least see what kind of chaos they can create. Big Kudos to you!
Posted by: Brine Blank | 15 April 2010 at 02:16 PM
Thanks! I definitely like to blur the lines between what I do for a living and what I do with a pen and brush. I've been doing software design and engineering for twenty years, but it's as much a creative exercise as any set of pages for a novel, web comic, illustration. And any chance to bring them _completely_ together is what I live for!
Cheers!
Posted by: Chris Howard | 16 April 2010 at 09:31 AM