Cocos2d-x for wp8 v2.0 preview

Added by Zhe Wang about 1 month ago (38 comments)

Today we released the v2.0 version of Cocos2d-x for Windows Phone 8. Note that it is the first version for wp8 which has v2.x API set migrated. We would like to thank Microsoft and Nokia for their support.

Download link: Cocos2dx-2.1.0-wp8-2.0-alpha.zip
Github repo: https://github.com/cocos2d-x/cocos2dx-win8/tree/wp8_v2

This branch of Cocos2d-x uses Direct X 11 for rendering while still uses C++ to program, with the same API as Cocos2d-x v2.1.

There are already many games in the pipeline and scheduled to be available soon in Windows Phone Store, using Cocos2d-x WP8 2.0.

We look forward to hearing feedback from developers, and for those at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, come and visit us at booth 412.


Join in our Cocos2d Events during GDC

Added by Zhe Wang about 1 month ago (2 comments)

Cocos2d-x Booth in GDC Expo

Location: GDC Expo, Moscone Center, San Francisco
Booth Number: 412
Dates: March 27 ~ 29, (GMT-8)

We're in GDC San Francisco during this week, and sharing a booth with CocoaChina.
Welcome to our booth, chat about the framework and games with Minggo and me.

Link: http://meetings.gdconf.com/index.php?page=cat_par&params%5Bid%5D=484

Cocos2d-x GDC Happy Hour

Location: Roe Restaurant, 651 Howard Street, San Francisco
Time: 7:00pm ~ 9:00pm on March 28 (GMT-8)
Charge: Free

There will be an OPEN bar and appetizers as guests learn more about Cocos2d-x, and hang out with CocoaChina's US team and partners. Most of cocos2d core developers will be there, including Ricardo Quesada, Rolando Abarca, Walzer and Minggo.

Link: http://cocoachina-cocos2d-x.eventbrite.com/

Ricardo Quesada will have a speak on GDC

Title: Rapid Development of High Performance Games for Mobile and Web
Speaker: Ricardo Quesada
Location: Room 2004, West Hall of Moscone Center, San Francisco
Time: 11:30 am - 12:30 pm on March 29 (GMT-8)
Charge: You need a GDC pass.

Riq will talk about cocos2d js, including the javascript binding, CocosBuilder, and how to develop a cross-platform game on both mobile and web rapidly, which can achieves a performance 10 TIMES FASTER than other JS engines/JS accelerators.

Link: http://schedule2013.gdconf.com/session-id/822458


Cocos2d-x runtime for Spine

Added by Nathan Sweet about 1 month ago (8 comments)

The Cocos2d-x runtime for Spine is now available! Grab the code here, which includes an example:

http://github.com/EsotericSoftware/spine-runtimes/tree/master/spine-cocos2dx/

Spine is a 2D skeletal animation tool designed specifically for games. Read more about it here:

http://esotericsoftware.com/


Cocos2d 3rd coordinated release

Added by Minggo Zhang 2 months ago (9 comments)

We are happy to announce the third coordinated release of the cocos2d family. We are releasing:

  • CocosBuilder v3.0-alpha2
  • Cocos2d-html5 v2.1.2 beta
  • Cocos2d-iPhone v2.1-rc1
  • Cocos2d-x v2.1rc0-x-2.1.2

Our goal is to provide a complete toolchain for developing multi-platform games both for Web and Mobile, all the way from rapid prototyping to a finished high performing game.

CocosBuilder

This is the third release of CocosBuilder 3 alpha. When updating please make sure to also update to the latest version of CCBReader and CocosPlayer. You will be able to open old ccb-files with the new version, but it may not be backwards compatible. Please make a backup of all your project files before updating as CocosBuilder is still in alpha state.

Download

Highlights

  • Improved default project structure
  • Adds support for sound playback directly from the timeline
  • Adds support for callbacks from the timeline
  • Improved support for Cocos2d JS
  • Skew properties can now be animated (not supported in cocos2d-html5)
  • Plenty of bug fixes

More information

Read more about all the new features at cocosbuilder.com

Cocos2d-html5

Download

Highlights

  • WebGL support! Great performance boost on modern browsers
  • cc.Loader now supports multiple stage preloading - all tests now preload by multi resource groups
  • cc.Node now uses transform matrix - better performance
  • Added Accelerometer support
  • Added support for MP4 and M4a Audio format
  • Designer resolution for multi resolution support
  • Faster cc.ParticleSystem, thanks to Ivo Wetzel
  • Bug fixes in audio support, file utility, Google Closure compiler, LocalStorage, cc.MenuItemImage, cc.MenuItemToggle, actions and UIWebView compatibility

More information

Read more about all the new features at cocos2d-html5 release notes.

cocos2d-iphone

Download

Highlights

  • OpenGL bindings for JavaScript (compatible with the WebGL API)
  • New drawing primitives functions ccDrawSolidCircle, ccDrawArc, ccDrawSolidArc
  • Bug fixes in different components: CCClippingNode, CCDirector, CCGLProgram, CCTexture2D, CCRenderTexture, CCEaseBound*, CCEaseExp*
  • Updated 3rd party libraries: Chipmunk 6.1.4, SpiderMonkey 19.0, JS Bindings 0.6,

More information

Read more about all the new features at cocos2d-iphone v2.1 release notes.

cocos2d-x

Download

Highlights

  • Initial support for Chrome native client support. Document
  • New tool to create multi-platform projects ( tools/project-creator/ ).
  • Eclipse integration for Android. Information here.
  • Added webp image format support.
  • Add AssetsManager to do auto upgrading. More info here
  • Add VS2012 Express template installing support.
  • Update SpiderMonkey to Firefox19.
  • Improved Lua bindings and test cases
  • Synchronize with cocos2d-iphone v2.1rc0.

More information

Read more about all the new features at cocos2d-x-v2.1rc0-2.1.2 release notes.

Improved tests

cocos2d tests

  • Started test automation: 62 automated tests
  • Added OpenGL/WebGL tests

How to run the games and tests

For further information regarding how to run the tests, please visit this page: cocos2d JS tests

Thanks

Many thanks to all the developers, contributors and testers from the cocos2d (html5, iphone and x) and CocosBuilder communities!


Cocos2d-x powered Realtime MOBA Game

Added by Zhe Wang 2 months ago (3 comments)

Maybe you have read the online cocos2d-x book written by Nat Weiss on Paralaxer.com. Recently Nat has been helping to author a cocos2d-x powered realtime multiplayer online battle arena game called Awesome Heroes Arena.

Many developers are asking bone animation and realtime network questions on the forum, Nat's MOBA game has both of them. I'm very curious about its technical details, so I take a remote interview to Mr. Weiss. I'm permitted to share the conversation here.

Zhe: I watched the trail, the control style looks like Battle Heart, is it?
Nat: Controls are more like a standard MOBA, for example Heroes of Order and Chaos. The difference is that we have thrown in some extra user-friendly touch controls, like swiping to continuously move and triple-tapping to map ping.

Zhe: Which tool did you use for bone animations? Which version of CocosBuilder did you use?
Nat: We started the project about a year ago and bone animation was our first task. We wrote a system which converts a 3D Blender-exported Collada document to our own 2D custom animation XML. The new tools that are coming out for bone animation look great and if they had been out last year, we would probably be using them.

Zhe: Could you share your server side resolution? I guess it's based on other open source project.
Nat: Yes, our server side based on RakNet. It's entirely UDP with a reliability layer that resends a packet if unacknowledged. Developing the game peer to peer has really lightened the load on our servers and ensures players have the lowest ping times possible.

Zhe: Have you used javascript binding or lua binding in your game?
Nat: Both server side and client side are written in pure C++. This is a really awesome thing for us programmers to not have to switch languages when going from client-side to server-side development. There's so much back and forth that having the same language really just feels right. Plus, it makes encoding and decoding packets work exactly the same on client or server. On the other hand, we're going to need that speed on mobile phones. Even though our game is entirely 2d, we have so many sprites on screen and so much zooming going on that we sometimes dip below 30 FPS on iPad 1st gen. Once we start to optimize that will improve.

Zhe: Are you distributing this game synchronously on both iOS and Android?
Nat: We like to keep it simple, so it's iPad first and verify it all works right. Then we deploy to iPhone as well and make sure that works. Next is Android and we might eventually go to desktops via Steam as well.

Zhe: Could you describe your development team? AFAIK, MOBA games usually need a large team.
Nat: We're actually a two-man development team. Kristopher Horton and I are childhood friends, so we communicate well and understand each other by instinct. It's really been a necessary component of our development, as we've gone back and forth with a plethora of emails concerning the game's details. Kristopher has primarily been doing the artwork and design. He just picked up his first digital drawing tablet last year, so it's amazing to see his art flourish so much. I've been the primary programmer and music guy. We're both pretty frugal and it's going to be a free-to-play game, so all of our work has been in-house. The only thing we might hire out is some PR for when we launch.

Zhe: So have this game launched?
Nat: The game is now holding a private beta testing period. If you are interested in playing, please fill out this quick beta questionnaire

Zhe: As I can see, your cocos2d-x book was planned with 15 chapters, and so far you've written 9 chapters. When will it finished?
Nat: I will be sharing tips on how to make a realtime multiplayer cocos2d-x game via a special chapter. Please turn your tunes on.

Zhe: Sure, looking for your game and chapter :) Thanks for you time.
Nat: Thank you.


The 1st Cocos2d-x book in Korean

Added by Zhe Wang 3 months ago (5 comments)

Jaehwan Lee just published the 1st cocos2d-x book in Korea.

Store link: http://www.yes24.com/24/goods/8464388?scode=029
Forum link: http://www.cocos2d-x.org/boards/23/topics/23680

As far as I know, another Korean book is being written, it will be published sooner or later http://www.greenithrd.co.kr/curriculum/weekend_15.asp?Codes=B13&NVKWD=Cocos2d-x&NVADKWD=COCOS2D-X&NVAR=PL&NVADID=765202977+0wS1001XcN1fiRS_008I


Ecosystem Integration: Amazon GameCircle and GREE SDK

Added by Zhe Wang 3 months ago

Amazon released their GameCircle as a cocos2d-x extension:
https://developer.amazon.com/sdk/gamecircle/documentation/cocos-gamecircle-overview.html

GREE posted a step-by-step tutorial on how to integrate their platform SDK in cocos2d-x game for Android:
http://labs.gree.jp/blog/2012/12/6846/


Spine Kickstarter almost over

Added by Nathan Sweet 3 months ago (12 comments)

Spine is a 2D skeletal animation tool specifically for games and now their Kickstarter is nearly over. This is the last chance to get a discounted license! Spine will be supporting cocos2d-x and there is already an official generic C++ runtime on github, though still in its early stages.


Hot fix of an issue in lua binding

Added by Minggo Zhang 3 months ago (3 comments)

  • Problem
    The declaration of CCPoint, CCSize and CCRect in CCGeometry.pkg is different from the type defined in CCGeometry.h
  • How to resolve it
    I have sent a PR to resolve this issue.
    You can use new version of scripting/lua/cocos2dx_support/LuaCocos2d.cpp to resolve the issue.

Accelerate your Cocos2d-x game development with Quick!

Added by Tim Closs 3 months ago (6 comments)

Marmalade have developed a brand new way of using Lua with Cocos2d-x, to great a Rapid App Development solution for 2D games and apps.

It’s called ‘Quick’ and comes in two flavours:

1) OpenQuick: https://github.com/marmalade/OpenQuick

(Open source under the MIT licence)

OpenQuick provides super-high-level Lua APIs, on top of Cocos2d-x, Box2D, sqlite3 and other open source components, to provide a RAD programming environment for 2D games and apps. Sprites, labels, vector shapes, animation, physics, audio, scenes and transitions, files and databases and more are already supported. Particles, tilemaps and other stuff will come soon.

For example, you can create a sprite in one line of code:

1local s = director:createSprite(0, 0, "textures/mySprite.png")

You can then animate it across the screen with one line of code:

1tween:to(s, { time=2, x=director.displayWidth } )

You can turn the sprite into a Box2D body with one line of code:

1physics:addNode(s)

You can easily add a touch event handler to change the sprite colour:

 1function s:touch(event)
 2    if (event.phase == "began") then
 3        local r = math.random(0, 255)
 4        local g = math.random(0, 255)
 5        local b = math.random(0, 255)
 6        self:setColor(r, g, b)
 7    end
 8end
 9s:addEventListener("touch", s)

OpenQuick can be installed alongside an existing Cocos2d-x installation, and needs nothing more to get going. OpenQuick supports any platform already supported by Cocos2d-x using OpenGL ES 2.0. The project already includes a Visual Studio solution, and demo “Hello World” file, allowing you to get going right away.

Because OpenQuick is open source, developers can extend and modify it at will. And because it’s based on Cocos2d-x and Box2D, if you lift the lid you’ll find familiar code that should be easy to get your head around. The Lua bindings are created using the excellent tolua++ module.

2) Marmalade Quick: http://www.madewithmarmalade.com/quick

(Open source under the MIT licence)

Marmalade Quick builds upon OpenQuick by adding new APIs and all the value of Marmalade’s unique cross-platform tools. Additional APIs in Marmalade Quick include:
  • Browser (launch at URL)
  • Compass
  • Cross-platform In-App Purchase API
  • Facebook
  • Location
  • Native text input
  • Networking (sockets, FTP, HTTP and more)
  • Video

Marmalade Quick supports all Marmalade platforms including iOS, Android, BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone 8, Windows and Mac desktops, and smart TVs. You can develop entirely on Windows (even to target iOS), or entirely on Mac.

Marmalade Quick provides a great desktop Simulator, and features full integration with the awesome ZeroBrane Studio IDE (which is also free and open source), as described here:
http://notebook.kulchenko.com/zerobrane/marmalade-quick-debugging-with-zerobrane-studio

Marmalade Quick is free with any Marmalade licence, including our evaluation licence. So what are you waiting for? Download Marmalade SDK and Marmalade Quick today!


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