News: Cocos2D Game Engine v1.0.0 Released
As you may have noticed if you have been reading this site for awhile, I occasionally mention product updates. This one is pretty significant as after numerous release candidates the incredibly successful open source Cocos2D iPhone game engine has finally released v1.0.0.
There are an incredible amount of feature updates since the previous official release of Cocos2D. This update from the last release candidate itself even adds support for non-power of two PVR textures.
Open Source: 2D Isometric Action RPG Game Built With Cocos2D
Cocos2D has many features for those looking to develop isometric games. Handling of z-ordering, and tile maps are all built into the engine.
I’ve found an excellent open source game example known as KnightFight from Loz Archer of an isometric 2D tile based action rpg using Cocos2D. The game features a player controlled character that you move around the map, collisions between the player and map objects, simple computer controlled enemies, and basic player improvement through leveling.
Tool: Easily Gather Sprite Data For Box2D And Generate Cocos2D Code
Found out about a pretty cool tool for those looking to develop games using Box2D (especially if you’re using Cocos2D — but really good for anyone using Box2D) called SpriteHelper. It is a notch above the other tools I’ve seen doing similar.
Handling Z-Ordering In Cocos2D Map Based Games
If you’ve used Cocos2D for awhile you may have had some difficult when trying to handle the display order of images.
Things get even more complicated if you are creating an isometric game. The player character may need to be placed behind an obstacle such as a rock or a tree. In v0.99.1 automatic z-ordering for tile maps was implemented, and the problem was somewhat solved, but some problems still exist and there is some tweaking to be done.
iPhone Game Physics Tutorial: Radial Gravity
Physics can be a great way to enhance your game.
The problem is that implementing physics in your game can be extremely challenging, but I found a couple of great examples showing how to enhance an iPhone or iPad game using radial gravity with Box2D.
The examples are from Nick Vellios, and as you can see in the example above they show how to implement radial gravity on an object so that other objects are drawn towards it (much like how planets are drawn to the sun).