I am giving Steffen Itterheim's new book "Learn iPhone and iPad cocos2d Game Development" a try. I can't find it in hardcover, so I bought a digital copy.
I am considering it for teaching a three week course on iOS game programming to HS students - right now, it appears to be the only book on the subject out there. (I am looking forward to Rod Strougo's book, but it isn't due until March.)
So far, the books seems like an authoritative resource, but it starts off a bit slow - there are three chapters of background information before we start writing our first real program in Chapter 4. But that program is a good one, and it might be the place to start - with the understanding that we need to take some things at face value and expect explanations later.
There is an interesting point I've found in this chapter of Itterheim - on page 76, he explains why you shouldn't use actions to move a player's sprite if you are going to be making frame-by-frame adjustments: they won't work. By the time the computer is ready to animate the first step in the action, you are telling to quit that action and start another one. So nothing happens. This makes a lot of sense. However, as a teacher, I wonder: why teach actions first then?
Still, it's a good resource so far. I don't know whether we can get hardcopies in time for the class, which starts Jan. 3, but maybe we can get by with the electronic version.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Uploaded (October 1)
Ooops! This should have been posted on October 1...
It's been a few whirlwind weeks as I put on the final touches - a new "hint" sound effect, a non-proprietary explosion sound for the end, the statistics page, pop-up instructions, fixed graphics on the menu, an updated instructions screen. But last Saturday, I deemed version 1.0 complete.
And that's when frustration really started to kick in. Every step in Apple's App Store submission process is (presumably) reasonable, but it takes a lot of time and internet searching to work through it all.
My first problem was my own fault- when I originally set up my developer account, I used my work address, because I was just planning to teach the program in class. For a personal project (for pay), however, I needed the legal address to be my own. This took an email to request the change. 48 hours later, I got a response requiring me to fax my driver's license in to prove I was who I said I was. (As I said, it's all reasonable; I'm glad they did.) Then it took another 48 hours for that change to go through.
So today I approved the Apple contract, set up my business officers (all of them are just as good looking as the chief programmer), told them where to send the money, and gave them my tax info.
After that, I went to another section of the site to register my application for the App Store. This required setting a price, a description, screenshots, etc. All stuff I was expecting.
So then they told me to "upload your binary." Right. Where is this binary?!.
I remembered that I hadn't yet built the program as a "release" product - just as a "debug" product. So, I switched it over and hit build and run. And all the old settings bugs I'd had to hunt down months ago had to be done again. Ok. Still can't find the binary file.
I hunt around online. After many false leads with people on the Internet telling me to edit the internal files of my project with a text editor - a bad idea, IMHO- I found instructions to "build and archive." Great! But where's the binary file?
A little more poking around, and I discovered online that the build and archive command sends its result to the Organizer window, where there is also a "send to app store" button. After a few false starts where I realized that I had the program set for both iPod and iPad, I got it set to go. (My app is just for the iPad, at least for now.) But when I tried to send it in, I got a message saying that my provisioning profile didn't match up.
So I sent quite a while looking for what that meant. Finally, I found (in yet another part of Apple's website), a page that indicated that I needed a different profile to submit the apps than the one I was using to test them. A little more trial and error, and I got it to upload!
So now my little app is officially uploaded and "waiting for review." There's nothing to do for it now but to wait... In hindsight, there was a lot of this I could have done earlier; I didn't have to wait to finish my program to get started. Still, I am flush with the glow of victory!
But I still don't know where that binary file is.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
It's been a few whirlwind weeks as I put on the final touches - a new "hint" sound effect, a non-proprietary explosion sound for the end, the statistics page, pop-up instructions, fixed graphics on the menu, an updated instructions screen. But last Saturday, I deemed version 1.0 complete.
And that's when frustration really started to kick in. Every step in Apple's App Store submission process is (presumably) reasonable, but it takes a lot of time and internet searching to work through it all.
My first problem was my own fault- when I originally set up my developer account, I used my work address, because I was just planning to teach the program in class. For a personal project (for pay), however, I needed the legal address to be my own. This took an email to request the change. 48 hours later, I got a response requiring me to fax my driver's license in to prove I was who I said I was. (As I said, it's all reasonable; I'm glad they did.) Then it took another 48 hours for that change to go through.
So today I approved the Apple contract, set up my business officers (all of them are just as good looking as the chief programmer), told them where to send the money, and gave them my tax info.
After that, I went to another section of the site to register my application for the App Store. This required setting a price, a description, screenshots, etc. All stuff I was expecting.
So then they told me to "upload your binary." Right. Where is this binary?!.
I remembered that I hadn't yet built the program as a "release" product - just as a "debug" product. So, I switched it over and hit build and run. And all the old settings bugs I'd had to hunt down months ago had to be done again. Ok. Still can't find the binary file.
I hunt around online. After many false leads with people on the Internet telling me to edit the internal files of my project with a text editor - a bad idea, IMHO- I found instructions to "build and archive." Great! But where's the binary file?
A little more poking around, and I discovered online that the build and archive command sends its result to the Organizer window, where there is also a "send to app store" button. After a few false starts where I realized that I had the program set for both iPod and iPad, I got it set to go. (My app is just for the iPad, at least for now.) But when I tried to send it in, I got a message saying that my provisioning profile didn't match up.
So I sent quite a while looking for what that meant. Finally, I found (in yet another part of Apple's website), a page that indicated that I needed a different profile to submit the apps than the one I was using to test them. A little more trial and error, and I got it to upload!
So now my little app is officially uploaded and "waiting for review." There's nothing to do for it now but to wait... In hindsight, there was a lot of this I could have done earlier; I didn't have to wait to finish my program to get started. Still, I am flush with the glow of victory!
But I still don't know where that binary file is.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Starting cocos2d
I had a terrific time at the #VTM_iPhone (Voices That Matter) conference in October - one of the best things I got from it (besides great contacts) was a chance to see cocos2d in action. I'd heard of cocos2d, of course, but I hadn't connected with it yet. It looks like exactly what I need.
For what, you ask? Well, I have two needs: 1) I want to write my next game, and I'd like to work in the 2d world this time, instead of fighting with OpenGL. And 2) I've got a 13-day class on writing iPhone games (two 70 minute periods a day) that I am teaching in January. To programming neophytes, and a couple of experienced kids. Actually, I am co-teaching it with one of my older students.
So I need something with a quick entry point and lots of flexibility. Cocos2d looks to be just that. We can get stuff up on the screen and moving on the first day, and perhaps interacting by that afternoon! And with hooks for animations, sprite sheets and tile maps, we can focus on ideas of game design, rather than some of the mechanics of writing all that code.
The one weak point, as I see it, at the moment is documentation. There's some, and it's growing, but at the moment, it is still a bit lean.
Here are some resources I've found:
Still, I'm looking forward to trying Cocos2d and will share what I learn here.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
For what, you ask? Well, I have two needs: 1) I want to write my next game, and I'd like to work in the 2d world this time, instead of fighting with OpenGL. And 2) I've got a 13-day class on writing iPhone games (two 70 minute periods a day) that I am teaching in January. To programming neophytes, and a couple of experienced kids. Actually, I am co-teaching it with one of my older students.
So I need something with a quick entry point and lots of flexibility. Cocos2d looks to be just that. We can get stuff up on the screen and moving on the first day, and perhaps interacting by that afternoon! And with hooks for animations, sprite sheets and tile maps, we can focus on ideas of game design, rather than some of the mechanics of writing all that code.
The one weak point, as I see it, at the moment is documentation. There's some, and it's growing, but at the moment, it is still a bit lean.
Here are some resources I've found:
- The official Programming Guide at Cocos2d-iphone.org.
- Ray Wenderlich's excellent blog, which includes some good cocos2d resources.
- Here are two books:
- This book by Steffen Itterheim, which has scary fruit on the front, looks promising - it comes out in a month.
- This book by Rod Strougo, the presenter at VTM, also looks terrific. Sadly, it does not come out until March, which is a couple of months after my class ends.
Still, I'm looking forward to trying Cocos2d and will share what I learn here.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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