Cocos2d Explained

Cocos2d-x
Author:Zhe Wang
Developer:Chukong Technologies
Released:[1]
Programming Language:C++
Platform:Cross-platform
License:MIT License
Cocos2D-ObjC
Author:Ricardo Quesada
Developer:Andrei Volodin and Lars Birkemose
Latest Release Version:3.5.0[2]
Programming Language:Objective-C
Platform:Cross-platform
License:MIT License
Cocos2d
Author:Ricardo Quesada, Lucio Torre
Latest Release Version:0.6.10[3] [4]
Programming Language:Python
Platform:Cross-platform
License:3-clause BSD

Cocos2d is an open-source game development framework for creating 2D games and other graphical software for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, HarmonyOS, OpenHarmony and web platforms. It is written in C++ and provides bindings for various programming languages, including C++, C#, Lua, and JavaScript. The framework offers a wide range of features, including physics, particle systems, skeletal animations, tile maps, and others.

Cocos2d was first released in 2008, and was originally written in Python. It contains many branches with the best known being Cocos2d-ObjC (formerly known as Cocos2d-iPhone), Cocos2d-x, Cocos2d-JS and Cocos2d-XNA. There are also many third-party tools, editors and libraries made by the Cocos2d community, such as particle editors, spritesheet editors, font editors, and level editors, like SpriteBuilder and CocoStudio.

Sprites and scenes

All versions of Cocos2d work using the basic primitive known as a sprite. A sprite can be thought of as a simple 2D image, but can also be a container for other sprites. In Cocos2D, sprites are arranged together to form a scene, like a game level or a menu. Sprites can be manipulated in code based on events or actions or as part of animations. The sprites can be moved, rotated, scaled, have their image changed, etc.

Features

Animation

Cocos2D provides basic animation primitives that can work on sprites using a set of actions and timers. They can be chained and composed together to form more complex animations. Most Cocos2D implementations let you manipulate the size, scale, position, and other effects of the sprite. Some versions of Cocos2D let you also animate particle effects, image filtering effects via shaders (warp, ripple, etc.).

GUI

Cocos2D provides primitives to represent common GUI elements in game scenes. This includes things like text boxes, labels, menus, buttons, and other common elements.

Physics system

Many Cocos2D implementations come with support for common 2D physics engines like Box2D and Chipmunk.

Audio

Various versions of Cocos2D have audio libraries that wrap OpenAL or other libraries to provide full audio capabilities. Features are dependent on the implementation of Cocos2D.

Scripting support

Support binding to JavaScript, Lua, and other engines exist for Cocos2D. For example, Cocos2d JavaScript Binding (JSB) for C/C++/Objective-C is the wrapper code that sits between native code and JavaScript code using Mozilla's SpiderMonkey. With JSB, you can accelerate your development process by writing your game using easy and flexible JavaScript.

Editor support

End of life support

Current support

Supported platforms and languages

Branch Target Platform API Language
Cocos2d Windows, OS X, Linux Python 2.6, 2.7 or 3.3+, Objective-C
Cocos2d-x iOS, Android, Tizen, Windows, Windows Phone 8, Linux, Mac OS X C++, Lua, JavaScript
Cocos2d-ObjC iOS, Mac OS X, tvOSObjective-C, Swift
Cocos2d-html5 HTML5-ready browsers JavaScript
Cocos2d-xna Windows Phone 7 & 8, Windows 7 & 8, Xbox 360 C#
Cocos Creator Android, iOS, HarmonyOS C#, C++, TypeScript, JavaScript

History

Cocos2d (Python)

February 2008, in the village of Los Cocos, near Córdoba, Argentina, Ricardo Quesada, a game developer, and Lucio Torre created a 2D game engine for Python with several of their developer friends. They named it "Los Cocos" after its birthplace. A month later, the group released the version 0.1 and changed its name to "Cocos2d".[19]

Cocos2d-iPhone

Attracted by the potential of the new Apple App Store for the iPhone, Quesada rewrote Cocos2d in Objective-C and in June 2008 released "Cocos2d for iPhone" v0.1, the predecessor of the later Cocos2d family.

Cocos2D-ObjC (formerly known as Cocos2D-iPhone and Cocos2D-SpriteBuilder), is maintained by Lars Birkemose.

Also, the English designer Michael Heald designed a new logo for Cocos2d (the Cocos2d logo was previously a running coconut).

Cocos2d-x

November 2010, a developer from China named Zhe Wang branched Cocos2d-x based on Cocos2d. Cocos2d-x is also a free engine under MIT License, and it allows for compiling and running on multiple platforms with one code base.

In 2013, Quesada left cocos2d-iPhone and joined in cocos2d-x team. In March 2017, Quesada was laid off from the Chukong company.[20] In 2015, there are 4 cocos2d branches being actively maintained.

Cocos2d-x & Cocos2d-html5 is maintained and sponsored by developers at Chukong Technologies. Chukong is also developing CocoStudio, which is a WYSIWYG editor for Cocos2d-x and Cocos2D-html5, and a free Cocos3d-x fork of the Cocos3D project.

Other ports, forks, and bindings

Cocos2d has been ported into various programming languages and to all kinds of platforms. Among them there are:

Games developed with cocos2d

See also

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Happy 7th Birthday Cocos2d-x! . December 2017 . December 17, 2017.
  2. Web site: Releases . cocos2d/cocos2d-objc . GitHub.
  3. Web site: Release history .
  4. Web site: cocos2d . 2024-05-10 . 2024-01-15 . https://web.archive.org/web/20240115194612/https://los-cocos.github.io/cocos-site/.
  5. Web site: CocosBuilder. GitHub. 9 November 2021.
  6. Web site: SpriteBuilder. GitHub. 8 November 2021.
  7. Web site: Sprite Builder. 1 December 2018. spritebuilder.com. 10 April 2024.
  8. Web site: [Update] SpriteBuilder 1.5.0 vs Cocos2D v3.4.9 - Cocos2D-SpriteBuilder Forum . 2016-12-22 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161222145908/http://forum.spritebuilder.com/t/update-spritebuilder-1-5-0-vs-cocos2d-v3-4-9/18272 . 2016-12-22 . dead .
  9. Web site: Cocos Studio | Cocos2d-x . 2016-12-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170717132934/http://www.cocos2d-x.org/wiki/Cocos_Studio . 2017-07-17 . dead .
  10. Web site: Where i can download Сocos studio?. 19 July 2016.
  11. Web site: Is EDITOR of cocos creator open source?. 7 February 2017.
  12. Web site: Fireball-x/Fireball on GitHub. 28 January 2015 .
  13. Web site: C++ and Lua support for creator alpha0 released. 11 April 2017.
  14. Web site: SpriteBuilderX - editor for Cocos2d-X with C++ support. 6 February 2017.
  15. Web site:
    1. x-studio, a game development tool based on Cocos2d-x
    . 19 March 2017.
  16. Web site: X-studio IDE、代码编辑器、Lua调试器、UI编辑器 .
  17. https://www.x-studio.net X-Studio website
  18. Web site: CCProjectGenerator. GitHub. 9 November 2020.
  19. Web site: Quesada . Ricardo . 2017-04-16 . The history of Cocos2d in a glimpse . RETRO.MOE . 2019-07-03 . mdy.
  20. Web site: Survey: The reasons why I won't use Cocos Creator. 9 August 2017.
  21. Web site: Baker . Liana B. . Zynga buys iPhone game engine development team . . 14 April 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110513122020/http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/09/ctech-us-zynga-idCATRE7484QV20110509 . 13 May 2011 . 9 May 2011 . Zynga said it would not be acquiring cocos2d, which is a free game engine that developers use to make games for Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPad and iPod touch. Zynga's Chief Technology Officer, Cadir Lee, said in an interview that Zynga already uses the game engine in its FarmVille game on the iPhone. Having the developers, who were key in developing the free platform, will help Zynga master the technology, Lee said. . live.
  22. Web site: All done in COCOS2D …. Reddit.com. November 19, 2013. 2024-08-18.
  23. Web site: Takaki . Hiroshige . Cocos2d-xチューニング、マルチデバイス対応…任天堂エンジニアに聞いた「Miitomo」開発の裏側 . CodeIQ MAGAZINE . . 14 April 2021 . Japanese . 13 July 2016 . 15 April 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210415105357/https://news.goo.ne.jp/article/codeiq/trend/codeiq-52755.html . dead .
  24. Web site: Vuorinen . Johannes . Badland (video game) . BADLAND – a cocos2d-iphone game . Cocos2D . 8 June 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140210010214/http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/badland-a-cocos2d-iphone-game/ . 10 February 2014 . 27 April 2013 . dead.
  25. Web site: The Biggest Korean Games Using The Cocos Engine. 22 April 2020.
  26. Web site: The Best Companies In America Build Mobile Games With Cocos. 30 June 2020.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cocos2d".

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