Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide Review
We gave you a short preview of this upcoming review, and now, we're ready for the full review of Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide!
If you may not know, Cocos2d is a highly looked upon iOS/Mac game development framework. In fact, I used it to develop my first game on iOS. It's extremely easy to use and so integrated with the Objective C structure, that most of the time, you'll forget you're even using it!
Cocos2d is powerful, lightweight, and extremely affordable with its open source price tag! Anyone can pick this baby up and install it on their computer. But if you want to learn how to use it, you can either view the online documentation and sample source code, or you can pick up a book like Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide to help you out.
Once I saw Packt publicly announce this title, which I was tracking before they even released it, I was thrilled to have Packt send me over a review copy! I won't go into too many details about it now, but Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide is a decent Cocos2d book. The book is extremely easy if you know Objective C and you're wanting to learn Cocos2d. Let's get into that full review!
My Background with Cocos2d
Around a year ago, I switched to the Mac for iOS development. At that time, I had no experience what so ever with Objective C. I had to learn Objective C and Cocos2d all at the same time to make the game I wanted. This was very difficult for me and I never completely grasped everything on Objective C. Actually, I just purchased the #1 book on Objective C, so by no means can I call myself an expert.
But in other means, I know my way around with Cocos2d. I've used it enough to really know how it works and how it helps the developer create a game faster. So this review isn't coming from a completely inexperienced person at Objective C but yet one with a good portion of talent.
What's Covered
As previously stated before, Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide covers a good chunk of the Cocos2d framework. There's not one major feature forgotten in this book and they did a great job at putting it all in here. Let's see what Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide talks about.
- Getting started with Cocos2d
- Explaining Cocos2d by example
- Debugging Cocos2d applications
- Using and interacting with sprites
- Using actions/animations
- Creating labels
- Using and switching between scenes
- Creating a menu design to navigate through your game
- Implementing some cool particle effects
- Using tilemaps to speed up your game
- Making your game sound fancy with sounds
- Implementing a physics engine for some real world interactions
- Integrating OpenFeint - this one I was never expecting, but is very handy
- Pop quizzes to test yourself
I'm not sure about you, but that's a load of information on game development with Cocos2d! They're practically using every feature of Cocos2d in Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide!
What I Loved
When I first picked up and started reading Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide, I already realized this was a awesome book for the amount of content in it. The included source code to go along with the book is a big plus and all of the example games you'll be making really helps a lot. With all of these examples, you can easily take these same features used in these example games and implement them in your own games.
A good thing to mention would be that Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide really does a great job with its structure. It's not meant for beginner Objective C programmers, but it does start off fairly quickly with your first project. Whether you like it or not, I think it's a great way to get a already knowledgable developer to get a first hand look on what they will actually be working with. That's one big strong point of the book; they don't rush you, but it is at the pace of an advanced developer.
One of the biggest things I had when I first learned Cocos2d is how in the world to install the templates. At the time, it took me a while to realize I had to run some scripts manually from the terminal. Having Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide tell you on how to install the included templates helps so much for beginning users. I wonder why there isn't an app for that (yup, I just made an iOS reference) to install the templates.
What I Disliked
Unfortunately, there are more things I dislike than like. One of the biggest concerns I have is all of the typos, errors, and invalid code using in the book and even in the included source code. In all honestly, this shouldn't of happened! It doesn't seem that the code was fully looked over during the reviewing period. I would love to see, even though it might be of some inconvience to Packt Publishing, for all users who have a physical copy to receive a fully-corrected physical book. There are way too many errors in Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide that even 'beginning' Objective C developers, like myself, can catch. Because it is geared to programmers who are already familiar with Objective C, they should be able to catch the errors easily, but having them in the first place doesn't help.
The other biggest thing I have to point out is some of the grammar in the book is rather... off. Some things seem like they shouldn't be there and sometimes, I end up having to read the page again to get what the author was trying to tell me. This would mainly be for the fact that the grammar feels a tad bit rushed if anything.
Don't get me wrong, the content covered in Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide is truly amazing, but in all honestly, it could of been much better. I know writing can feel rushed at times, but you shouldn't rush it so much that the sample code including with the book doesn't compile and with having grammatical mistakes everywhere.
Let's Cut to the Chase
Sadly enough, I can't say I fully love Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide like some other Packt Publishing books I've read. I loved Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide, I really did, but it really seems that it was edited rather poorly. Some of the grammar seems a tad whacky and there are many typos and problems in the code. If you want to see more on that, just look at the post on Cocos2d's blog.
Some of the pages you may read and an experienced Objective C programmer will be puzzled with how things are done. You can randomly find some code changed there, some images missed there, and so many other things to puzzle new iOS developers. When I downloaded the sample code, I had problems getting it to compile. Not good... not good at all. I understand they wanted to rush this to get it out before the holiday season, but seriously, there are too many errors to name.
But how about we set those things aside. Other than that, this book is amazing! At the end of each chapter, the author gives you some type of self-check for you to test your knowledge. I really like that; it helps me a lot to make sure I know my stuff.
I cannot say that it's not informative. I found that Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide is extremely helpful when it comes to the amount of information it covers (which we'll say soon). There's not one thing I cannot think of which a game developer wouldn't find in the book. It covers everything of Cocos2d; I have to give it credit for fitting all of this in 368 pages. From particle engines to a physics engine, you'll be learning everything you need to make the game of your dreams.
I enjoyed reading Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide very much so, but with having the source code not being able to compile was a huge drawback. For people like me, having that source code is critical to understand a new concept. Having it not working is just too much.
All in all, Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide was a great book but with some issues that could of been easily prevented. It seems that the author was rushing to get it out before the holiday season, which I cannot blame him, but I wish I could just compile this code to take a look at the games in action!
If you want to check out Cocos2d for iPhone 0.99 Beginner's Guide, look at the below link!
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