cocos2d for iPhone

A fast, easy to use, free, and community supported 2D game engine

1. 

   mickeyl
   Member

   Hi guys,

   I decided to give Cocos2d a try for our new platform jump game and what I see so far I like it a lot. But: Ideally I'd like to use sprite actions (like JumpBy) for the main character, however I stumbled over the problem that I don't seem to have enough control over an action once it has been issued.

   Lets assume we have a couple of platforms and a main character. The main character jumps on the platforms, two problems here:

   1.) I need to manually check in a step-function whether the jumping is in the rising phase or falling phase, since collissions with the platforms only make sense in the falling phase.

   2.) When the character has reached y/2 of the screen, the movement needs to stop and instead the force factor needs to be applied to the virtual camera, hence the platforms need to move instead to give the illusion of a scrolling playfield.

   Both seems to indicate that I rather want to control all the positions myself rather than to rely on the actions, or am I missing something?

   If i am to control all movements myself, will this have a performance impact?

   Best regards,

   Mickey.

   Posted 2 years ago #
2. 

   exorcyze
   Member

   I'm working on a platform game using cocos2d and I have a "step" method that is essentially my main game loop. The movement / jumping of the main character is done in here and it seems to work fine for me. =)

   I'm using Tiled for editing the maps, and have an invisible layer that indicates the tile types ( non-walkable, can walk on but jump through, etc ). Maps 200+ tiles long, couple dozen enemies with variable actions, projectiles, and consumables / pickups and it's going fine.

   If you have more questions about specific approaches just ask. =)

   Posted 2 years ago #
3. 

   mickeyl
   Member

   Thanks, I have since then understood more about the various possibilities. I could solve both problems 1) and 2) if I would just not use the actions, but rather compute all positions on my own and update the layers and sprites accordingly. However, I'd really love to use all the features the framework already provides, hence I'm leaning towards continuing to use actions. 1) I can solve by constantly tracking the position while the action is running, hence I can compute whether the character is rising or falling. 2) it seems I could solve by moving the camera and/or the platform layer once the character exceeds y/2 in height. What would you recommend? (Note that the platform layer should in theory be of infinite height, since the platforms will be created somewhat randomly).

   Posted 2 years ago #
4. 

   exorcyze
   Member

   Well, since I went the route of manual updating ( plus it was more akin to developing a game in other languages ) for most of the items I can't really give many recommendations about using actions for the main character. Perhaps someone else here has some experience and could share?

   I do use actions for simple actions - like rotating a projectile, having powerups/collectables animate or for NPCs to keep their walking motion - but that's about it.

   For managing the map scrolling I took a simple approach of having the TileMap and other sprite layers nested in an otherwise blank layer. The player sprite position gets updated in it's layer, then I get the offset amount so the "scrollLayer" parent can move to keep the player centered in the viewport unless the edge of the map would be visible.

   Hope that makes sense.

   Would be interested in hearing others experiences too. =)

   Posted 2 years ago #

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