This is the best Cocos2d Book I’ve worked through so far…This book (Cocos2d Game Development Blueprints) guides the reader in developing 7 different types of games:1.) Chapter 2’s “Explosions and UFOs” - A Game that uses accelerometer inputs to manipulate the movement of the player in the game. In this chapter the reader not only learns how to use the accelerometer of the device in one’s game for the actual left right movement of the player but also how to use the technique of parallax scrolling to give the ILLUSION of forward movement of the player. Other important learning points in this chapter are: a.) How to use Particle Systems for Explosion Animation b.) How to use draw Primitive Shapes2.) Chapter 3’s Online Game - The best part of this chapter for me is the working sample code provided that illustrates how to develop a turn-based card game. After working through this chapter you will most likely have a good or at least better idea on how to implement a turn-based online game using Apple’s Game Center. As a side note, most of the Cocos2d books I’ve worked through does not have a chapter on Game Centre and how to develop a turn-based game. So this is one of the more special points of this book.3.) Chapter 4’s “Beat all Your Enemies Up” Game - If you are like me, who has spent a good amount of your childhood time playing BEAT’EM UP games like DOUBLE DRAGON and GOLDEN AXE during the late 80s and early 90s, you may be very glad to know that after working through this chapter you will have the foundation and a STARTING TEMPLATE to work on to create your own BEAT’EM UP GAME. YEHEY!!4.) Chapter 5’s Math Game - This chapter’s GAME TEMPLATE and sample code is very suitable for educational game apps and for creating the SETTINGS screen of any game…very useful but didn’t get5.) Chapter 6’s Snooker Game - This chapter is all about using the CHIPMUNK PHYSICS ENGINE. The sample game in this chapter is a SNOOKER GAME and NOT ANGRY BIRDS…and so don’t expect to get a ANGRY BIRDS GAME TEMPLATE/BLUEPRINT from this chapter, but EXPECT TO LEARN HOW TO USE THE CHIPMUNK PHYSICS ENGINE in your game.6.) Chapter 7’s Jump and Run - This chapter is for all of the MARIO BROTHERS fans that are now Game Developer Aspirants as this chapter shows how to develop a PLATFORM Game like Mario Brothers.7.) Chapter 8’s Defend the Tower - This chapter discusses the development of a Tower Defence Game. For me the most special part of this chapter is its discussion on how to implement the path finding algorithm for the attackers. In other words, this chapter teaches the reader how to make the objects in one’s game move within the game through following a predefined path that you set. This one special knowledge contained in this chapter is something I appreciate a lot as I have not found this knowledge in any of the other Cocos2d books I’ve read except for one that is already totally outdated.In short, I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to learn to use Cocos2d to create 2D games as this book attempts to give the reader the knowledge on how to create 7 different types of games and it does a fairly good job at that. Also, there are 2 things that set this book apart from most other Cocos2d books (Note: Read my point 2 and 7 above to find out what these are).As of writing this review (March 22, 2015), the contents of this book is still relevant to the current version of Cocos2d-Swift. If you are reading this book quite a while later than March 22, 2015, please ensure that the book’s Cocos2d’s MAJOR version is still applicable to the Cocos2d version you will be using otherwise you may just end up buying a book that is not the most suitable for the tool you will be using. I don’t think booksellers offer a refund for mistakenly buying a outdated book as well.…Below is a copy and paste from the book for people who want to make sure:“In this book, we work with the latest Xcode version (5.1.1 at the time of writing), Cocos2d v3.0.0, and iOS7. “It is also worth noting that the book came out Jan 30 2015.

Cocos2D is always evolving, so books tend to go out of date pretty quickly. Never the less, this is a great resource.