What this book covers

Chapter 1, Installing Cocos2d-x, guides you through the download and installation of the Cocos2d-x framework. It also examines the ins and outs of a basic Cocos2d-x application and deployment to both iOS and Android devices.

Chapter 2, You Plus C++ Plus Cocos2d-x, explains the main elements in the framework. It also covers the differences in syntax when developing in C++, and the differences in memory management when developing with Cocos2d-x.

Chapter 3, Your First Game – Air Hockey, kick-starts our game development tutorials by using Cocos2d-x to build an air hockey game. You will learn how to load the images for your sprites, display text, manage touches, and add sounds to your game.

Chapter 4, Fun with Sprites – Sky Defense, demonstrates the power of actions in Cocos2d-x, and shows how an entire game could be built with them. It also introduces the concept of sprite sheets and the steps to build a universal application targeting different screen resolutions.

Chapter 5, On the Line – Rocket Through, adds two new elements to our game development toolbox: how to draw primitives, such as lines, curves, and circles, and how to use particle systems to improve the look of our game with special effects.

Chapter 6, Quick and Easy Sprite – Victorian Rush Hour, shows how you can use Cocos2d-x to quickly implement game ideas for further testing and development by rapidly building game prototypes with placeholder sprites. In the game example used for this chapter, you'll also learn how to build a side-scrolling platform game.

Chapter 7, Adding the Looks – Victorian Rush Hour, continues with the project from the previous chapter adding the final touches to the game including a menu and a playable tutorial.

Chapter 8, Getting Physical – Box2D, introduces the popular Box2D API for a physics simulation, guiding you through the process of using Box2D in the development of a pool game. You learn how to create bodies and manage the way they interact with each other.

Chapter 9, On the Level – Eskimo, teaches you how to load external data for game levels, how to store game-related data locally as well as structure your games with multiple scenes. We use a second Box2D game to illustrate these topics, plus a couple of new concepts, such as using the event dispatcher to structure your games better.

Chapter 10, Introducing Lua!, will guide you in the development of a multiplatform match-three game using Lua and the new Cocos Code IDE. You will see how similar the calls are between the C++ version and its Lua bindings and how easy it is to develop a game in Lua.

Appendix A, Vector Calculations with Cocos2d-x, covers some of the math concepts used in Chapter 5, On the Line – Rocket Through, in a little more detail.

Appendix B, Pop Quiz Answers, provides answers to the pop quiz available in some chapters.