Cocos2d for iPhone is a framework for building 2D games, demos, and other graphical/interactive applications. Cocos2d is powerful way to create compelling 2D graphics using OpenGL and Objective-C. Its powerful enough to create games like Angry Birds. I am starting to explore Cocos2D for my company's work, and I want to get together with a group of people interested in learning this framework together. My ideal cohort for this meetup are people with working objective C knowledge. You don't need to be an expert but should be comfortable with various iOS frameworks. You are really motivated to learn Cocos2d and plan to be at most sessions to get the most out of the proposed goals. So what are the goals? Here is what I would love to do for this meetup (but am totally open to suggestions from the group): 1) We'll use "Learn cocos2d 2: Game Development for iOS" (http://www.amazon.com/Learn-cocos2d-Game-Development-iOS/dp/143024416X) as our guide book. 2) We meet every couple of weeks. The catch is that we pre read a certain portion of the above book as homework. We'll try not to make the homework part onerous. 3) When we meet, we spend an hour or two discussing Cocos2d together and hack up some code. A member of the group could volunteer to summarize the reading material that was homework assignment. This does two things. It reinforces concepts for those who have read the portion being presented. And secondly it helps the presenter crystallize concepts that he/she is presenting to the group. The great thing about this is that we can have discussions around key concepts if something is hard to understand.

1. Lets learn Cocos2d together
iPhone Developers Roundtable - Boston
Krishna Ramchandran
@krishna_nr

2. Cocos 2D - What?
• Gaming/graphical framework
• 3Fs - fast, flexible and free!
• Easy to use
• Built-in physics engines

3. Examples: Like Doodle
Jump

4. Examples: Like Angry
Birds

5. Examples: Like
Farmville

6. Proposed Meetup
Structure
• Learn in a group!
• Build something fun and awesome
• Make a game that is releasable
(optional)

7. Format
• Have fun!
• Meet every 2-3 weeks at Ubersense

8. Format
• Part home-work (read a chapter)
• At meetup
• One volunteer to help review
• Review, discuss, hack code
• How does that sound?

9. Book Reference
http://www.amazon.com/Learn-cocos2d-Game-Development-iOS/dp/143024416X/

10. Cocos2d Basics
• Scenes
• Director
• Layer
• Sprites, labels, etc

11. Scenes
• Also called screens or stages
• Only one active at any time
Source: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:basic_concepts

12. Director
• Coordinates different scenes
• Responsible for showing, changing, ending
scenes
• Handles initialization of OpenGL ES

13. Layer
• Scene is composed of layers
• Handles touch and accelerometer inputs
• Layer contains other layers and sprites
Source: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/wiki/doku.php/prog_guide:basic_concepts

14. Sprites
• 2D image
• Can be animated, touched, moved, etc
• Can have other sprites as children
• Transforms apply to parent and all children

15. Scene, layers and sprites

16. Next Steps
• Buy the book :)
• Meet 2nd week of Jan 6:30 pm
• Read chapters 2, 3, 4 (roughly 80 pages)

17. Thanks for coming
Feedback?
krishna@ubersense.com