Quick notice: only 10 more days to go!
Learn SpriteBuilder has a release date set to Nov 24th.
I suppose the eBook version will by available by that date and you can also get many chapters in the alpha program right now.
The print edition may need a few more days to distribute depending on where you live or from where you order.
Read this if you want to learn more about Learn SpriteBuilder, and try SpriteBuilder in the App Store.
Enjoy it! 
I’m done writing the Tome of SpriteBuilder.
There’s only edits and reviews left, page proofing and then it goes out to print. Meanwhile, I’m cleaning up and extending the Bouncy Beast project for its App Store release.
Time to share some insights as I haven’t been able to slice some time off to write about the process as I originally intended to.
What’s in the book?
In the Learn SpriteBuilder book you will learn SpriteBuilder step-by-step while building the Bouncy Beast game.
The book will guide you through the creation of a physics-driven, parallax-scrolling game with the help of SpriteBuilder, Cocos2D (cocos2d-swift) and Objective-C. The level-based structure will enable you to add more content to the game, even without writing additional code.
As your guide I will walk you through the individual steps necessary to create the game project. Along the way I’ll explain the SpriteBuilder features, caveats, workarounds and helpful tips and tricks as you are most likely to come across or need them.
At the end you’ll have a complete game reminiscent of games like Badland.
The game also runs on Android devices thanks to Apportable’s Android plugin for SpriteBuilder.
The Bouncy Beast project’s source code will be available.
Bouncy Beast Demo Video
Here’s a video demonstrating the game. Notice the subtle particle effect on the main menu’s background, the paginating scroll view, the soft-body player character.
NOTE: the suboptimal framerate in the video is 100% attributable to the iOS Simulator from which I recorded the video. On an iPod touch 5G the game runs with a constant 60 fps.
Since the announcement of the Learn SpriteBuilder book I’ve submitted the first three chapters to Apress.
Actually it’s chapters 2 through 4 because I’ve learned that the details in the first chapters tend to change significantly. This includes version numbers but also highlighted features, tool and project names, and so on.
Chapter Summary
Following is a summary of each chapter thus far.
Chapter 2 “Laying the Groundwork” first introduces the SpriteBuilder user interface but also Cocos2D (-iphone/-swift) programming basics. I really went above and beyond existing SpriteBuilder user interface tutorials to explain even the smaller details that boggled my mind when I was learning SpriteBuilder. You’ll learn the difference between Scene, Node or Layer CCBs. The effect of position, content size and scale modes (points, UI points, %, insets). What all the nodes are and what they are used for. But also how to make the code connections and what the difference between CCBReader load and loadAsScene is. The importance of Sub File nodes and the Tileless Editor View.
At the end you’ll have a firm grasp on SpriteBuilder basics and a project framework with two scenes and transitions between both scenes. Continue reading »
