The Cocos2D for iPhone game engine is the premier 2D game engine for iPhone game developers. Sometimes, it can be a tough nut to crack. That’s why I’m here.
Steffen in bullet points:
- is: a professional game developer since 1999
- wrote: Learn Cocos2D Game Development
- writes: Cocos2D Tutorials and Articles
- blogs: about Cocos2D and Indie Game Development
- hosts: Cocos2D Central Community
- sells: Line-Drawing Starterkit for Cocos2D and more
- created: Kobold2D, an improved Cocos2D
- is not: an affiliate / representative of Cocos2D
The long story, shortened a bit …
At the beginning, I was merely a Cocos2D developer just starting out with this fine game engine. I started working with Cocos2D in May 2009. Despite many years of game development experience, I struggled many times over - there was so much to learn and specifically for Cocos2D there wasn’t much documentation to go on.
Learn & Master Cocos2D Blog
A year later, I was well aware that besides growing in popularity, the basic issues of getting started with Cocos2D essentially stayed the same. Consequently, beginner’s tutorials got rampant visits from aspiring Cocos2D game developers. So I decided to start this Learn & Master Cocos2D website and blog to help you get started and answer pressing questions while trying to earn a living selling source code products like the Line-Drawing Game Starterkit.
Learn iPhone and iPad Cocos2D Game Development Book
Within hours of going live with this website in early May 2010, I was contacted by Jack Nutting, author of Learn Cocoa on the Mac. He got me in contact with Apress and a short but intense proposal period for a Cocos2D book followed. Then I blogged about the book’s progress every week. What followed were five months of writing and learning more about Cocos2D and writing books than I ever imagined. The book was finally completed and released in December 2010: Learn iPhone and iPad Cocos2D Game Development: The Leading Framework for Building 2D Graphical and Interactive Applications.
Cocos2D Central
During the time I wrote the book, this website had to take a backseat, so I did not grow the tutorials and other content as I had initially planned. With the book finished, I knew I was going to do lots of Q&A and it should be done publicly, so that everyone can benefit from it. The result is the Cocos2D Central forum and community website. It’s so much more than a forum and it will become a community-empowered documentation hub for all things Cocos2D. This includes other increasingly popular Cocos2D game engines, like Cocos2D X for cross-platform development and Cocos2D for Web (cocos2d-javascript) for bringing Cocos2D to your browser.
Kobold2D: Cocos2D on Steroids
Another result from my extensive work with Cocos2D is Kobold2D. It originated from an Xcode project that referenced the cocos2d-iphone project as an external reference and added some extra source code. Now, with the help of volunteers, it is turning into a serious distribution of cocos2d-iphone, adding popular libraries like Cocos3D, Wax & Lua, ObjectAL, iSimulate and making complex things easier while encouraging code sharing and reuse. I could go on forever like this but you should rather check out the Kobold2D website.
My Leitmotif
I have always been a nutcracker and firefighter in my previous game industry jobs. I have always been sitting between chairs, as I did not fit a proper, established job description. I’m a jack of many trades, master of some. I program, I design, I write, I market, I sell, I help, I teach, I moderate, I network and I do what I think needs to be done. But most of all, I’ve always been helping other developers - that was always present in every job I did, and when I worked with the right people, those were the best times I ever had. Give me a problem and (most of the time) I’ll want to solve it. I’m happy when I can help others grow and excel. That’s my leitmotif, that’s what I’m doing now for Cocos2D developers.
Connect with me!
Most importantly I wish you to join Cocos2D Central and participate in the discussion. That’s the best way to reach me.
You should also subscribe to my Newsletter to receive periodic updates and never miss anything important. At most I send one newsletter every two weeks, on average I send one per month. They’re all related to Cocos2D.
You should definitely follow me on Twitter if you use Twitter. If you don’t, now would be a good time to start! You’ll hear about news and new blogs posts from me, as well as anything else that happens in the game engine and game development sector.
