A Question for the Pros

[Phantom Ppepper]

//BEGIN LATE NIGHT RAMBLINGS //

So, I am quite new to this whole coding environment. With the exception to some pretty basic html and css. But I must say, I am excited about iOS development and how much faster and easier it was to get started thanks to the thousands of tutorials found on the web and the incredibly impressive tools like RUBE.

In short, I am a graphics person by trade who has too many ideas for apps to sit in idle, so about a month ago I enrolled in the apple developer program. Right off the bat, the dire question arose: how are you going to go about this?

With the first google search - how to make an iPhone app as a designer - I was presented with so many damn choices it was quite overwhelming... still is actually. I thought about the short cuts like Gamesalad, Stencil, etc. But quickly dropped the notion of using an exclusive third party and instilling trust that they would maintain their products, because it's become quite obvious for me that Apple is not going to stop - and updating code is obviously a constant. And gamesalad games all look alike.

In my current state I have begun the very basics. VERY BASICS. And I have currently decided on using the cocos2d framework and box2d with the incredible RUBE. I feel like I have just skipped a semester of school without any regret or repercussions using RUBE.

So, if you're still with me, my question is this:

Do I continue to use cocos2d/Box2D (wRUBE) or switch to the new iOS 7 SpriteKit... with box2d?


So before I start learning this stuff (cocos2d) literally from the ground up... what would you do?

// END LATE NIGHT RAMBLINGS //

[iforce2d]

I have not used SpriteKit, and I know only what was in the presentation given at WWDC a few months ago which I mostly just listened to while doing something else. So don't take anything anything I say here as super credible.

To summarize my opinion very briefly, currently SpriteKit does not seem to offer a whole lot more than Cocos2d, but it is still early days yet.

I think the biggest dividing factor when making a decision on this is whether you will want to make your games available on other platforms in future. If you do, it's probably a good idea to stay away from SpriteKit, since it's not cross-platform. If you know for sure that you will only even need to release on Apple platforms, or you don't mind completely rewriting your game if you decide to port to other platforms, then I guess it's not a concern. Automated tools like Apportable can do a good job of porting Cocos2d games to Android because they can just compile the source, but this will not be possible for SpriteKit games.

The second factor would be the issue of closed source vs open source. If there is a bug or you want to add something to SpriteKit, or even just some little thing about it you would prefer was done differently - too bad. For Cocos2d you can fiddle with its innards however you please.

The third factor would be the availability of examples, tutorials, forums, help from the user community and the general ease of finding solutions to problems you will encounter. Right now Cocos2d also wins here, but SpriteKit community and support will grow over time.

The fourth factor would be the availability of tools designed to work with these frameworks. Once again, it will be a while before SpriteKit can catch up with the number of tools and utilities that are around for Cocos2d, some of which are free and even open source themselves.

Regarding physics in general, currently Box2D has more joints and more flexibility as far as the type of scene you can create. SpriteKit has some nice usability features, that make things like collision callbacks less confusing. Of course the same point about open source vs closed source applies to Box2D.

Regarding the creation of physics scenes, SpriteKit does not provide any graphical tools to build levels and such, (unless I really missed something in the presentation!), so Cocos2d has the advantage again due to ' the fourth factor' above.

Regarding RUBE specifically, there is a Cocos2d loader ready to go now, but none for SpriteKit. I will most likely need to make one sooner or later, depending on how the demand for it turns out.

Well that looks like a pretty bleak situation for SpriteKit, but that's how I see things right now. Time will tell how much further work Apple puts into it, where it goes from here. One thing you might want to look into if releasing on multiple platforms is a must, is Cocos2d-x, which is made from the beginning to be cross-platform and seems to be what many developers are throwing their weight behind recently, including the original creator of Cocos2d.

[Phantom Ppepper]

Awesome, thank you. This is invaluable information.