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Comment by jordanroher | Hacker News Reader

I'm very interested in iPhone game development. I'm working on a title for PC/Xbox based on the XNA framework and finding it fairly easy to use. Is there anything like that for the iPhone? Any good place to find a comparison of frameworks? I'm not averse to coding interactions by hand (trying to make a 2D RPG, not a platformer, so Torque isn't appropriate), but I can't make sense of the options.

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I've used Cocos2D, and it was great - I've been meaning to write some posts about it, haven't got around to it yet. I haven't used other frameworks, so I can't compare, but for a simple 2D sprite game Cocos2D was a great way to hit the ground running.

Video of me making the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=se2mi_kfUko

I'm far from an expert, but if you have any questions I'll try to answer them.

Cocos2D is the most popular 2D iPhone game framework. An alternative, if you're used to the Flash/ActionScript way of doing things, is Sparrow. You may also find that if you're doing an action/physics game in the future, Box2D will inevitably be necessary.

If you're looking for a GUI as opposed to a programming API, in addition to the fine options above, my startup (http://www.stencyl.com) also does this and is based on Sparrow (and Flash for exporting to the web).

However, I'll be realistic and say that if you're making an RPG, you'll find it much easier to build it by hand.

Stencyl looks like a lot of fun, kudos! And am I right that some of the linked games have even managed to score themselves sponsorship?

Thanks! The Balls in Space game scored several sponsorships that have collectively gotten it into the 4 figures range, which is pretty good by Flash standards.

I suggest you look into Unity 3D. It's easy to make 2D stuff with it, even if it's primarily a 3D engine.

The basic version is free, so you can use that for development. When your game is ready to ship, you can upgrade your license to an iOS one and then convert and ship your game with it.

If you want to stick with XNA, there's an interesting project to port XNA to iOS platforms (http://rockethub.com/projects/752-exen-xna-for-iphone-androi...), and there's XNATouch too. I haven't looked into those yet, but if you complete your game on XNA, by the time you'll be done there might be a viable solution to easily port your game to iOS.

I'm working on a basic Cocos2d tutorial, written for beginners:

http://www.coconutcollege.net

Check it out, and let me know if you run into any problems. It's not finished yet, but the first four courses will give you a good foundation. I should have the next two courses posted within a week or so.

Like Alex, I can heartily recommend Cocos2D: http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/

We made a Monkey Island-style point-and-click (well, point-and-tap) adventure. It was a fairly complex project, but Cocos always felt empowering rather than limiting. Happy to answer any questions!

About the game: http://launchingpadgames.com/games/scarlett/

I know little or nothing about iPhone programming. I figured I would plug a friend of mine's startup since it seems like just what you are looking for. (note: Not connected in any way other than having gone to high school with the founder.) http://gamesalad.com/

I'm going to be using Cocos2d, but I honestly couldn't give you many details on it because I'm going to be out-sourcing to a programmer to do that part. I'm making 2d games and Cocos2d is supposed to make it a lot easier to juggle sprites and everything...but we'll see if I can break it, hehe

- Quickdraw

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