Cocos 2D and Me

To get started writing Cocos2D code, the first thing you’ll want to do is install the Xcode templates. The templates are a great starting point for any Cocos2D project, particularly if you want to create projects using the Chipmunk or Box2d physics libraries.

First of all, make sure you have the latest release downloaded and stored somewhere suitable – I recommend in your iPhone projects folder. For reasons mentioned here, I recommend the latest unstable release (at least until v1.0 comes out).

To install the templates, you’ll want to open up the Terminal. If you’re not sure how to open up the Terminal, Spotlight is your friend. Just hit Command-Space, and type in Terminal. This is a great way to open apps or documents you don’t have quick access to, or are not sure where they are stored.

So, once the Terminal is open, navigate to where the Cocos2d project is stored. When you are inside the folder, all you need to run is

Once the script has finished executing, open up Xcode and start a new project. You should now have three new templates in there to get started with. I suggest you make a new project for each type, and run them to see what happens. It’s a good idea to have a quick look around in the code as well to see how things work.

If for some reason you want to remove the templates, or remove an older version of the templates, you can find out where they are stored by viewing the “install_template.sh” file. Open it up in TextEdit, and have a look at the first few lines of the script – most likely they will mention this directory: “/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Project Templates/Application/”. Navigate to that folder from the Finder, and remove any templates you no longer want.