Sprite Kit in iOS7

Abawell

Have you seen the new Sprite Kit in iOS 7 ?
Seems to be a Sparrow like API integrated into iOS.

hermesdavidms

yeah, sounds awesome.

it also includes a physics engine.. it will be fun to mess with that

Daniel

*sigh*.

I don't quite understand why they are doing that, where there are already dozens of Objective-C gaming frameworks around. That's going to be super hard for Sparrow. 🙁

What do you guys think about this? What does this mean for the future of Sparrow? My guess is that many developers are going to adopt SpriteKit now.

TTStu

Haven't had a chance to look at SpriteKit yet, so I don't know...

But it'll definitely be really annoying if it looks like the way forward after converting all my stuff bit by bit to Sparrow 2.0!!!

Depends if sprite kit has all the bells and whistles... atlas support, decent sound support built in, heirarchy control etc

TTStu

Hmmm, having just read through the preliminaries, it sounds like it *does* have the stuff I mentioned.

Info can be found here:

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/ios/documentation/GraphicsAnimation/Conceptual/SpriteKit_PG/Introduction/Introduction.html

This is a real shame in many ways, and definitely will make it hard to tempt new users to Sparrow...

I think Starling may be the only way to go because of the cross platform stuff...

What about some kind of Sparrow "wrapper" for Sprite Kit... maybe a kind way of using the existing (or similar) classes and functions to call Sprite Kit instead... and filling in the gaps that Sprite Kit doesn't fill... is that Sparrow's future?

humble

I am sure developers will still come to sparrow for a great framework and a great supporting forum. 🙂

ERik

Daniel

Mhm, I think so, too, TTStu! What's still an advantage is the similarity to Flash and Starling -- so it stays a very good choice for Flash devs. But for others ... it will be hard to convince them to use Sparrow.

As for the wrapper, I'd have to play around with their API to see if that makes sense. One could create extensions that add missing functionality -- but that would have nothing to do with the Sparrow project.

Daniel

ERik, thanks for that! 🙂

Actually, I totally agree about the forum and support -- getting any help on anything from Apple is almost impossible. And Sprite Kit is not Open Source! Good luck fixing it when it's broken -- which is not that rare with iOS APIs.

JarkkoSyrjala

How about converting Sparrow / Starling to Haxe OpenFL?

Sprite Kit could never compete with such multiplatform framework that enables publishing to many platforms including IOS... 😎

Daniel

Actually, Starling is already very close to that. 😉

Except that it uses classic Flash, of course. But yes, multiplatform seems to be the way to go at the moment. Pure Objective-C frameworks are getting more and more abandoned. (Perhaps this was one of the reasons Apple introduced SpriteKit.)

JarkkoSyrjala

Yep, veeery close. 🙂
Too bad that AIR will not come to Windows mobile.

With Haxe it would be possible to utilize Stage3D for Flash target, OpenGL for native targets and Canvas/WebGL for JavaScript target.

There is already H2D/h3D library that enables using Stage3D with Haxe:
https://github.com/ncannasse/h3d
And there's TileLayer library that uses OpenGL for native targets:
http://lib.haxe.org/p/tilelayer (includes a Sparrow spritesheet parser btw.)

I only wish there would be a Haxe version of Starling that could wrap all these possibilities together into a single framework with familiar syntax... 😉

Schreda

Hey Daniel,

no need to be worry...
there was also cocos2d available and people didnt change to cocos2d because sparrow framework is great! I think they introduced it because some people still develop by using Core animation or Quarz core... The main reason why they developed the spritekit must be because of OSX... to make it easier for developers to port their games and apps... For me the way to go is always your framework or pure OpenGLES 2.0 😃

Even if you use it directly porting stuff is getting much more simple ;D
regards
Schr3da

Daniel

Thanks for all the nice words about it, guys!

After sleeping over it, I'm much more optimistic. You're right, Schreda -- there always were other 2D frameworks around! Sparrow has several advantages over them, and over SpriteKit:

* There will always be people who prefer Sparrow's simple and flexible approach of creating games.
* It will always be open source!
* Which makes it easy to tinker with, modifying it so that it becomes just the framework you need.
* When it's broken, people can fix it -- or ask me to do that. Good luck with getting such support from Apple!

All in all, I think this image sums it up really nicely:

😜

Oscar

That's the spirit, Daniel 😉 Keep up the good work

TTStu

I certainly won't be dropping Sparrow any time soon 🙂

Daniel

Thanks for the nice words, guys! 😃

hcabral

I'm having a good time with Sparrow 2.0, super productive and the performance is amazing. Apps are running smoothly on all my devices (hat tip to TexturePacker). I've just integrated Box2D to wrap bodies/fixtures around sub-textures and it works like a charm. I will eventually share my B2D helper class that wraps these methods with the community.

MicusFicus

Man, looks like Sparrow and the other 2d frameworks got Sherlocked.

Daniel

hcabral, thanks a lot for the feedback! That's great to hear! =)

It would be awesome if you could share that B2D wrapper with us in the future. This is something that Sparrow really lacks -- any help in that respect would be amazing for Sparrow.

LOL, MicusFicus, I read that term a few times yesterday, but didn't know the actual meaning -- made my day!!! 🙂

humble

Have to agree on the physics engine. For my money an easy to use physics engine is apple's strongest argument, the only one also i find appealing.

Not that I have done many games, but when i have I think the most difficult parts have been physics, but most of all efficient collision detection, with a big emphasis on efficient.

I think it would be really interesting to see an idiot proof hook into box2d. Could be an amazing thing for many.

ERik