Cocos2d

Cocos2d is an open source software framework. It can be used to build games, apps and other cross platform GUI based interactive programs. Cocos2d contains many branches with the best known being Cocos2d-objc, Cocos2d-x, Cocos2d-html5 and Cocos2d-XNA. There are some independent editors in the cocos2d community, such as those contributing in the areas of SpriteSheet editing, particle editing, font editing and Tilemap editing as well as world editors including SpriteBuilder and CocoStudio.

All versions of Cocos2d work using the basic primitive known as a sprite. A sprite can be thought of a simple 2D image, but can also be a container for other sprites. In Cocos2D, sprites are arranged together to form a scene, like a game level or a menu. Sprites can be manipulated in code based on events or actions or as part of animations. The sprites can be moved, rotated, scaled, have their image changed, etc.

Cocos2D provides basic animation primitives that can work on sprites using a set of actions and timers. They can be chained and composed together to form more complex animations. Most Cocos2D implementations let you manipulate the size, scale, position, and other effects of the sprite. Some versions of Cocos2D let you also animate particle effects, image filtering effects via shaders (warp, ripple, etc.).

Cocos2D provides primitives to representing common GUI elements in your game scene. This includes things like text boxes, labels, menus, buttons, and other common elements.

Many Cocos2D implementations come with support for common 2D physics engines like Box2D and Chipmunk.

Various versions of Cocos2D have audio libraries that wrap OpenAL or other libraries to provide full audio capabilities. Features are dependent on the implementation of Cocos2D.

Support binding to JavaScript, Lua, and other engines exist for Cocos2D. For example, Cocos2d JavaScript Binding (JSB) for C/C++/Objective-C is the wrapper code that sits between native code and JavaScript code using Mozilla's SpiderMonkey. With JSB, you can accelerate your development process by writing your game using easy and flexible JavaScript.

February 2008, in a town called "Los Cocos" near Córdoba in Argentina, Ricardo Quesada, a game developer, created a 2D game engine with several of his developer friends. They named it "Los Cocos" after its birthplace. A month later, the group released the version 0.1 and changed its name to "Cocos2d".