Cocos2D vs Sprite Kit vs Unity 2D Tech Talk Video

The first Tuesday of each month, one of the members of the team gives a Tech Talk, and by popular request we’ve started to stream these live.

Today in our March Tech Talk, three Tutorial Team members held an epic debate on which is the best framework for making 2D games on iOS: the Cocos2D vs Sprite Kit vs Unity Battle Royale.

Here were the contenders:

• Brian Moakley (Team Unity 2D)
• Marin Todorov (Team Sprite Kit)
• Ray Wenderlich (Team Cocos2D)

Here’s the video for anyone who didn’t get a chance to watch!

Note: At the point where I start giving the Cocos2D code demo, I forgot to make my screen share visible to viewers. When you get to this point (around 20:30), skip to 25:37 where the issue is resolved. Sorry about that!

Source Code

Here is the Source Code of the Cat Jump game, made in each framework for easy comparison purposes:

• Cat Jump Cocos2D
• Cat Jump Cocos2D (SpriteBuilder Version)
• Cat Jump Sprite Kit
• Cat Jump Unity

Helpful Links

Here are some handy links to learn more about these frameworks:

• Ray’s Pros and Cons
• How To Make A Simple iPhone Game with Cocos2D 3.0 Tutorial
• Sprite Kit Tutorial for Beginners
• iOS Games by Tutorials
• Unity 4.3 2D Tutorial

Want to Join Us Next Month?

Thanks again Marin and Brian for giving a great talk and having the guts to present to debate with a live audience :] And thank you to everyone who attended – we hope you enjoyed it!

Next month, our April Tech talk will be on Reactive Cocoa, with Colin Eberhardt (CTO of Shinobi Controls and Tutorial Team member) and Justin Spahr-Summers (Mac developer at GitHub and co-developer of ReactiveCocoa).

We will be broadcasting this talk live on Tuesday, April 8 at 2:00 PM EST, so if you want to join us sign up here! As you watch the talk, you can submit any Q&A you may have live.

Hope to see some of you there! :]