LevelHelper and SpriteHelper: My Review
At this point, you should know the basics of using SpriteHelper and LevelHelper to create a game, so we’re going to bring this tutorial to a close.
But I wanted to leave you off with my overall thoughts on SpriteHelper and LevelHelper, in case you are still trying to decide if these tools are for you. Let’s start with a list of pros:
- Makes it very easy to create or modify a level, especially when compared to manually guesstimating and fixing up sprite positions.
- There’s some nice features I didn’t even cover here like creating animations, paths, parallax scrolling, and joints which can save even more time!
- The API is straightforward and easy to use.
And here’s a list of cons:
Update: Actually this is possible, and a tutorial on how to do this is here!
- Adding new art halfway through a project is problematic. As mentioned earlier, I tried this and it ended up corrupting my level and I had to remake it.
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There doesn’t seem to be a way to assign a subclass of CCSprite to a particular sprite. I often like to subclass CCSprite to add special behavior to objects, so this is annoying.
Update: Actually this is possible, and a tutorial on how to do this is here!
- Various UI frustrations due to general lack of polish.
There doesn’t seem to be a way to assign a subclass of CCSprite to a particular sprite. I often like to subclass CCSprite to add special behavior to objects, so this is annoying.
Overall, I think the pros outweigh the cons, especially when you compare it to manual sprite placement or taking the time and energy to build your own editor.
So if you are looking for a premade editor for Cocos2D and can put up with the above limitations, I think SpriteHelper and LevelHelper are great additions to your tool library that can save you some significant development time.
Where To Go From Here?
Here is a sample project with all of the code from the above tutorial.
Keep reading for the next tutorial, where we’ll expand this game and make the monsters a lot more interesting – by applying some Intermediate Box2D physics tricks and techniques! :]
In the meantime, if you have any questions or comments about SpriteHelper, LevelHelper, or this tutorial, please join the forum discussion below!
