Question

I am pretty new to making games, but I am pretty familiar with programing iOS. I am creating a shape matching game, so there would be an array of different shapes and the user would drag the shape to the correct corresponding shape if they get it right it would stay and if they get it wrong it would shoot back. Now my question is would that be easier using cocso2d or any game engine or would it be just as easy not using one, just using a touch event?

Answer 1

Since the game you are describing is not graphically intense – I would recommend using UIKit. Couple of reasons why I would use UIKit over cocos2d:

• Interface builder / Storyboards are awesome. You can lay out your
  screens and game elements on screen. (I know tools exist to do this
  using cocos like CocosBuilder, but IMO they just don’t compare to
  working directly in XCode)
• UIKit animations couldn’t be easier and you can do some pretty powerful things with minimal code.
• You have direct access elements such as UITableView, UICollectionView, UIScrollView, etc. There are cocos nodes that mimic these, but they don’t match up in terms of response and behavior.

For more graphically intense games I would still use cocos2d hands down. Some scenarios when you would use it:

• You have a large number of sprites with a large number of animations (opengl is fast)
• You want to use opengl based effects like particles, lighting, etc.
• You need a physics engine
• You want to work off a prebuilt game engine (there are tons such as levelsvg, kobold2d, line starter kit, etc)

Hope this helps you.