• Install QtCreator
• Install CMake
• Install Cocos2d-x
• Create a new project
• Compile and run for Linux

Installing Cocos2d-x in Linux Mint (Debian/Ubuntu) is quite similar to Mac and Windows that we have already gone through in the previous posts. If you don’t use linux, just skip this post.

For Linux development there are a few options to consider including Eclipse, QtCreator and more. My favorite is QtCreator which I am going to install in this post.

Install QtCreator

You can download the Open Source version of QT and use the editor and compiler to work on your game. We won’t need to actually use the QT libraries itself at all. We just need the editor! It is easy and just a standard install with no hassle.

• In QT website, click on the”Go open source” button at the right bottom of the page.

• In the new page go to the bottom of the page and press “Download the Qt Online Installer”.

• In the next page click on “Download” and wait for the download to finish.
• Run the installer and install QT Creator (You need to either sign in to your account or sign up for one)
• It will notify you that you don’t have a commercial license in your account but lets you continue with the Open Source!
• For the install folder specify where you want to install it. (I installed it under /home/rezagn/devapps/Qt)
• For components, select the most recent stable one (5.12.6 at this time) under Qt tree as below and press next.

• “Read” and Agree to the License Agreement and press next.
• Press Install (It will download and install the QT libraries, tools and IDE for you).
• You can launch QtCreator (Community Version) after the download and install are finished.

Install CMake

You need to have CMake installed on your machine to be able to create and open the cocos2d-x projects. If you already have CMake installed, make sure the version is bigger than 3.5.1 by checking in terminal.

cmake --version

If the version is older, remove CMake first.

sudo apt remove cmake

Then go to cmake.org and download the latest version (3.16.2) and extract the compressed file in a folder.
In a terminal go to that folder and run ./bootstrap to compile it.

./bootstrap

Then run make to link the files.

make

Now, you can install it by typing:

sudo make install

Install Cocos2d-x

Lets install our game engine now to be able to create some projects:

• Installing Cocos2d-x needs Python 2.7x installed. It is probably pre-installed in your Debian/Ubuntu/Mint Linux. You can check the python version in terminal to see if it is installed and you have the right one. Mine is 2.7.12.

python --version

sudo apt-get install python

python setup.py

rezagn@Dell490 ~/devapps/cocos2d-x-4.0 $ python ./setup.py 

Setting up cocos2d-x...
->Check environment variable COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT...
    ->COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT is found : /home/rezagn/devapps/cocos2d-x-4.0/tools/cocos2d-console/bin

->Check environment variable COCOS_X_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable COCOS_X_ROOT...
    ->COCOS_X_ROOT is found : /home/rezagn/devapps

->Check environment variable COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT...
    ->COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT is found : /home/rezagn/devapps/cocos2d-x-4.0/templates

->Configuration for Android platform only, you can also skip and manually edit "/home/rezagn/.bashrc"

->Check environment variable NDK_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable NDK_ROOT...
    ->NDK_ROOT is found : /home/rezagn/Android/Sdk/ndk-bundle

->Check environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT...
    ->ANDROID_SDK_ROOT is found : /home/rezagn/Android/Sdk/


Please execute command: "source /home/rezagn/.bashrc" to make added system variables take effect

rezagn@Dell490 ~/devapps/cocos2d-x-4.0 $

# Add environment variable COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT=/home/rezagn/devapps/cocos2d-x-4.0/tools/cocos2d-console/bin
export PATH=$COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT:$PATH

# Add environment variable COCOS_X_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export COCOS_X_ROOT="/home/rezagn/devapps"
export PATH=$COCOS_X_ROOT:$PATH

# Add environment variable COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT=/home/rezagn/devapps/cocos2d-x-4.0/templates
export PATH=$COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT:$PATH

# Add environment variable NDK_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export NDK_ROOT="/home/rezagn/Android/Sdk/ndk-bundle"
export PATH=$NDK_ROOT:$PATH

# Add environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT="/home/rezagn/Android/Sdk/"
export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT:$PATH
export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/tools:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/platform-tools:$PATH

# Add environment variable ANT_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export ANT_ROOT="/usr/share/ant/bin"
export PATH=$ANT_ROOT:$PATH

rezagn@Dell490 ~/Projects/games $ cocos

/home/rezagn/devapps/cocos2d-x-4.0/tools/cocos2d-console/bin/cocos.py 2.3 - cocos console: A command line tool for Cocos2d-x.

Available commands:
	run              Compiles, deploy and run project on the target.
	luacompile       Encrypt and/or compile lua files.
	deploy           Compile and deploy a project to a device/simulator.
	compile          Compile projects to binary.
	gen-simulator    Generate Cocos Simulator.
	new              Creates a new project.
	jscompile        Compile and/or compress js files.

Available arguments:
	-h, --help			Show this help information.
	-v, --version			Show the version of this command tool.
	--ol ['en', 'zh', 'zh_tr']	Specify the language of output messages.
	--agreement ['y', 'n']		Skip the agreement with specified value.

Example:
	cocos new --help
	cocos run --help
rezagn@Dell490 ~/Projects/games $

Create a new project by typing the full command as bellow. Feel free to change the folder as you wish.

cocos new install_test -p com.games.install_test -l cpp -d ~/Projects

This will make a project called “install_test” with all the necessary files and sub folders of the Cocos2d-x project in your specified folder!

Compile and run for Linux

• Run QtCreator
• From the menu go to “File->Open File or Project”.
• From the project root folder, open the CMakeLists.txt and press “Configure Project” button.
• From menu run “Build->Build All”. It will take a few minutes to compile your project.

• When the build is over (successful on mine), press Ctrl+R to run the project.

You probably noticed that the compile business took ages to complete (17 minutes and 49 seconds for me)! There is a way to make it a few times faster.

Just add the -j flag to your build settings and after -j specify the number of cores that you want to use for compiling. I put -j8 to use all my 8 cores on my ancient Linux machine!

That reduced the compile time to 2 minutes and 11 seconds! Feels much better!

Cool! We have QtCreator and Cocos2d-x installed and working on a Linux Mint now and can start working on our project in Linux too.

By the way, you could also use the QtCreator in both Windows and macOS if you wanted to.

Next

• Install Microsoft Visual Studio
• Install CMake
• Install Cocos2d-x 4.0
• Create a new project
• Compile and run for Windows

We will install Microsoft Visual Studio to compile for Windows!

Install Microsoft Visual Studio

Microsoft has a free version of its IDE called “Visual Studio Community”. There is also a free open source version called “Visual Studio Code”. I am gonna go with the Community because that is what is supported by Cocos2d-x.

• Download and Run Visual Studio Community installer.
• From the Available Tab install Visual Sudio 2017 (You can also go for 2019!)
• From the Workloads tab, I recommend selecting “Python development”, “Game development with C++” and “Data storage and processing” units. You will probably need these down the road.
• Press Install (or Modify) and follow the instructions if any.

Install CMake

Cocos2d-x 4.0 uses CMake to create project files for different platforms. Because of that we need CMake installed on our machine.

• Download and run the CMake installer
• Choose CMake to be added to your PATH during the installation

Install Cocos2d-x

Now that Visual Studio and Android Studio are installed, it is time to install Cocos2d-x itself:

• Installing Cocos2d-x needs Python 2.7x installed. Download and install Python version 2.7.15 if you haven’t yet.
• After installing Python, open a powershell (or command line) window and check the python version by typing this command:

python --version

• Download Cocos2d-x (cocos2d-x-4.0.zip) from www.cocos2d-x.org and unzip it in a folder that you want it to reside e.g. C:\Dev\
• Setup Cocos2d-x by running the setup.py in a power shell from inside of the unzipped folder e.g. C:\Dev\cocos2d-x-4.0\

python setup.py

PS C:\Dev\cocos2d-x-4.0> python .\setup.py

Setting up cocos2d-x...
->Check environment variable COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT...
    ->COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT is found : C:\Dev\cocos2d-x-4.0\tools\cocos2d-console\bin

->Check environment variable COCOS_X_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable COCOS_X_ROOT...
    ->COCOS_X_ROOT is found : C:\Dev

->Check environment variable COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT...
    ->COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT is found : C:\Dev\cocos2d-x-4.0\templates

->Configuration for Android platform only, you can also skip and manually edit your environment variables

->Check environment variable NDK_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable NDK_ROOT...
    ->NDK_ROOT is found : C:\Users\rezag\AppData\Local\Android\sdk\ndk-bundle

->Check environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT
  ->Search for environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT...
    ->ANDROID_SDK_ROOT is found : C:\Users\rezag\AppData\Local\Android\sdk


Please restart the terminal or restart computer to make added system variables take effect

PS C:\Dev\cocos2d-x-4.0>

• If you don’t have these variables, add them manually. Just replace my username “rezag” with yours in the paths and make sure they are correct.
• Select Path from the User Variables list and press on edit button and make sure the cocos2d-x folders are in there. If not, manually add them as below.

• You may need to restart your computer to have these variables take effect!

Create a new project

To make new projects, we will use the cocos command in the powershell. If you just type cocos and press Enter, you will get the command line options help.

D:\projects\games> cocos

C:\Dev\cocos2d-x-4.0\tools\cocos2d-console\bin\/cocos.py 2.3 - cocos console: A command line tool for Cocos2d-x.

Available commands:
        run              Compiles, deploy and run project on the target.
        luacompile       Encrypt and/or compile lua files.
        deploy           Compile and deploy a project to a device/simulator.
        compile          Compile projects to binary.
        gen-simulator    Generate Cocos Simulator.
        new              Creates a new project.
        jscompile        Compile and/or compress js files.

Available arguments:
        -h, --help                      Show this help information.
        -v, --version                   Show the version of this command tool.
        --ol ['en', 'zh', 'zh_tr']      Specify the language of output messages.
        --agreement ['y', 'n']          Skip the agreement with specified value.

Example:
        cocos new --help
        cocos run --help
D:\projects\games>

Create a new project by typing the full command as bellow. Feel free to change the folder as you wish.

PS D:\projects\games> cocos new install_test -p com.games.install_test -l cpp -d .

This will make a project called “install_test” with all the necessary files and sub folders of the Cocos2d-x project in your specified folder!

Since the new release of Cocos2d-x v4.0, CMake is used to create projects and compile under different platforms. That means that the Cocos2d-x projects won’t come with a Visual Studio project file like in the earlier versions. We need to make one manually.

First create a folder that holds the windows build files and go into that folder:

cd install_test
mkdir build_win && cd build_win

Then for Visual Studio 2017 run:

cmake .. -G"Visual Studio 15 2017" -Tv141

Or for Visual Studio 2019 run:

cmake .. -G"Visual Studio 16 2019" -A Win32

Compile and run for Windows

• Run Visual Studio.
• In Visual Studio open the solution (install_test.sln) file from “build_win” folder.
• First build the “ALL_BUILD” project.
• Then right click on “install_test” project and set it as the default project.
• From the tab press on the Local Windows Debugger button and wait for the compile finish and it will run the project.

The resolution will be small because it is not running on any device or device profile. You can change the resolution, but that is for another time!

Next

• Install Xcode
• Install Cocos2d-x 4.0
• Create a new Cocos2d-x project
• Compile and run for iOS
• Compile and run for macOS

As I mentioned in the previous post, I am going to use Cocos2d-x for my game engine. I will install it and make sure it works under different operating systems (macOS, Windows, Linux) and also compiles for different platforms (minus the Android).

In this post I will go through the steps I took to install it on my Macbook Pro!

Install Xcode

First, install Xcode, the native IDE for programming for macOS and iOS.

• Download and install Xcode from the App Store. It is the Apple’s free programming IDE and compiler.
• Now in a new terminal install the Xcode command line tools. The command line tools are not directly necessary to make and compile a Cocos2d-x projects, but it will come handy later in different occasions which you will see later.

xcode-select --install

At this point you can already compile for iOS devices. However to be able to compile for Android devices, You need to install some extra Android related stuff. It includes Apache Ant and Android Studio (and the packages that come with it: Android SDK and Android NDK).

Install Cocos2d-x 4.0

Now that Xcode is installed, it is time to install Cocos2d-x itself:

• Installing Cocos2d-x needs Python 2.7x installed which comes natively on macOS. Check your python version in terminal to see if you have the right version. Mine is 2.7.16.

python --version

• Download Cocos2d-x (cocos2d-x-4.0.zip) from www.cocos2d-x.org and unzip it in a folder that you want it to reside e.g. /Applications/Dev/
• Setup Cocos2d-x by running the setup.py in a terminal from inside of the unzipped folder e.g. /Applications/Dev/cocos2d-x-4.0/

python setup.py

• It sets up some environment variables first as below and then asks for some paths.
  • COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT
  • COCOS_X_ROOT
  • COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT
• If you have Android Studio and Apache Ant installed in your system (in my case they are installed in Dev folder):
  • For NDK_ROOT question, put /Users/rezagn/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle
  • For ANDROID_SDK_ROOT question, put /Users/rezagn/Library/Android/sdk
  • For ANT_ROOT question, put /Applications/Dev/apache-ant-1.10.7/bin

After going through the steps I mentioned above, I have these lines added to my ~/.profile settings file:

# Add environment variable COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT for cocos2d-x 
export COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT=/Applications/Dev/cocos2d-x-4.0/tools/cocos2d-console/bin
export PATH=$COCOS_CONSOLE_ROOT:$PATH 

# Add environment variable COCOS_X_ROOT for cocos2d-x 
export COCOS_X_ROOT="/Applications/Dev" 
export PATH=$COCOS_X_ROOT:$PATH 

# Add environment variable COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT for cocos2d-x 
export COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT=/Applications/Dev/cocos2d-x-4.0/templates
export PATH=$COCOS_TEMPLATES_ROOT:$PATH

# Add environment variable NDK_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export NDK_ROOT="/Users/rezagn/Library/Android/sdk/ndk-bundle"
export PATH=$NDK_ROOT:$PATH

# Add environment variable ANDROID_SDK_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export ANDROID_SDK_ROOT="/Users/rezagn/Library/Android/sdk"
export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT:$PATH
export PATH=$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/tools:$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/platform-tools:$PATH

# Add environment variable ANT_ROOT for cocos2d-x
export ANT_ROOT="/Applications/Dev/apache-ant-1.10.7/bin"
export PATH=$ANT_ROOT:$PATH

If you don’t have these lines, add them to your setup file manually. Remember to replace my username “rezagn” with yours and make sure the paths are correct.

Create a new Cocos2d-x project

To make new projects, we will use the cocos command in the terminal. If you just type cocos and press Enter, you will get the command line options help.

~/Projects/games > cocos

/Applications/Dev/cocos2d-x-4.0/tools/cocos2d-console/bin/cocos.py 2.3 - cocos console: A command line tool for Cocos2d-x.

Available commands:
	run              Compiles, deploy and run project on the target.
	luacompile       Encrypt and/or compile lua files.
	deploy           Compile and deploy a project to a device/simulator.
	compile          Compile projects to binary.
	gen-simulator    Generate Cocos Simulator.
	new              Creates a new project.
	jscompile        Compile and/or compress js files.

Available arguments:
	-h, --help			Show this help information.
	-v, --version			Show the version of this command tool.
	--ol ['en', 'zh', 'zh_tr']	Specify the language of output messages.
	--agreement ['y', 'n']		Skip the agreement with specified value.

Example:
	cocos new --help
	cocos run --help

Create a new project by typing the full command as bellow. Feel free to change the folder as you wish.

cocos new install_test -p com.games.install_test -l cpp -d ~/Projects/

This will make a project called “install_test” with all the necessary files and sub folders of the Cocos2d-x project in your specified folder!

Since the new release of Cocos2d-x v4.0, CMake is used to create projects and compile under different platforms. That means that the Cocos2d-x projects won’t come with an Xcode project file like in the earlier versions. We need to make two different Xcode project files for our newly built Cocos2d-x project which we called “install_test”. One for macOS and one for iOS.

To create an Xcode project for macOS, run these commands in Terminal from inside the “install_test” project folder.

mkdir build_mac && cd build_mac
cmake .. -GXcode
open install_test.xcodeproj

To create an Xcode project for iOS, run these commands in Terminal from inside the “install_test” project folder.

mkdir build_ios && cd build_ios
cmake .. -GXcode -DCMAKE_SYSTEM_NAME=iOS -DCMAKE_OSX_SYSROOT=iphoneos
open install_test.xcodeproj

Compile and run for iOS

• Run Xcode.
• In Xcode open the project file from “ios-build” folder of the project.
• Select an iOS device from the top left. e.g. iPhone 11 Pro Max.

• From the menu go to Product->Run.
• Xcode should build the project with no problems and run it in a simulator window.

Compile and run for macOS

Considering that compiling and running for iOS needs the simulator, it might be easier and faster to do your test and development for macOS instead. To compile for macOS:

• Run Xcode.
• In Xcode open the project file from “proj.ios_mac” folder of the newly created test project.
• Select “test-desktop.app” and “My Mac” as target project and device.

• From menu go to Build->Run the same as you did for iOS and this should run the game.

Next

I will do almost all of my develeopment work in a Mac for iPhone and iPad at the moment. I will not cover Android devices as I like to focus on the more important topics that will help me make a game in the first place.

Also, I’ve realized that with every Android Studio and Gradle update, things stop working and I have to spend too much time to fix things. I am not an Android programmer, but I am sure I can always figure out how to deploy to Android devices when I have a game ready! If you intend to deploy to Android at the end and you are not using a Mac, not need to worry as you can always learn and develop on a Windows or Linux machine without worrying about the device yet.

So, lets focus on Game Engine, Database, AI, Network Programming, Content Creation, etc… first!

We can install Cocos2d-x in macOS, Windows or Linux.

1. Installing Cocos2d-x (macOs)
2. Installing Cocos2d-x (Windows)
3. Installing Cocos2d-x (Linux Mint)

After installing and testing Cocos2d-x, we will go through a quick review of the engine’s features and tools.

I am ready to start working on the game and now it is the time to decide what software, game engine, programming language, database engine, cloud services, graphics software, etc… to use!

I guess whatever I decide now will change when I am actually in the middle of building the game components and parts. But, here is what I have come up with so far to start with:

Image made in MindMeister

C++ and The Game Engine

I have chosen cocos2d-x for the game engine. It is a free open source game engine that is written in C++! It is light, fast and with the language that I like to use. Also it support multiple platforms (iOS and Android) and works in Windows, Mac and Linux!

I have already made a game called Breakanator with cocos2d, the original cousin of cocos2d-x. So, I am familiar with the structure of this game engine. Breakanator is not on the App Store anymore by the way. So, don’t kill yourself trying to find it.

Obviously, there are lots and lots of other ones out there that you can use too. Specially if you are more comfortable to work in a GUI and use a high level scripting language instead of something as cumbersome as C++, then you might want to go with something else, like Unity3D. You could also use CocosCreator!

Python

I will use Python 2.7x for quick tests and for automating stuff. For some parts of the project that will need a lot of experimental coding, like the network, database and AWS stuff, I may also write them in Python first, until it works and then I will switch to C++ for the final code. This way I can save a lot of time, as coding in Python is super fast comparing to C++.

Programing IDE

I will write most of my Python code inside Sublime Text 3.

XCode is the obvious free choice in macOS and iOS world.

Visual Studio Community will be for testing the code inside windows 10.

I think I will need Android Studio to compile and run my game for Android devices. I am not gonna test for Android every time that I have a new class or an update. But I will eventually need to make the game work for Android devices too, so better to be prepared from the beginning.

QtCreator will be my main IDE for Linux, but you can be used in Windows and MacOS.

Graphics Software

I will probably use Adobe Photoshop for image editing and finalizing the sprites, backgrounds, menus, etc…

Adobe Illustrator the first candidate for vector editing, Logos and so on.

Autodesk Maya will be the main 3D package and most of my 3D work will be done in there. I may or may not use SideFX Houdini to create some effects, things like fire, smoke, particles, magic, etc… Although, all that is possible inside Maya too. Lets see how it goes later.

If I need any video clip editing, Final Cut Pro is my favorite editor.

Texture Packer is quite essential to create sprite sheets that help save memory and make the game faster to load and run.

Glyph Designer is to create and export the bitmap fonts that will be used inside the game.

CFXR is a small free tool to create retro sound effects using procedural methods. Quite a handy tool.

I will also need a sound editing software that I will choose later whenever I need it. Also, I used to use Adobe ImageStyler 1.0 extensively in my previous projects, but as it is not supported anymore, I will try to avoid it this time if I can.

Conclusion

I have a basic structure of the tools and work flow to start working on the game. This is not a rock solid map and I am sure I will change the way I work as I go ahead and hit new problems.

I will try to keep this page update as I go ahead.

Next For MacOS

Next For Windows

Next For Linux (Mint)