Paul Nygard - Creating Games with cocos2d for iPhone 2

Paul Nygard has been a computer and technology enthusiast since he was introduced to his first computer at the age of six. He has spent most of his professional life building reporting and analytical systems for a large company. After teaching himself Objective-C in 2010, he has focused most of his attention on iOS programming. Paul created a personal development label, Troll Cave Games (http://www.trollcavegames.com), to release his mobile gaming efforts. Paul also works as a consultant and developer-for-hire for visionaries in need of a coder. In his leisure time, Paul is passionate about games, books, and music.

I would like to thank my family for their support and for allowing me to hide in my troll cave and pursue my passions. This book is for you!

I would also like to thank Ricardo Quesada and Steve Oldmeadow, for all their hard work on cocos2d and cocosDenshion. They have helped to mold a new generation of developers by giving us all a wonderful world to play in. And to the cocos2d community: I have never seen such a large group of developers so eager to help each other along. Thanks for the support, advice, and humor over the years.

Dave Hersey has over 35 years of experience in Apple software development, dating back to the Apple II personal computer in 1977. After a successful career of more than 6 years at Apple Computer, Inc., Dave started Paracoders, Inc. in 2000 focusing on custom Mac OS X-based application and driver development. In 2008, Dave's business expanded into iOS (iPhone) mobile applications, followed by Android applications soon after. Some bigger-named clients include Paramount Home Entertainment, Lionsgate Entertainment, Seagate, Creative Labs, and Kraft. Most recently, Dave's business expansion has included additional mobile and server-side platforms as well as support services. This has led to rebranding his company as "Torchlight Apps" (http://www.torchlightapps.com).

Dave is also a moderator and active participant on the cocos2d-iphone.org forums under the username clarus when he's not busy with his wife raising three children, three dogs, three parakeets, four ducks, and seven ducklings at last count.

Marcio Valenzuela P is a biochemist who has studied programming as a hobby for over 12 years. He is perseverant, auto-didactic, and is always looking into the latest technologies. Marcio started by picking up ASP back in the early 1990s as Chief Web Developer for a consulting company that developed web applications for private companies. He also delved into PHP applications with a MySQL database backend. Then in 2008 he started his path down iOS and has had experience developing applications and games for the platform. His experience is mostly in business applications where there exists a cloud-based web service to interact with and more recently in games created in cocos2d.

Marcio is cofounder of Activasolutions.com and currently runs a small iOS project called Santiapps.com, which programs for companies wishing to enter the iOS platform. Marcio is a forum moderator at RayWenderlich.com.

I would like to acknowledge the time I have taken from raising my son to dedicate to this book. I just hope someday Santiago follows in the programming tradition as it fosters critical skills such as problem solving and innovation which is something we share.