An outburst about CocosCreator

Off Topic
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I’ve been working with Cocos since 2015 when I started to work for the company that I work until now. I started with cocos2d-js + Cocos Studio. It was a little complicated to export the scene in one software, and code/build in other, but it did the trick. The js -> cpp interpretation (then the build for java/objective-C) was really annoying and gave me a lot of headache.

I don’t know how much time I worked with 2d-js, but then I went to work with Unity for something between 1~2 years.

When I came back to Cocos, back in 2017, it was already on CocosCreator 1.6.1. The jump from 2d-js to CC was really good, finally an visual editor that I could drag the code for the nodes, had scene structure, could code in JS, yay!

I really enjoyed the CC, almost became an evangelist in my college, always talking about it with the people interested in games, gave some workshops, and so on. I really hoped that cocos community grew up, so we could help each other. But it didn’t.

The hard part was not even convincing to use it over Unity, it was that it will work as designed. The most common complaint was that the documentation said that this element will work some way, but it didn’t. And it was not only in my college, every new teammate that started a new project on Creator had the same complaint. The amount of workarounds that we talked to my teammates, was like, as we say in Brazil, we were stepping in eggs, always avoiding some approaches because it will break that way.

I’m using the 1.9 version from the week that it launched, but the iOS change in its libraries made we port the game for some more recent version. First I went to 2.3.3, then when 2.4 launched was a dream coming true because it will solve a lot of problems with distribution over our projects.

And now I am facing this lack of reliability, but without that joy that I had when I met CC, neither with the hope that some day it will be better. What looks like to me is that the priority is to implement as much feature as possible in the shortest amount of time, but not caring at all if something will break in the way and/or what is being released is really working.

OK, I get that fast releases is a good thing, CC is way behind other engines in the number of features and this is something to run as fast as it can, we are all software developers after all, but hell, even that, we don’t have an schedule of the next releases with was intended for that version! And the patch releases only with adding a new build target really doesn’t help!

I’ll continue to work with CC because my work needs to, keeping my eye on where it is going and trying to make my best to get as much as it can offer. But today, if someone ask me what engine I would recommend, Cocos is not one of them.

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In the beginning i was also very enthusiastic. But after many update releases, suddenly many thing didnt work. And there was / is also a lack of documentation, sadly. I just found out, that in the chinese forum, you got more infos / help .But i can only ready math or with google-translate. There is also some other Engine they are working on: its called : CocosCreator 3D. I am not sure what the difference is between the CC2D and CC3D. I guess its the coding language. You can not find it here, or on the official western main-page. Somehow i found it only via a hidden link to the dashBoard downloader. Anyways … i just wanted to say: … there are to less information / help for this good engine. Sadly. Hope it will change.

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Cocos Creator 2.x is 2D and Cocos Creator 3D will be 3D. Eventually, 2D and 3D are merging to a single products. This work has already begun.

You can only find it on the Chinese forums because it isn’t ready for use outside of China yet. There will be a public beta sometime in August. This is intentional.

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I’m sorry that you feel this way. Sadly, we aren’t a huge company with a thousand people working on a product, like Unity and Unreal. We don’t have the most resources compared to others. How we succeed is focusing on the most important aspects of each and every release.

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I’m keeping one eye on the Chinese forum too, when I’m face some huge problem usually I search there too. One thing that I do here that I don’t there is open frequently to see what’s going on.

For now, I’m not looking forward on Cocos3D, it’s extremely rare for me work with 3D, most of my work is 2D or 2.5D.

But the simple fact that it is not even mentioned that this product exists in this forum really bother me too. And looks like it is not lack of translation, most prints shows that the english localization is there. Same with alpha, beta and RC versions of CC and 2d-x

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Yeah, I know that. But seems like you, as company, are trying to chase the amount of features that these engines have, and doing so the quality of the engine is going down. And what we expect is the exactly oppose. If we wanted the amount of features that Unity or Unreal has, we would go for it.

What we want for cocos, and saying that I mean what I saw in this forum, is a good, light and reliable 2D engine. The one that I could say “Hey, are you making a simple game? Use this!”

1 Like
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But it doesn’t exist yet. It’s a limited beta right now with a public beta sometime this month.

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But this isn’t our goal. We aren’t a game engine for just simple flappy bird clones. There are large studios using Creator. We want to accommodate new developers as well as seasoned teams.

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We don’t chase anyone. We add the features we think make sense and that developers will need versus a kitchen sink approach.

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OK, I’ll not discuss your goals/strategies, you know what is best for you. Just, please, consider 2 this

  • Take more care with the reliability
  • Be more engaged with the english forum as the chinese one. We also want to be part of beta tests, and to look forward of what is coming, even with the CC3D
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You were never being left out. You just made an assumption, publicly, and it’s not what you think.

English beta comes this month.

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@ slackmoehrle , thanks for info. I understand it, if you are a small team. Therefore first things, first, like you said. CC seems to be very promising. Would like to see it as a robust game engine. Where every feature works as supposed. I am a bit sad, that i cant use “normal maps” as they are available inside the material channel. No chance to got them work. There is even not any example scene / demo for this feature !!! This is why i think its better to turn off such features (in alpha?). Otherwise i always looking inside new releases if this feature is fixed / available. Sadly from 2.34 until now its not. This makes people confused !

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@ Randomzord
It doesnt matter if its 3D. You can make 2D from a 3D-Game engine. Like in unity every 2D stuff is mapped onto 3D-polygon planes. Try the CC3D out. Maybe it works a lil bit better for your needs. You need to use the “Dashboard” to download it. inside a CMD type this here :

CocosDashboard.exe cocos-dashboard://download/3d_1.1.0

You need to look out, if there is a newer version. It was an older download i did.

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For now I didn’t see any features that pop out my eyes to really want to try it, specially if I will need the translator by my side. But sure, some day I’ll definitely try it. (Or not, if the plans are to merge it into CC, I’ll use the CC version)

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There was an other engine, called “QICI Engine” from chinese devs. It was really well polished. But suddenly after v.1.16 it died. Really sad. I hope CC will do right things for the future !

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I’ve never heard of this engine before. I’ll look it up.

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I think its still on gitHub. Grab a version and try it out :grinning:. Really well polished game engine. Their main site seems to be down.