Cocos Creator - Simplify Game Creation
A downloadable tool for Windows and macOS
Integrated game development tool centered on content creation
Cocos Creator is a script development, entity-component, and data-driven game development tool focused on content creation. It comes with an easy-to-follow content production workflow and a robust suite of developer tools for game logic and high-performance game creation
- All-in-one editor: Includes an all-in-one, extensible editor that simplifies resource management, game debugging and previewing, and multi-platform publishing. Allows designers to participate deeply in the game development process, making quick edits and iterations during the game development cycle. Support for Windows and Mac systems.
- 2D and 3D: Supports both 2D and 3D game development with features that meet the specific needs of your various game types. Deep optimization of the editor experience and engine performance of pure 2D games and built-in support for middleware such as Spine, DragonBones, TiledMap, Box2D, and Texture Packer.
- Open source engine: Cocos Creator's engine is completely open source with high performance, customizability, ease of debugging, easy to learn, and small package size.
- Cross-platform: Cocos Creator supports all major platforms allowing games to be quickly released to the web, iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, and various mini-game platforms. A pure JavaScript-developed engine runtime is available on the web and mini-game platforms for better performance and smaller packages. On other native platforms, C++ implements the underlying framework, providing greater operational efficiency.
- TypeScript: You can use TypeScript to develop games, quickly preview and debug on real machines, and update your published games.
- Efficient workflow: Cocos Creator prefabs are pre-configured game objects that provide an efficient and flexible workflow that allows designers to confidently create their work without worrying about time-consuming mistakes.
- UI: The built-in UI system allows you to create user interfaces quickly and intuitively.
- Custom tools: You can extend the editor functionality to match your team's workflow with a variety of tools you need. Create or add custom plugins or find the resources you need in the plugin store. There are hundreds of examples, tools, and plugins in the plugin store that can help you speed up your project.
Learn more at our website: https://www.cocos.com/en
Free Tutorials available on YouTube:
Download
Install instructions
To use Cocos Creator, you will need to download and install the Cocos Dashboard. You will also need to create a username and password for your account. It's free to create.
When you open the Cocos Dashboard, you will be able to open new projects, install multiple versions of Cocos Creator, read about news, updates, and blog postings, and check the documentation for Cocos Creator.
To start, open the Editor section and click the Download button. This allows you to choose which version to download. You may have to install Microsoft Visual Studio Code as well to edit code for Windows users. This is done by request from the program. Mac users can continue to use Xcode.
Once you have downloaded both the Cocos Creator engine and your code editor, you can go to the Project section and add new projects.
Once a new project is created, you will be sent to Cocos Creator to begin creating your game.
Development log
- Message from our teamSep 13, 2023
- Insane Graphic And New Upgrades Make Cocos Creator 3.8 IncredibleAug 03, 2023
- New First Game Tutorial!Mar 03, 2023
- Bringing more stability to Cocos Creator with 3.7.1Feb 28, 2023
- Cocos Creator 3.7.0 Brings More ImprovementsFeb 09, 2023
- Major Improvements In Development Come With Cocos Creator 3.6Aug 19, 2022
- Cocos Creator For Nintendo SwitchJun 30, 2022
- We Bring Mega Optimization To Cocos Creator 3.5May 07, 2022
Comments
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Followed this engine for years, and I can tell you that it is the real deal (solid tools too). There are quite a lot of games built upon the cocos2d and cocos2d-x frameworks.
Question:
I'm making an adult game (18+, and it is xxx rated), and cocos creator is one of the tools I intend to use to make it. I wanted to ask if such a game is forbidden according to the User License (or EULA) ? Are there any restrictions on the type of game that can be made ?
Thanks
Not really as long as it doesn't disparage the game engine, our company, or our employees.
Thank you so much for your response. And the adult titles will not disparage your company or employees in anyway. If anything, it will showcase the capabilities of the engine in a positive way.
I've been using the Cocos Engine/Creator now as my main game development engine since the start of this year, and I must say you guys have done a FINE job with it. I'm really impressed that without having to look at the documentation, I was able to pretty much build the UI for the game with the required animations.
Yes, being able to use the Cocos Creator easily comes from my previous knowledge and experience from using various other game engines. But what you guys have done here is very impressive: You have created an engine for programmers and designers (I do both).
I'm working on my next project using Cocos, and I was able to build a scene in about 1hr 30mins. Everything I needed to work on the project is there (especially with the special effects).
While there is still much to learn about the engine, figuring out how things work was a very intuitive process.
Good Job !
I was a little gobsmacked at just how much RAM this thing eats, on top of having to compile and package the finished game yourself if you don't fork over extra money for an exporter tool. I think I'll stick with the other 8 engines that offer that feature for free lol.
I'm not sure what you mean. We don't have a paid exporter tool and the memory used in Cocos Creator is quite low compared to other high-level game engines. If you have any issues, you can contact us at our forums or on our Discord.
Also exporting is not that hard compared to other engines, what were you exporting to?
I'll explain what lead me to believe this, because the Cocos website is vague.
Upon installing the Cocos dashboard I'm told "to compile native projects you'll need Visual Studio and C++ common tools". From what I know, Visual Studio (as opposed to Visual Studio Code) is what you use when compiling and packaging a program - which I don't like using because I've found it uses up way more of my computers resources and isn't as simple as hitting 'export' in any other game engine and having the engine do the work, which I believe is a common feature in game engines. So, I went to the Cocos site again and looked at the "Cocos Runtime" page, which has a 'contact us' option and no other useful information - this led me to believe that in order to have access to an easier in-engine compiler/exporter, I'd have to pay for it (I can't stress this enough, the website is very vague).
Regarding the resource usage of Cocos itself, I opened up the editor and checked my task manager. It was using from 2500-3000mb of RAM as opposed to 1500mb for Unity, 1300mb for Godot and around 400mb for engines like ct.js, NRG, Fusion 2.5 etc.
I really don't know what else to tell you, apart from this is what I've been led to believe based on what I've seen on the site and what I've experienced with the engine. I'm running on Windows 11 by the way.
Let me go with this step by step, We do need a C++ runtime for building to native. It should be installed automatically when you install the engine or already there when you installed VSC or other programming work. You can see how to export to native platforms here.
https://docs.cocos.com/creator/manual/en/editor/publish/native-options.html
Cocos Runtime is a different product for large app developers that allows you to add an HTML5-wrapper into your app so that you can add a gaming area to your app that improves the playability of these games. Mostly used for WeChat, Taobao, and other apps. This is an option for export in the engine, but currently not many options for western developers who do not want to bring games to China.
As of the memory usage, I'll check with the team on this and give them feedback. Thank you for your message, we take these issues seriously and work to improve the engine with every iteration.
hey can anyone pls recommend me where to start pls
We have a fun tutorial for you to try out from our YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbvpmJKjO3NA4dlW43GzhJUMaXyIp3xpc
thank you
Hi! I was wondering if you have in mind doing a Linux version?
Sadly we can't do a Linux version.
:(
Hey Cocos How Games in Itch.io Maded Using Cocos Creator
The Answer: 0 Games looooooooooooool
Hope to have a few added to this awesome community, but we do have a lot of games built with Cocos. Check our compilation video for 2020:
i talk about the cocos creator first and i talk about itch.io games not other platforms!
I was also wondering if you have to know how to code to use this game engine
TypeScript with Cocos Creator. But you can use JavaScript for plug-ins and other side items. The engine itself uses C++ and is open-source.
I was looking at this game engine and was wondering can you build 3D games as well and more spicily VR games?
Full 3D is coming with Cocos Creator 3.0. We are looking into VR support, but nothing we can share publically
ah ok that's great to here tho and also are you going to have visual scripting support for 3D as well as 2D game buildings
and has anyone made A VR support addon yet??
cool editor!
You will need to do some scripting as we are not a "no-code" engine. But we have some scripts pre-made for you as well as commonly used items like labels and buttons all setup and ready for adding to your game.