Question

I have to develop an application "Behavior like an Tetris game".

I have never used "OpenGL" for the iPhone application developement.

Application is something like this

* Red / green / blue square boxes drop from top
* Red + Red + Red = Points & boxes disappears
* same way user has to make combination & get points
* Different levels are there.
* There are three buttons Left, Right for movement & bottom for speedy fall

For this kind of application should I use open GL or NOT?

i.e. Is it possible to develop entire application with view & it's animation? If yes then, will it be more complex as compare to open gl?

What is the advantage of using open GL? (I know that it gives good 2d, 3d look ) (But here my question means - easy coding?) (Or open gl is more complicated as compare to objective-c?) (I am just asking because I am not aware of it)

Answer 1

I'd also think strongly about learning either OpenGL, or one of the popular game engines that handles 2D (the most widley used being Cocos2D).

However, if you still wanted to explore the Core Animation route, that seems like it would be practical for what you are trying to do - take a look at this great demo code that shows a range of Core Animation examples (got this from 360iDev, an iPhone conference that just finished in Denver):

http://github.com/neror/CA360

If you don't have GIT installed, there are very good tutorial instructions on github (the site above) that tell you how to download and install it.

Answer 2

To evaluate this exact question, we did our first prototype game on top of CoreAnimation. It became clear to us that for our needs OpenGL was a way better choice. CoreAnimation is a higher-level library, thus if the animations that it provides are not exactly what you need, micromanaging and combining animations is a royal pain in the ass.

Investigate if CoreAnimation provides stuff that you need and then it could be a choice. Despite that advice, I would still use Cocos2D for your game, it provides much more infrastructure for game development than CoreAnimation and hides OpenGL details.

Answer 3

I'd go with Open GL because it's a better investment of your time in the long run. CoreAnimation might work for your needs now... but knowing Open GL will allow you to greatly expand, customize, etc your game(s) in the future.

I'd recommend starting with the CrashLanding sample code from Apple. Just search for it on the web since I don't think it's on Apple's site anymore.