This is a Chipmunk Physics tutorial that shows you how you can use Chipmunk Pro in a top-down, tile-based game. The tutorial covers an easy way to set up controls and an easy way to generate the collision shape of a tilemap.
This tutorial continues where Ray Wenderlich's tile based tutorial leaves off. You might want to read that one first.
Add retina graphics. Oops!
Chipmunk (the C-API) is free and open source software. Chipmunk Pro (including the Objective-C binding and optimized solver) is what we've built on top of Chipmunk. Chipmunk Pro can help you save a lot of time as it plugs into the usual Objective C memory model and familiar APIs. It even works seemlessly with ARC. You can learn more here: http://chipmunk-physics.net/chipmunkPro.php