Apple Watch as Gaming Platform - Use the Digital Crown to control sprite movement for a Pong like game

Use the Digital Crown to control sprite movement

Welcome to my new WatchKit tutorial. Today I'll show that it is possible to use the Apple Watch as a gaming platform. First let's look back to the first WatchKit versions. They have been very limited in terms of possible input controls. A typical game was usually built with a number of WkInterfaceButtons and looked like this:

Since WatchKit 2 it is possible to use the Digital Crown for custom apps. This provides way more possibilities for great games, like this Watch Ping Pong version created by me.
I'll publish the Source Code as OpenSource in my GitHub repository, once I have reached 1000 downloads. Currently only 986 to go ;-)

How to add Social Media Integration to your iOS App

Welcome to my new SWIFT tutorial. Today I'll show you how to implement social media integration for Facebook and Twitter. Additionally I'll explain Email integration and how to embed a direct  AppStore link to provide a convenient way for players to rate an app.

My latest game in the AppStore contains a sample:

The four buttons at the bottom of the screen trigger the social actions:

How to implement a space shooter with SpriteKit and SWIFT - Part 7: iAd integration

Adding iAd integration

Welcome to part 7 of my swift programming tutorial. In the previous parts we've created sprites, added movement, enemies with a follow behaviour, bullets & shooting, a HUD, collision detection, sound & particle effects and a global leaderboard using Game Center. Today I'll show how to integrate the Apple Advertising Framework iAD:

• Enable iAd in iTunesConnect
• Add a Banner Ad (at the bottom of the screen)
• Add a Fullscreen Ad (after game over)

How to implement a space shooter with SpriteKit and SWIFT - Part 6: Game Center integration

Adding Game Center integration

Welcome to part 6 of my swift programming tutorial. In the previous parts we've created sprites, added movement, created enemies which follow our sprite, added bullets, a HUD, collision detection, sound and particle effects. Today I'll show how to integrate Game Center to add a global leaderboard.

The most complex part is doing configuration stuff in iTunes Connect. 3 from 4 steps of this tutorial are related to that. You need a paid Apple Developer Account to execute the next steps:

• Upload our App to iTunes Connect  
• Create a Leaderboard in iTunes Connect 
• Create a Sandbox Test User in iTunes Connect
• Coding 

How to implement a space shooter with SpriteKit and SWIFT - Part 4: Collision Detection

Adding basic game logic and collision detection

Welcome to part 4 of my tutorial series. In the previous parts we've created a sprite, added movement, created enemies which follow our sprite, added bullets and a HUD. But, for a real game some essential parts are missing:

• Collision detection between the bullets and our sprite
• Basic game logic
• Scoring
• Pause
• Life Lost & Game Over

I'll show how to implement this today. As a starting point you can download the code from tutorial part 3 here. 

How to implement a space shooter with SpriteKit and SWIFT - Part 3: Create a HUD

Adding a HUD with SpriteKit and SWIFT

Tutorial Overview:

• Part 1: Initial project setup, sprite creation and movement using SKAction and SKConstraint

• Part 2: Adding enemies, bullets and shooting with SKAction and SKConstraint

• Part 3: Adding a HUD with SKLabelNode and SKSpriteNode

• Part 4: Adding basic game logic and collision detection

• Part 5: Adding particles and sound 

• Part 6: GameCenter integration

• Part 7: iAd integration

• Part 8: In-App Purchases

Add the HUD:

I'll add a simple HUD which shows the score, the remaining lifes and a pause button. As a starting point you can download the code from tutorial part 2 here. 

First of all let's fix a bug in the sample code of my last post. Open GameViewController.swift and move the code from viewDidLoad to viewDidAppear. This is necessary because the orientation change to landscape might not be completed. In this case width and height are inverted, if we determine them in viewDidLoad:

Writing games is more fun than writing a blog post: New teaser video for my upcoming tutorial

Sorry, I love writing blog posts, but this time I have written a small game instead of completing my tutorial. Here's another short teaser video:

That's all for today. The complete code will be available at GitHub soon.

Cheers,
Stefan

Follow @StefanJosten

Kick off for my new Tutorial: How to implement a space shooter with SpriteKit and SWIFT

I'm preparing a new tutorial: 

My goal is to implement a complete space shooter with SpriteKit and SWIFT.

Planned content is:

• Part 1: Initial project setup, sprite creation and movement using SKAction and SKConstraint

• Part 2: Adding enemies, bullets and shooting with SKAction and SKConstraint

• Part 3: Adding a HUD with SKLabelNode and SKSpriteNode

• Part 4: Adding basic game logic and collision detection

• Part 5: Adding particles and sound 

• Part 6: GameCenter integration

• Part 7: iAd integration

• Part 8: In-App Purchases

Here's a short teaser video:

The sample code will be available on GitHub

That's all for today.

Cheers,
Stefan

Follow @StefanJosten

HowTo: Implement endless scrolling

Welcome to Part 4 of my blog series about game development.

Today I'm showing how to implement an endless scrolling which is typical for Jump & Run games. 

First of all you need a background with 3 sections like the one shown below:

Section 1 and 3 must be identical and have to fit on the whole screen.