Sparrow iOS Game Framework Beginner's Guide

Book Image

Sparrow iOS Game Framework Beginner's Guide

By : Stein

Book Image

Sparrow iOS Game Framework Beginner's Guide

By: Stein

Overview of this book

An easy-to-follow guide full of descriptive step-by-step procedures on how to develop a game for iOS. With each topic, a new challenge will be tackled to get a deeper knowledge of the Sparrow game framework and gain the skills to develop a complete mobile experience. This book is aimed at those who have always wanted to create their own games for iOS devices. Perhaps you've already dabbled in game development and want to know how to develop games for the Apple App Store, or maybe you have developed Objective-C apps in the past but you are new to game development. In either case, this book will help with descriptive examples and teach you to develop a game throughout its course. Some experience in Objective-C and a basic understanding of object-oriented programming are required.

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Time for action – heading

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Getting Started with Sparrow

1. Getting Started with Sparrow

Understanding the basics of Sparrow

System requirements

Setting up the Apple developer account

Downloading Xcode

Downloading Sparrow

Contents of the Sparrow package

Setting up Sparrow

Time for action – adding Sparrow as a source tree reference

Time for action – using the barebone project as a template

Time for action – installing command-line tools

Time for action – installing CocoaPods

Time for action – using the barebone project as a template

Running the template on the actual device

Time for action – running the template on the actual device

Getting Sparrow documentation files

Time for action – adding the Sparrow API documentation to Xcode

The idea for the game

Code conventions

2. Displaying Our First Objects

2. Displaying Our First Objects

Understanding display objects

Setting the background color

Time for action – changing the background color

Creating our cardboard puppet doll

Time for action – creating a cardboard puppet doll

Explaining macros

Manipulating display objects

Time for action – manipulating display objects

3. Managing Assets and Scenes

3. Managing Assets and Scenes

Working with assets

Managing our assets

Time for action – creating a base class

Creating a texture manager

Time for action – managing our textures

Creating a sound manager

Time for action – implementing a sound manager

Creating a file manager

Time for action – managing remaining file types

Time for action – getting started with basic error handling

Putting it all together

Time for action – creating an asset container class

Time for action – displaying an image

What are scenes?

Time for action – implementing a scene class

Creating a scene director

Time for action – managing our scenes with a scene director

4. The Basics of Our Game

4. The Basics of Our Game

Taking care of cross-device compatibility

Starting with the development of our game

Creating our scene manager setup

Time for action – creating our scene manager setup

Adding images to the battlefield scene

Time for action – adding images to the battlefield scene

Arranging images in the pirate cove scene

Time for action – arranging images in the pirate cove scene

5. Beautifying Our Game

5. Beautifying Our Game

Working with tweens

Time for action – moving the pirate ship

Time for action – updating the movement

Working with sprite sheets

Learning about texture formats

Time for action – loading our first texture atlas

6. Adding Game Logic

6. Adding Game Logic

Extending the asset manager

Time for action – adding texture atlases to the asset manager

Structuring our ships

Time for action – creating a ship class

Extending the ship class

Time for action – adding more functionality to the ship class

Shooting cannonballs

Time for action – allowing the ship to shoot cannonballs

Collision detection

Time for action – letting cannonballs collide with ships

Loading gameplay-relevant data

Time for action – avoiding hardcoded values

7. User Interface

7. User Interface

Displaying the hit points of each ship

Time for action – placing a health bar on top of each ship

Adding buttons to the screen

Time for action – putting buttons on the screen

Time for action – allowing the player to pause and resume

Time for action – conceding the game

Adding dialogs to the screen

Time for action – creating a dialog class

Adding custom events to the dialogs

Time for action – adding our own buttons to our dialog

Drawing text on the screen

Time for action – adding a text field to the dialog

Time for action – using bmGlyph to create a bitmap font

Time for action – using our bitmap font for a text field

8. Artificial Intelligence and Game Progression

8. Artificial Intelligence and Game Progression

Artificial intelligence in theory

Letting the enemy ship move and attack

Time for action – getting the enemy ship to move around

Time for action – the enemy should attack the player

Time for action – spicing up the AI with fuzzy values

Adding progression to our game

Time for action – adding a World class

Time for action – updating the scene and dialog classes

Time for action – making the pirate cove playable

Adding win and lose conditions

Time for action – being able to win or lose

9. Adding Audio to Our Game

9. Adding Audio to Our Game

Finding music and sound

Adding audio playback

Time for action – getting audio files to play

Time for action – playing music in our scenes

Time for action – sound effects in the pirate cove

10. Polishing Our Game

10. Polishing Our Game

Adding additional scenes

Time for action – showing the game over scene

Time for action – having the game over scene show up

Time for action – integrating the main menu into our game

Time for action – creating an intro for our game

Implementing tutorial mechanics

Time for action – adding a tutorial to our intro scene

Loading and saving the current state

Time for action – loading and saving the last played game

11. Integrating Third-party Services

11. Integrating Third-party Services

Getting word out to potential testers

Time for action – integrating Ubertesters

Time for action – creating a build for beta testers

Time for action – deploying an application

Explaining Game Center

Time for action – integrating Game Center authentication

An overview of analytics services

A. Pop Quiz Answers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Sparrow

Chapter 2, Displaying Our First Objects

Chapter 3, Managing Assets and Scenes

Chapter 4, The Basics of Our Game

Chapter 5, Beautifying Our Game

Chapter 6, Adding Game Logic

Chapter 7, User Interface

Chapter 8, Artificial Intelligence and Game Progression

Chapter 9, Adding Audio to Our Game

Chapter 10, Polishing Our Game

Chapter 11, Integrating Third-party Services

Afterword

Index

Customer Reviews

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Time for action – letting cannonballs collide with ships

To check if cannonballs collide against the enemy ship, follow these steps:

Open the Ship.h file.
We need to add custom getters and setters to the hitpoints property, so let's make this property nonatomic and add an instance variable called _hitpoints.
Declare the methods abortShooting and hit.
Switch to the Ship.m file.
The custom hitpoints getter just returns the instance variable _hitpoints.

The custom setter for hitpoints contains the following code:

-(void) setHitpoints:(int)hitpoints
{
    _hitpoints = hitpoints;
    if (_hitpoints <= 0) {
        self.visible = NO;
    }
}

The abortShooting method consists of the following lines:

-(void) abortShooting
{
    _isShooting = NO;
    
    [Sparrow.juggler removeObjectsWithTarget:self.cannonBallLeft];
    [Sparrow.juggler removeObjectsWithTarget:self.cannonBallRight];
    
    self.cannonBallLeft.visible = NO;
    self.cannonBallRight.visible = NO;
}

The hit method has the following content...