Thinking about my favorite games before the appearance of the 32-bit video consoles, I can remember several beat 'em up titles such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Captain Commando, Target Renegade, Double Dragon, Final Fight, Battletoads, Golden Axe, and Streets of Rage.

This genre of games became very popular during the 80s and 90s, but even though they lost popularity due to the rise of the fifth generation of video consoles, they are still alive on smartphones. However, this presents a handicap: the lack of game controllers on these devices; that's why it's common to include a virtual joystick in the game to control the main character.

In this chapter, you will learn how to create a beat 'em up game available just for iPad devices. Sometimes you will need to restrict your game to the iPad family devices, for example, because you need a bigger screen. In our case, the reason is we want to show a virtual game pad.

Throughout the chapter, I will show you...