What this book covers

This book contains six chapters that will guide you through the process of creating a video game with the tools provided by SpriteKit. At the same time, you will learn how to deal with the common difficulties that you may come across when developing games and how to apply the techniques that you learn here to give a stunning look to an app.

Chapter 1, The First Steps toward SpriteKit, covers the basics of developing a game with SpriteKit. In this chapter, you will learn what a game engine is and what a new SpriteKit project looks like. In addition to this, you will learn the purpose of the SKNode and SKScene classes and how to utilize them to add a background and a sprite into the game.

Chapter 2, What Makes a Game a Game?, shows the main techniques used in game development, such as moving sprites on the scene, detecting touches, and handling collisions. In addition to this, you will learn how to create and update labels and play music and sound effects.

Chapter 3, Taking Games One Step Further, teaches advanced techniques such us how to create complex nodes by extending the SKNode class or implement the parallax effect. You will also learn how to draw geometrical primitives and animate sprites.

Chapter 4, From Basic to Professional Games, helps us provide our game with the needed components to consider it as a finished product. You will learn how to create a Game Over condition for the game and a main menu scene from where you will learn how to transition to a tutorial that you will create for players so that they know the mechanism of the game. You will also learn how to save and load data from internal and external sources.

Chapter 5, Utilizing the Hardware and Graphics Processor, teaches you how to get the most advantage from the hardware of physical devices using the accelerometer or creating stunning visual effects by adding shaders, lights, and shadows into a game.

Chapter 6, Auxiliary Techniques, covers the development of special effects, which are also known as particle systems, and ways to combine SpriteKit with UIKit in order to create robust games and dynamic apps. You will also learn how to use third-party tools to create custom audio and fonts and find resources that can be used in games.