Swift is the perfect choice for game development. Developers are intrigued by Swift and want to make use of new features to develop their best games yet. Packed with best practices and easy-to-use examples, this book leads you step-by-step through the development of your first Swift game.
The book starts by introducing Swift's newest and best features for game development. Using SpriteKit, you will learn how to animate sprites and textures. Along the way, you will master the physics, animations, collision effects and required to build the UI aspects of the game.
You will then work on creating a 3D game using the SceneKit framework. You will see how to add monetization and integrate Game Center. Then you will dive into creating augmented reality (AR) games using SpriteKit and SceneKit.
Finally, you will see how to create a Multipeer AR project to connect two devices and send and receive data back and forth between the devices in real time.
By the end of this book, you will be able to create your own iOS games using Swift and publish them on the iOS App Store.
The book is targeted at new and intermediate developers who want to update their knowledge about the changes in the new version of Swift and want to learn about the new ARKit framework for making AR games for iOS using Xcode 10.
Chapter 1, Designing Games with Swift, introduces you to the best features of Swift, outlines what is new in Swift 3, helps you set up your development environment, and launches your first SpriteKit project.
Chapter 2, Sprites, Camera, Action!, teaches you the basics of drawing and animating with Swift. You will draw sprites, import textures into your project, and center the camera on the main character.
Chapter 3, Mix in the Physics, covers the physics simulation fundamentals: physics bodies, impulses, forces, gravity, collisions, and more.
Chapter 4, Adding Controls, explores the various methods of mobile game controls: device tilt and touch input. We will also improve the camera and core gameplay of our example game.
Chapter 5, Spawning Enemies, Coins, and Power-ups, introduces the cast of characters we use in our example game and shows you how to create custom classes for each NPC type.
Chapter 6, Generating a Never-Ending World, explores the SpriteKit scene editor, builds encounters for the example game, and creates a system to loop encounters endlessly.
Chapter 7, Implementing Collision Events, delves into advanced physics simulation topics and adds custom events when sprites collide.
Chapter 8, Polishing to a Shine – HUD, Parallax Backgrounds, Particles, and More, adds the extra fun that makes every game shine. In this chapter, you will learn how to create parallax backgrounds, learn about SpriteKit's particle emitters, and add a heads-up display overlay to your games.
Chapter 9, Adding Menus and Sounds, builds a basic menu system and illustrates two methods of playing sounds in your games.
Chapter 10, Standing Out in the Crowd with Advanced Features, shows you how to combine the techniques you have learned to build advanced gameplay systems.
Chapter 11, Introduction to SceneKit, explains how to create a basic 3D game using the SceneKit framework.
Chapter 12, Choosing a Monetization Strategy, outlines the strategies available to indie developers who want to make money from their games.
Chapter 13 , Integrating with Game Center, links our example game to the Apple Game Center for leaderboards, achievements, and friendly challenges.
Chapter 14 , Introduction to SpriteKit in ArKit, gives an introduction to how to make an AR game using Arkit and SpriteKit.
Chapter 15 , Introduction to SceneKit in ArKit, demonstrates how to make a 3D augmented reality game using SceneKit and Arkit.
Chapter 16, Ship It! Preparing for the App Store and Publication, covers the essentials of packaging your game and submitting it to the App Store.
Chapter 17, Multipeer Augmented Reality, shows you how to create a multiplayer AR project to connect two devices in real time so they can send and receive data.
This book uses the Xcode IDE version 10 (Swift 4.2). If you use a different version of Xcode, you will likely encounter syntax differences; Apple is constantly upgrading Swift's syntax. You can use Xcode's Edit | Convert | To Current Swift Syntax to update the code examples in this book to a newer version of Xcode.
Visit https://developer.apple.com/xcode/to download Xcode.
You will need an Apple developer account to integrate your apps with Game Center and submit your games to the App Store.
To run ARKit games you will need an iPhone SE or higher, a fifth-generation iPad, or an iPad Pro. To run the Multipeer AR project you will need two devices because it can't be tested on an emulator.
You can download the example code files for this book from your account at http://www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.
You can download the code files by following these steps:
Log in or register at http://www.packt.com.
Select the SUPPORT tab.
Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the on-screen instructions.
Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:
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The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Swift-Game-Development-Third-Edition. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. For example; "Locate the Enemies folder in the downloadable asset bundle."
A block of code is set as follows:
import SpriteKit
class Coin: SKSpriteNode, GameSprite {
var initialSize = CGSize(width: 26, height: 26)
var textureAtlas: SKTextureAtlas =
SKTextureAtlas(named: "Environment")
var value = 1When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
import SpriteKit
import ARKit
class Scene: SKScene {
var crosshair: SKSpriteNode!
let scoreText = SKLabelNode(text: "00")
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, also appear in the text like this. For example: "Select System info from the Administration panel."
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