With gaming apps being one of the leading categories in the iTunes Store, it’s no surprise iOS games are fairly straight forward to develop; it’s just a matter of understanding exactly what type of game you wish to create and getting started. Whether you have some iOS development experience or none at all, there are many online resources which can guide you through the process to start developing gaming applications for the iPhone and iPad. Here are a few of the most noteworthy resources worth checking out.
1) MakeSchool
MakeSchool offers both in-person and online courses for students who wish to launch a career in technology, but what makes MakeSchool’s online academy so unique is their entire section dedicated to iOS game development. The online courses will take you through fun projects such as building your own clone of Angry Birds, Flappy Bird, creating iPad versions of your games, and more.
2) SpriteBuilder
Whether you’re an expert developer or just getting started, SpriteBuilder will help you build top-quality games in a fraction of the time. The game development suite focuses on native iOS games with Objective-C and Xcode. SpriteBuilder is not only open source, but also free. Another advantage is that, with SpriteBuilder, porting your game to Android is quite straightforward; the only downside is the lack of support for the Android emulator which will have to be substituted with real devices for testing purposes.
3) Ray Wenderlich
This tutorial site hosts world class programming contributors from around the world that share their coding wisdom with fellow industry professionals through iOS video tutorials, podcasts, and forums. Do a search for “iOS gaming tutorials” and you’ll find dozens of beginner tutorials, starter kits, and video tutorials to help you jump-start your iOS game development skills.
4) Game Center for Developers by Apple
All game developers should take advantage of Game Center, Apple’s social gaming network. Game Center enables your users to track their best scores on a leaderboard, compare their achievements, invite friends to play a game, and start a multiplayer game through auto-matching. Here you’ll also find a Developer Forum to ask questions, discuss iOS games, as well as additional tools and resources to make sure your app is ready to submit to the App Store.
5) GitHub
This open source community contains countless game-coding resources for iOS development. When getting started, developers can visit GitHub to gather ideas of what gaming codes have previously been written and learn from fellow app examples. It is also a great source for learning how to develop blockchain-based games, which can help developers promote their cryptocurrency, and players to earn from playing video games.
6) iOSGameDevWeekly
Stay up-to-date with weekly informative newsletter about iOS game development. What’s most interesting about this site is that they also link to game dev resources that are not necessarily iOS centric but nonetheless are completely applicable to iOS game development.
Bonus: 10 GitHub iOS Game Projects to Get You Started
This list of ten open-source iOS game projects, which can all be found on GitHub, is another great resource to help get you started. These game examples range from clones of classic games like Pong, to apps that have recently topped the App Store charts like Angry Birds. There’s no better way to learn than by example, so be sure to check out this list.
Do you have an iOS game development resource to add to the list? Share with us in the comments.