Preface

Apple Game Frameworks and Technologies — by Tammy Coron (4 / 193)

👈 Acknowledgments | TOC | Who Should Read This Book 👉

Why SpriteKit? Well, that’s a good question — and one that I get asked quite often. For those who ask, my response is always the same: “Why not SpriteKit? It has everything you need to build great games.”

With SpriteKit and the rest of the Apple game frameworks and technologies — like GameplayKit, Game Center, Xcode, and Swift — you have access to the tools you need to create high-performance, power-efficient games that work across the entire Apple ecosystem.

What’s especially neat about SpriteKit is that it’s built on top of Metal,[1] a robust Apple framework that provides near-direct access to the graphics processing unit (GPU). Because SpriteKit leverages Metal, it’s possible to tap into your game’s full graphics and compute potential (using Metal) while also providing a simpler programming interface (using SpriteKit).

Another benefit of using SpriteKit, especially if you’re already familiar with Xcode and Swift — even more so if you’re new to game development — is that the learning curve isn’t as steep as something like Unity or Unreal Engine. Don’t get me wrong, Unity and Unreal Engine are phenomenal tools and well worth learning — I’ve used them both and will continue to do so — but there’s something so beautifully simple, yet strangely powerful about SpriteKit.