Swift Game Programming for Absolute Beginners

Swift Game Programming for Absolute Beginners teaches Apple’s Swift language in the context of four, fun and colorful games. Learn the Swift 2.0 language, and learn to create game apps for iOS at the same time – a double win!

The four games you’ll develop while reading this book are:

• Painter
• Tut’s Tomb
• Penguin Pairs
• Tick Tick

These four games are casual, arcade-style games representing the aim-and-shoot, casual, puzzle, and platform styles of game play. Professionally developed game assets form part of the book download. You’ll get professionally drawn sprites and imagery that’ll have you proud to show your learning to friends and family.

The approach in Swift Game Programming for Absolute Beginners follows the structure of a game rather than the syntax of a language. You’ll learn to create game worlds, manage game objects and game states, define levels for players to pass through, implement animations based upon realistic physics, and much more. Along the way you’ll learn the language, but always in the context of fun and games.

Swift is Apple’s new programming language introduced in 2014 to replace Objective-C as the main programming language for iOS devices and Mac OS X. Swift is a must learn language for anyone targeting Apple devices, and Swift Game Programming for Absolute Beginners provides the most fun you’ll ever have in stepping over the threshold toward eventual mastery of the language.

What you’ll learn

• Write applications in possibly the most important new language of the decade
• Create games to run on Apple devices such as phones and tablets, and desktops too
• Create and manage game worlds having multiple levels through which players progress
• React to player input whether from mouse, keyboard, or touch
• Achieve realistic movement of game objects through applied physics
• Prepare your games properly for commercial deployment

Who this book is for

Swift Game Programming for Absolute Beginners is for programmers and technology enthusiasts wanting to learn to program and develop applications for Apple devices such as phones and tablets. The book is also for anyone wanting to learn to program in Apple’s new language named Swift. No prior knowledge of Swift is assumed. Swift Game Programming for Absolute Beginners teaches the Swift language from scratch in the context of creating a series of fun and colorful games that you’ll be proud to develop and show to your friends, neighbors, and colleagues.

Table of Contents

Part I: Getting Started

Chapter 1. The Swift Language
Chapter 2. Game Programming Basics
Chapter 3. Creating a Game World
Chapter 4. Game Assets

Part II: Painter
Chapter 5. Knowing What the Player is Doing
Chapter 6. Reacting to Player Input
Chapter 7. Basic Game Objects
Chapter 8. Game Object Types
Chapter 9. Colors and Collisions
Chapter 10. Limited Lives
Chapter 11. Organizing Game Objects
Chapter 12. Finishing the Painter Game

Part III: Galactic Waste
Chapter 13. Adapting to Different Devices
Chapter 14. Game Object Hierarchies
Chapter 15. Game Physics
Chapter 16. Game Object Interaction
Chapter 17. Finishing the Galactic Waste Game

Part IV: Penguin Pairs
Chapter 18. Sprite Sheets
Chapter 19. Storing and Recalling Game Data
Chapter 20. Pairing the Penguins
Chapter 21. Finishing the Penguin Pairs Game
Chapter 22. The Main Game Structure
Chapter 23. Animation

Part V: Tick Tick
Chapter 24. Platform Game Physics
Chapter 25. Intelligent Enemies
Chapter 26. Adding Player Interaction
Chapter 27. Finishing the Tick Tick Game