Gather Your Resources
When I talk about resources, I mostly mean the graphics and sound included in the game, but I also mean the people involved in making it (as well as the software and hardware required to do so), so let’s start there.
Choosing Your Game Development Environment
When it comes to Apple game development, you have a few options from which to choose. One of those options is to use the native Apple development tools and its supported languages. For Apple, that means using Xcode and Swift. Another popular option is to use Unity and C#.
Deciding which tools to use is mostly a matter of preference. Still, it can also depend on your game’s design and technical specifications.
This book focuses on native Apple development, and more specifically, the Apple game frameworks and technologies. It’s not that Xcode and Swift are any better or worse than other development tools; it just that, in this book, the focus is on native development tools, and the games you’ll be making here fall well within the range of what’s possible with those tools.
To follow along with the examples in this book, you’ll need:
- macOS Mojave 10.14.6 or newer
- Xcode 11.3 or newer
- Basic knowledge of Swift 5.1.4 or newer
With the tech out of the way, the next thing you need to consider is your game’s assets and whether you’re going to make them yourself, hire a professional, or use royalty-free resources.
Creating Assets for Your Game
Creating a good game isn’t only about writing good, clean code; it’s also about making sure the game looks and sounds good. Now, of course, audio and visual appeal are subjective, and you know what they say: you can’t please all of the people all of the time. To that end, if you’re creating the assets for your game, the design is entirely up to you.
For most games I create, I make all of the visual assets myself using a handful of applications. My go-to design tools include Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Designer, and Clip Studio Paint. This book doesn’t focus on asset creation, but there are a lot of great resources you can use to learn how to use each of these programs. I recommend starting with the resources provided by the individual software publishers:
When it comes to making visual assets for your games, the rule of thumb to follow is known as the power of two. Simply put, the power of two rule states that either one or both of the following conditions must be met:
- The width and/or height of the image should be divisible by 8.
- The width and/or height of the image can be doubled-up or divided-down by 2.
In other words, any image that is 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, or 2048 pixels (or higher) in width and/or height is considered valid and properly optimized. When an image is properly optimized, it tends to load faster, and the graphics pipeline can take advantage of other optimizations. However, nowadays, that rule tends to be more relaxed, but if you can follow it without too much trouble, why not, right?
You’ll learn more about visual assets and how to add them to your own projects in Add Image Assets.
When it comes to creating sound assets, my go-to tool is usually Adobe Audition, although I don’t typically make the sound assets for my games. There are a few audio formats that work well, especially with mobile games, including wav and mp3. The wav format has slightly better quality compared to the mp3 format, but it tends to have a larger footprint.
If you’re not too keen on making your own assets, that’s okay, too. You can always hire a professional (or ask a friend).
Hiring a Professional
The first step to hiring a professional to make your assets is finding an individual or a group of individuals who can produce resources that match the design specs of your game. The best advice I can give here is to do a web search and make inquiries. Once you find a match, be clear about the resources you need. No one likes surprises, so make sure you have a clear contract drawn up and that all parties agree to its terms.
For this book, and specifically for the Val’s Revenge game, I hired my longtime friend, Chris Language.[11] Well, I didn’t really hire him; I sort of just asked him if he wanted to help create the music for the game, and thankfully, he said yes.
If you’re not sure what assets you need, you may want to consider using programmer art and/or temporary resources. Programmer art doesn’t have to look good, but it can help you figure out what you need—and more important, it can help you get the programming-end of things done while you wait for the final assets to arrive.
Alternatively, you could skip using custom assets altogether and, instead, use royalty-free assets.
Using Royalty-Free Assets
Another popular option for audio and visual resources is to use royalty-free assets. With royalty-free assets, developers can either obtain the assets for free or pay a small licensing fee for the rights to use them. When exercising the royalty-free option, be sure to read the license agreements carefully.
Some of my favorite resources are from:
My recommendation is to do a web search, and when you find something you like, go from there.