In the earlier days, there was an only platform called Open GL ES for iOS game development. This was the sub version of Open GL desktop version and was built to support the mobile platform for development of 2D and 3D graphics. As there was a problem for many to get started with Open GL ES game development for entry, several other frameworks on Open GL were developed. But as none of these supported iOS platform, there were chances for the problem of integration with iPhone APIs. Hence, as a solution to this problem, Apple released Sprite Kit framework for making 2D games compatible with the latest iOS versions. Sprite Kit for iOS game development can be used with both iOS 7 and OS X for development of 2D games.
What is Sprite Kit and Why is it widely Used?
Sprite Kit is a powerful 2D game development framework that comes with several intense features for efficient iOS game development. Powered with entities like particle system, sprites, filters, videos and so on, the framework gives the iOS game developers the real power to build fully featured 2d games using the objective C language. The built-in support for XCode and functionalities best helpful for game development like sound playback, action system, physics engine and built-in particle emitter editor and inspector makes Sprite Kit the best iOS game development tool.
Sprite Kit executes an endless game loop where frames are used to process the game contents in a systematic approach. So, with game rendering loop, the framework enables a better and organized method of running the games.
Support for XCode
The reason for why iOS developers have liked this iOS game development framework is the XCode support that is provided by it. Yes, with XCode, functionalities like scene building and development of special effects becomes a lot easier.
Additional Libraries Not Required
As Sprite Kit comes with built-in support for XCode and iOS, there is no need to install any additional libraries or anything else for developing the games.
Excellent Features for Game Development
When you use Sprite Kit for iOS game development you can get excellent features to work with. These include cropping, physics simulation, particle systems, filters and a lot many special effects to enhance the games.
Easy to learn
The framework uses Objective-C as the supporting programming language which is familiar to many game developers and hence, working with Sprite Kit will not be difficult. Moreover, for those who have any doubts regarding how to program with the framework can refer the documentation released by Apple. The documentation has lots of information about programming for game development with many examples illustrated for the purpose.
An Excellent Game Engine to Work With
Sprite Kit is an excellent game engine that allows development of fully featured and high quality games for iOS platform. It’s easy to develop games with such a gem engine which already has lot of tutorials available on it. It’s free to use and hence, can significantly reduce the game development costs for the developers.
Hence, with so many advantages to count on, Sprite Kit definitely makes up for an excellent platform for iOS game development especially for latest iOS versions.