Currently Reading – iOS

Initial thoughts on four different iOS game development books I’m currently reading/skimming/learning with. I’ll post follow up posts as I go forward.

My qualifications?

Current iOS student, gamer, and previously a proofreader for O’Reilly, and a technical editor for PHParch magazine.

Primary objective:

Get to know SpriteKit so I can use it for my Personal iOS project this semester.

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Game Development with Swift by Stephen Haney (July 2015 packt pub)

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iOS Game Development by Example by Samanyu Chopra (August 2015 packt pub)

Progress: Currently in Chapter 4

Started with this book over the winter holiday because I liked the cover the best. 😉

• Gains instant points for pointing to copyright free game assets.
• Good progression of examples with code direction, samples and lots of check in compiles to make sure you are heading in the right direction.
• Frustrating: Some changes in Swift 2 break some examples.  It’s a good exercise in debugging, but I’d love an update to my ebook or errata for it.  Especially since the book is less than a year old.
• Have found a few minor typos.

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iOS Game Development Essentials by Chuck Gaffney (Bovember 2015 pack pub)

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Mastering iOS Game Development by Miguel DeQuadros (December 2015 packt pub)

Started this book in January because I was frustrated with the other book code examples being out of date, so started the book published in at the end of 2015.

Progress: Currently in Chapter 3

• Loses instant points for possible copyright/trademark graphics. (Mario and Megaman sprites as examples)
• Plus – Has a nice early section on game design.
• Jumps into throwing frameworks at your project, including 2 downloaded, and then starts in with pre-headers.
• Plus – I know now where to add that Audio library, and that it’s included in xcode.
• Minus – is this pre-optimizing? Why not show me  with the bare minimum and then show me how to improve it?