Missing important sprite kit topics from the new book

📚 Official Books 2D iOS & tvOS Games by Tutorials
1

Hi,
I’ve noticed that the new book “2D iOS & tvOS Games By Tutorials” misses some key concepts that “iOS Games By Tutorials” had:

  1. Saving and loading game state to/from disk.
  2. Reading game settings from plist file.
  3. Multiplayer.

Is there any reason you decided to not include them?
Will those be added in a future update?

Thanks,
Oron

2

Yes, the reason is the book is already 29 chapters, and we don’t want to make it any longer than that - in fact the book is already too long because it’s too big to fit into a single printed volume without downloadable chapters :]

If you would like more information about a particular topic, what would help us is to know what information we should delete from the book to make room for it. Would appreciate any thoughts you have on the matter!

3

Hi Ray,
thanks for the quick reply.

First of all, and correct me if I’m wrong (but I double checked it anyway), the new book is already 100 pages shorter than the old book, so there are your first 100 free pages :wink:

other than that:

Chapter 24: Game Controllers; Do you really think this is more important and common than the subjects I mentioned?
Chapter 27: Replay Kit; Although really unique subject which I admire you for adding it, again, how many games integrate Replay Kit vs. the mentioned subjects?
Chapter 28: iAd; iAd App Network will be Discontinued

And there other subjects that I think less important than the subjects above but I really don’t want them disappeared as well.

Another idea is split the mega book to two books: Apprentice and Advanced, you already done it with the swift bundles, why not here?
Your books are one of their kind with information you’ll found nowhere else, please don’t miss a thing.

Thanks a lot,
Oron

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4

Not sure about page count of new book vs old book, but we definitely do not want to go more than current # of pages (804 - wow!)

Thanks for your feedback on what chapters we could potentially drop, that is very useful! :]

If anyone else would like to chime in with similar feedback (“remove this chapter and add XXX in its place”), we’d love to hear it.

5

Don’t remove anything

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6

thanx for the info…

7

I agree with @oronbz — Game Controllers, Replay Kit and iAd are less matter than multiplayer in games. So I would be glad to see chapters about multiplayer instead of these.
And It is a good idea too splitting to two books. But what about another idea — publishing a new separate book like “Advanced 2D & 3D iOS Games by Tutorials”, which would contain advanced chapters.
I’m already ready to preorder this book :wink:

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8

Thanks for the great book. Please add mutiplayer to the book. Thank you.

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9

Love the book!
I would like to see multiplayer. There is a surprising lack of high quality multiplayer tutorials out there.

Thanks,
Dan

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10

I would gladly trade game controllers and/or ReplayKit for multiplayer!

11

I would love to see some information on Scene Transitions and how to make the Game a full shaped game including a Main Menu, Level Selection Screen, Options Panel, Settings, and how to implement an overlay for pausing the game… These are things that are currently missing,… unfortunately ;-(

Thanks,
Johannes

12

The book has served as an invaluable reference while making my first few games, so thanks for that!

While there are a few sections I haven’t needed yet, I see myself using most of them eventually in the future. The only ones I wouldn’t miss would be the iAd section and 2D Art for Programmers at the end.

As someone mentioned, perhaps an “advanced” book could be made, or video courses for some of these other topics:

  1. Menus/Game Flow

I’ve figured this out now, but I couldn’t find much help online for creating menus and navigation for Spritekit games.

  1. Bitmask fonts

I had some trouble getting bitmask fonts to work my first time, and again couldn’t find a lot on using them with Swift. I also used them at times when I probably didn’t need them (and the overhead).

  1. Saving/Loading

There is a video course here that I followed, but a detailed course for working with Plists in games would still be welcome.

While I’ve learned these topics on my own, I really wish there was a chapter in the book for each. It would have saved me time, and my code would probably be nicer now too :slight_smile:

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13

Hi there, sorry for being quite late, but I would like to know where did you find the info about making the menus/gameflow because I’m trying to figure it out and help would be very appreciated. Thanks in advance!

14

I was faced with the same situation and I discovered if I bought the online PDF version of the book, ALL chapters (in color), code, assets, starter projects, etc. are included. Also, as newer versions of Xcode, Swift, iOS, etc. are released by Apple, each affected PDF book is automagically updated by the RW staff AND I am email notified of the newer version which I can download at no charge. For me, I do prefer this convenient ease-of-use over the printed book. So far, I’ve bought all my RW books through the RW web site. Print or PDF versions, hope you’re enjoying these comprehensively written tutorials!

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