iOS Hints & Tips Thread

Welcome to our brand new Clickteam Community Hub! We hope you will enjoy using the new features, which we will be further expanding in the coming months.

A few features including Passport are unavailable initially whilst we monitor stability of the new platform, we hope to bring these online very soon. Small issues will crop up following the import from our old system, including some message formatting, translation accuracy and other things.

Thank you for your patience whilst we've worked on this and we look forward to more exciting community developments soon!

Clickteam.
  • Hi All,

    I'm about to start work on my first iOS game and wanted to start a thread where some of you more seasoned veterans can share some hints and tips for us newbies!

    Please share anything you found hard and how you managed to solve it or any little golden nuggets of info you may have (don't be afraid to add it in a bit of self promotion for your game too as I'd like to check some out).

    Thanks,

    Steve

    Please login to see this link.

  • I think there are at least one thread like this before, but here goes.

    Optimalization, optimalization, optimalization.
    The Fusion iOS runtime is way faster than its Android counterpart, but still you should get that word hardprinted on your forehead so you see it every time you look in the mirror. Optimalization is alot more important when developing for phones than for pc.

    Read this topic over here By Anders: Please login to see this link.
    He's the developer of the Fusion iOS runtime and knows what he's talking about. Keep in mind that since the article is quite old, it may not be 100% valid anymore.

    The most crucial optimalization tips are:
    - Scale objects instead of making large objects as often as you can, for instance when making darkness that should cover the entire screen.
    - Alphachannels use 30% more memory.
    - Use as few fastloops as possible.
    - Use ForEach loops instead of fastloops whenever possible
    - Use values instead of strings when possible
    - Have as few objects as possible
    - Hide all objects that shouldn't be vissible, or better, destroy them if possible
    - If there are very many objects that are destroyed and created all the time, perhaps try to make them invisible and visible instead.
    - Keep graphics widths and heights at 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 or 256 etc for best optimalization. If your graphic is 65 x 129 pixels, an object of 128 x 256 will be stored in memory. This bugs me alot since I find 48 x 48 to be the perfect tile size on phones.
    - If you're creating a leveleditor, store levels in an array and load them bit for bit while the game is played, so only objects that should be visible actually exists.

    Screen size
    It is very important that you develop with the correct screensizes in mind from the start.
    Anders made a great tool to show how the different display options work: Please login to see this link.
    In addition, you should check out the resolutions the different iOS devices you are developing are using.

    For simple games I usually use 960 X 640 as resolution and Display setting set to fill with black. For greater projects I switch Display Setting to Fit inside and adjust windowsize.

    Development
    - Get a Apple Mac with the newest OS and install XCode on it.
    - Set build type to iOS Project before starting to develop. This makes sure that when you select objects to create, only objects supported by the iOS runtime will show up.

    Testing
    - Switch buildtype to iOS Application after the first time you have successfully built and ran your app through XCode.
    - Switch buildtype to Final iOS Project whenever you are sure you wouldn't add any more extensions.
    - If you're getting weird errors while trying to open your project in XCode, try switch buildtype to Final iOS Project.
    - If the project wouldn't build on XCode, make sure you are using the latest version of XCode and the latest Fusion iOS exporter version. Also press Command + K to clean the project before building. This have fixed things for me in the past. Also make - sure that you're not using any extensions that are not supported by the iOS exporter.
    - Test on a real device. Make sure you test on all the kind of devices you want the game to run on.

  • Submitting the final build is easy once you've setup everything in Apple Developer and Itunes Connect. It might seem like alot the first time you publish a game, but the procedure is alot easier now than it used to be a few years ago, so I don't think it should give you too much trouble. Just be prepared that it may take you a day to do the final stages, there's lots of stuff needed you might not think about, like having screenshots for all devices, big logo, promo pictures etc as well as setting up agreements, bank account etc. You must also set up provisions and AppId and stuff on Apple Developer, but I think that part is easier now.
    The actual uploading of the app is easy. When everything is done and Itunes Connect is set to receive your file, you simply archieve it in XCode and publish it. Then there's a 1-4 weeks wait to see if it gets approved.

  • You can choose a fixed date or release it automatically after it has been approved. If you choose the former, you better wait until it's approved before setting a date in the near future. If it doesn't get approved, it can take 3 new weeks..

  • A quick couple of questions on upscaling: I'm making retro pixel art game. If I amend the window sizes on the fly and have one set resolution for each aspect ratio, will I get a hit on the performance and will the pixel art be ruined? I was looking at doing 825x550 for 3:2, 760x570 for 4:3 and 960x540 for 16:9. The game is a conversion from a 700x500 Flash game.

    Please login to see this link.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!