Kyle Richter - Beginning iOS Game Center and GameKit: For iOS, tvOS, and MacOS

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By Brent Simmons for Kyle Richters book on writing games

You picked up the right book. Youre awesome! Youre awesome and you want to write games. Cool. If I wanted to learn to write games, what Id do is park myself at Kyle Richters house and make him teach me. But then wed get distracted, and some friends would be in town, and wed end up going out and Id learn nothing. Lucky us, lucky you and me bothwe have this book. Whew.

Let me tell you a bit about the author. Folks in the developer community will tell you that Kyle Richter is of course a pseudonym. You may recognize the name from one of Tom Clancys novels: Kyle Richter is a highly trained, highly experienced covert ops agent who retired from service before turning 30 and who then made millions by creating simulationsgamesout of the tangles he encountered in various undeclared theaters around the world and in low-earth orbit.

Its obvious, if you think about itthe name Kyle Richter is a transparent fiction. Kyle sounds like Guile, and Richter is obviously a reference to earthquakes. A perfect name for a perfect game hero: smart, cunning, and dangerous. However, in the interest of comprehensiveness, I should point out that a small minority of people claim that Kyle Richter is actually an elite group of Ninja Valley Girl programmers. This claim has been investigated, and not a single shred of evidence has been found. Nothing. Our top people have looked, I assure you.

Which proves the point, some say. If they werent ninjas, thered be some evidence. Ergo, theyre ninjas. (I should also point out that this theory and this faulty logic come from designers, not programmers. As Kyle would say: I know, right?)

Since I know Kyle personally, I can clear this up. Lets take the superficial qualities first: Kyle is built like Thor, but has a decided height advantage. His cherry-red hair is so radiant you can tell when hes coming around the corner. Children, squirrels, and vegetarians often mistake his face for the sun.

And then theres the laugh, that laugh, which is, well, pleasant enough, I guess.

Anyway, whats important is his mind, how he thinks, how he communicates. In a recent conversation with him, he recounted how he handles firing employees and contractors. The second I realize things arent working out, then its over, he says. (Kyle drags a hand across the throat here. I recoil in horror until he assures me hes just letting them seek their bliss elsewhere.) No point in dragging it out, he says.

What that tells me is that he has no patience for nonsense, that hes highly practical, and that he has Vulcan-like emotional control. All of which are superb characteristics in a teacher, especially for technical topics. In other words, you want to learn how to write games without having to wade through a bunch of fluff and nonsense. Thats where this book comes in. (Fluff and nonsense are strictly relegated to this Foreword. The rest of the book is information-packed and well-written.)

Not that Kyle is trigger-happy to fire people. He isnt. Quite the opposite. This industry is very short on talent, and Kyle, like everybody else, works hard to find good iOS developers. There arent enough of themso please learn whats in this book and help us all out!

But the book is a technical book, and it has the goods, and the code and the explanationseven for the newest APIs. Chapter , for instance, talks about turn-based gaming via GameCenter. Not a ton of people are expert at this yet, much less expert enough to write about it. Kyle is, though, and its in the book.

If, in the end, it turns out that Kyle is just this guy, you know?and a good sport whos fun to tease, and not actually Thor-likeit doesnt matter, because this book is a gold mine. And Im proud of him.

In the eternal words of George Clinton: Nothing is good unless you play with it. By which I mean: read, learn, and play. The book is technical, but the things you make will be for play, and making those things should be like playing. Have fun!

In the immortal, sunny words of Kyle Richter (or Kyle Richter): I know, right?

iOS is by far the most popular development platform in the world. With changes to how apps are developed on Apple TV and MacOS, sharing code between platforms has never been easier. As all of these platforms continue to skyrocket in popularity, adding additional rich features to your software is more important than ever. Game Center and GameKit provide an easy path for adding advanced functionality to your software with only a fraction of the work in the past.