When creating a level we randomly select fruit for a tile. This “randomness” causes matches to pre-exist in a level when presented to a player. This would reduce the challenge of the puzzle and should not be the case. We can easily eliminate these match chains by updating the Level class. Continue reading →

In order to provide a visual cue to the player the selected swiped fruit should be highlighted momentarily in order to indicate which fruit the player is about to swap. This selection highlighting animation can be achieved by temporarily placing a highlighted version of the sprite on top of the current sprite and having it along for the ride in the swap animation and eventually fading out. Continue reading →

Having completed the swipe to swap it was time to update the model and animate the swap. This involved creating a new Swap struct. In Swift the struct is a value type versus a class which is a reference type. Here it makes sense to use a struct since the swap is inert and only stores data. The logic of handling the swap is not done by the swap itself. The detection of the swap is handled in the Game Scene and the real game logic is in the Game View Controller. Continue reading →

The essence of the match-three game is to move fruits such that three fruits of the same type match up. This move is done with a swipe. The Game Scene is the best place for implementing the detection of the player’s swipes that will reposition the fruits into this match pattern. The reposition is called the swap. Recognizing these swipes to swap in SpriteKit is best done with the touchesBegan, touchesMoved, and touchesEnded functions.  Continue reading →

Once the model was viewable it was time to load levels from a file in order to enable dynamic patterns. The file needed to have a pattern defined so that every level isn’t just a 9×9 grid. This pattern would be best represented in an array of arrays or a 2D Array. That would most easily be stored in a JSON file. Continue reading →

Seeing your App on device for the first time (or even in the simulator) can be an amazing feeling. That was my goal for today. After having the images and enough model classes it was time to invoke the model from the GameViewController. Continue reading →

First days of app development are always filled with possibilities. But being distracted by say overthinking the revenue model is not something conducive to execution. I knew from experience making an app in the beginning is also overwhelming and so focusing on one goal at a time is a great way to start. Since I needed fruit art I got to work right away in Gimp. While making flat fruity pngs I thought about the features of the MVP and the game architecture but all while making the images. Continue reading →

There are three things I see almost every woman on the subway every morning in New York doing:

1. Holding a White iPhone 6 or 6S,
2. Wearing a Canada Goose Parka,
3. Playing some sort of candy-based match-three game.

I can’t make either an iPhone or a coat but I can make a game. My last game, Slappy Lock, was my first open source game. To complement my githubbing I thought I would keep an app diary for both my own organization and in the hopes that it helps anyone trying to reconstruct the code.  Continue reading →