On App Store, the most popular app category among all is the Games category, something that even Apple accepts as a fact. And how this couldn’t be true, regarding that all or almost all iOS users have downloaded and played one or more games, at least one time? Personally, I’m quite confident that those users who haven’t (still) played a game, are limited from very few to none. There are various kind of game players, from the fanatic ones, until those who play from time to time, as well as numerous kind of games. However, there is one common element, no matter what kind of player each of us is, or what kind of games we like to play: Games are much more interesting when they allow players to achieve goals, or when they allow to compete or play against other players. In iOS (and MacOS), this comes true through the Game Center network Apple provides, and through the GameKit Framework.
Let’s take things from the beginning, and let’s talk a bit about the Game Center. One could describe it as a social gaming network that offers multiplaying features, available for and used from iOS and MacOS users. Achievements, leaderboards, multiplayer gaming are some of those features. It was made available along with the iOS 4.1, and since then it’s been updated with new gaming options.
The features supported and provided by Game Center could be synopsized in the following list:
- Leaderboards: It is a database that keeps score data. Its purpose is to allow users post their scores in a game and compare them with other players’ scores. It actually measures how well a player does in a game.
- Achievements: These are goals set in a game that players try to exceed during the gameplay. Achievements give players a motivation to keep playing, earn as many of them as possible, and compare them with other players’ too. The noteworthy about achievements is that they are measured in points. A total of 1000 points are given to game creators in order to use them the way they want, with 100 points in maximum per achievement. Each game may use as many points as it’s needed, and the way it’s needed. Later on, we will see in practice how all these work.
- Multiplayer: This one supports a range of other sub-features, such as challenges, where players compete each other on either a score challenge or an achievement challenge, and matchmaking games for real-time, turn-based, or self-hosted matches.
