No need for engines like Unity: with Sprite Kit you can create 2D animated games directly for the iOS platform. Best of all, with this book you can learn the fun, involving way - by creating your own game from scratch. Overview Pen your own endless runner game using Apple's new Sprite Kit framework Enhance your user experience with easy-to-use animations and particle effects using Xcode 5 Utilize particle systems and create custom particle effects In Detail Sprite Kit, a new framework introduced in iOS7, has been designed as a built-in animation workflow for keyframing 2D animation without the need of engines such as Unity to serve as an intermediate. Sprite Kit enables the easy and fast development cycle, leaving more time to work on gameplay and polish, and less on tedious tasks. This book offers a practical approach to game development with the Sprite Kit framework of iOS7 platform, by creating an endless runner game. You will gain a full understanding of the new Apple framework along with tips and tricks to interact with the game either by detecting taps, using sophisticated gesture recognizers, and moving sprites by dragging. Starting with how to get your first sprite on screen, and then moving on to complicated physics and animations, we will be learning about the new features that iOS7provides for game development. You will also learn how to optimize your game performance, how to add animation files and create texture atlas in Xcode 5, and how to build different particles. By the end of the book you will learn how to create full featured endless runner game, with animations, sound effects and particle systems, how to post you application to the iTunes Appstore and about different application icons, categories, certificates, provisioning profiles, new Xcode publishing features and review process. This book will teach you everything you need to know to create your own powerful and immersive games. What you will learn from this book Create and run your own animations Utilize particle systems and create custom particle effects Understand the physics engine and how to use it to your advantage Add support for new game controllers from Apple Optimize your game for performance Use gestures to control game-play Approach The book is an example based, hands-on guide where you will learn how to make a game from scratch, and learn how to develop games on the iOS platform. Who this book is written for If you have great ideas for games and want to learn iOS game development, then this book is the right choice for you. Being familiar with iOS development is a plus, but is not mandatory. You will gradually get to grips with the new Sprite Kit framework with the help of this book.