iOS 7 SpriteKit - Creating game menus/buttons (Scenes vs. more view controllers)

Question

So, I\'ve begun working on a project in SpriteKit, and I\'m hoping to be able to implement a \"main menu\" scene with a few buttons. One would go to a level select screen, one w

Answer 1

I encountered this problem a few month ago when I started building my game with spriteKit.

And my answer is not really definite but here is my advice: For the in-game I would set up the UI programmatically - seems like a lot of work but for a video game it is actually not that bad. But some menu could be in a storyboard setup or xib file - like the main menu, and the different submenu outside the game.

For the touch add that function to your scene.m

-(void)touchesEnded:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event 
{

    CGPoint location = [[touches anyObject] locationInNode:self];
}

And then you can use CGRectContainsPoint();

Or you can add a UITapGestureRecognizer to you view controller.

UITapGestureRecognizer * recognizer = [[UITapGestureRecognizer alloc] initWithTarget:self action:@selector(handleTap:)];

recognizer.delegate = self;

[view addGestureRecognizer:recognizer];

Setting up buttons in SKScene

Answer 2

Although @Albert's answer is a good one, i have always just used SKLabelNode. It is a class that is already inside of the SpriteKit framework, and doesn't require the use of gestures.

This makes you wonder, how does it react to actions? Well, that is actually quite simple.

I just use touchesBegan:withEvent: method, and I check if the label node is being pressed upon. Here is an example.

// in .m file
@interface ClassName () {
   SKLabelNode *menuItem1;
   SKLabelNode *menuItem2;
}

@implementation

- (id) initWithSize:(CGSize)size // can't fully remember this one...
{
     if(self = [super initWithSize:size]) {
        // here you create your labels
        menuItem1 = [SKLabelNode labelNodeWithFontNamed:@"Your font."];

        // this will position this at the center, top 1/3 of the screen
        menuItem1.position = CGPointMake(self.frame.size.width/2, self.frame.size.height * .3); 
        menuItem1.text = @"Menu 1";
        [self addChild:menuItem1]; // takes care of the first

        menuItem2 = [SKLabelNode labelNodeWithFontNamed:@"Your font."];

        // place at center, lower 1/3 of screen
        menuItem2.position = CGPointMake(self.frame.size.width/2, self.frame.size.height * .6); 
        menuItem2.text = @"Menu 2";
        [self addChild:menuItem2];
    }
    return self;
}

- (void) touchesBegan:(NSSet *)touches withEvent:(UIEvent *)event
{
     UITouch *t = [touches anyObject];
     CGPoint touchLocation = [t locationInNode:self.scene];

      if(CGRectContainsPoint(menuItem1.frame, touchLocation)) {
          // do whatever for first menu
      }

      if(CGRectContainsPoint(menuItem2.frame, touchLocation)) {
          // do whatever for second menu
      }
}

hope this helps!

Answer 3

if you want a simple menu you can create it with SpriteKit but if you want a complex menu you should use UIKit.

Let's say that you want to create a level selection menu with CoverFlow effect, that will be hard to implement from scratch on SpriteKit but for UIKit you can find libraries like iCarousel that implements stunning CoverFlow and scroll effects with ease.

SKLabelNode by the moment only supports one text line so if you want to add a really long message in your game that will be difficult but if you use UIKit instead you can use a UITextView to display your long message.

a detailed In App Purchases menu will be easier to create with UIKit.

UIKit will avoid you a lot of headache, i really encourage you to use it.

how should the project be set up?

You only need 1 Scene

MenuviewController->( Push Segue )->LevelSelectionController->( Push Segue )->GameScene

I suppose I'd want them to float around or get bigger when selected (when the user has touched it but not let go), and I believe that a UIButton would not allow it since it isn't an SKSpriteNode.

you can add animations to a UIButton with UIView animateWithDuration or CABasicAnimation

That would mean that I would have to set buttons to be hidden on every new scene displayed

Solve it with a function

- (void)setHidden:(BOOL)hide {
    UIButton *tmpButton = (UIButton *)[self.view viewWithTag:100];
    tmpButton.hidden = hide ? YES : NO;
}

Hide it like this

[self setHidden:YES];

Hope it helps

Good Luck!