Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
The iOS platform is not an exception; there are several enthralling titles. One of the
most famous examples is the
Infinity Blade
franchise from
Chair Entertainment
visu-
alizing the fact that a gesture game can have a rich story, interesting evolution of
a main character, and superb graphic ornamentation. The look is so addictive and
sometimes considered as a benchmark to demonstrate the abilities of 3D rendering
on iOS devices. A lot of games also use various gestures in less apparent forms;
gestures are part of a control system. For instance, an adventure game
Machinarium
from
Amanita Design
has several puzzles that require players to rotate some levers
and pedals by using index fingers. There are some interesting gesture mechanics in
Plants vs. Zombies 2
from
PopCap Games
as well.
Screen gestures are also widely used for educational purposes, teaching audiences
some sort of drawing skills. For example, Calligraphy Practice (
ht-
tp://www.calligraphypractice.com/
) is an amazing application for iPad that uses the
user's gestures and taps to create calligraphic letters. It teaches by displaying spe-
cial contours on the screen, which the user has to follow to draw lines of a specific
character. In addition, the application utilizes the advantages of multitouch input. The
user touches the screen using two fingers simultaneously, and the distance between
them defines the width of a virtual calligraphic brush; the angle of the brush can be
calculated too. In this connection, remember that educational tools, as a rule, work
better if they have some game aspects inside, at least in a form of an achievement
system (we will talk about this a bit more in the final chapter of this topic).
Introducing the game idea
The main task of the game is to show the player the special graphic symbols
linked with specific gestures. The symbols are displayed one by one in order. In the
simplest case, there is no array of gestures inside the game and there is no system
in place for an order of them. Each time, the game generates the type of symbol
from scratch using a random number generator. The game has to generate a type
of symbol and show its graphic representation on the screen of the device. It should
