FPS continuously dropping when restarting the game - ios

I am building a new game in SpriteKit and each time I want to restart the game I switch scenes, therefore each time I press "play again" my GameScene is loaded from the beginning and this causes my FPS to continuously drop.
So this is causing my FPS to drop overtime since each time I press play I have to basically load the whole new GameScene and the game on it (which is mostly spawning nodes). I believe that if there is no way in capping the FPS at a certain rate, then I should not use transitioning between 2 scenes.
However, I tried the method where I keep everything in 1 scene but unfortunately it did not work out since each time I pressed restart, the amounts of SKSpriteNodes that were spawning doubled. So the spawning of nodes and my timer speeds up by 2 times each time I play again. I don't know how to figure this issue out.

Everytime you change the scene , it should be removed from memory with its children.
You can add this method at the end of your scene:
deinit {
print("\n THE SCENE \(type(of: self))) WAS REMOVED FROM MEMORY (DEINIT) \n")
}
If you don't see in you debug console this print maybe you have a strong reference to self somewhere in your code.
You can follow the official guide to "Resolving Strong Reference Cycles for Closures"

Related

GLscene - Long delay between adding scene objects and scene appearance

I have a routine which adds a few hundred (mainly TGLextrusionsolid) objects into the scene.
The routine loads all the objects into GLscene with no problems in a few milliseconds but after exiting the loading code and allowing entry back into the main processing loop the program hangs for several seconds.
I presume this is caused by GLscene building the scene in its internal routines.
Once the scene appears on the screen after a few seconds, everything is fine, it can be rotated and zoomed at full speed.
Is this long delay between loading the objects and the scene apearing on screen normal?
Is there any way to stop it hanging the main thread whilst its doing its stuff?

Swift 3: kill the previous scene

I have a scene in my game view controller but i want to kill it when the player dies. This is because when the player restarts the game the fps decreases as the previous scenes are still running. My game runs on being repetitive and so there are multiple places where functions are called every point second. This is why the fps keeps decreasing. How can i input a method to kill the scene.
I previously used the code removeAllChildren() but that didn't cover it and the reason why was i needed the code removeAllActions() as well

Chess - iOS - SpriteKit - Human move is not displayed until computer thinking ends

I am developing an IOS Chess app using SpriteKit in Swift2. While playing the game against computer player, human move is not displayed until computer thinking ends. After computer thinking ends, both (human move and computer move) moves are displayed together.
Expected functionality: Once human plays his/her move, the move must be displayed on screen. Only after displaying the human move, computer thinking must start.
I initially had the call to computer thinking logic inside touchesBegan function. It didn't work as expected. Then I moved the call into touchesEnded function. The issue remained. Now I have placed the call inside update function. The issue still remains.
I couldn't find an answer for this issue. Is there any away to address this?
Thanks,
ArtBajji
If the problem is that the "computer" reacts to quickly after a human move, you could use a dispatch_after block implemented in your touchesEnded.
let delay = 0 //time in seconds
dispatch_after(delay, dispatch_get_main_queue()) {
//computer starts thinking
}

'Play on' feature is an in-app purchase? SpriteKit/Swift

I'm near the end of developing a game, and long story short, the game will be over when an object crashes into one of the obstacles. I've got that part down and the game runs really well by itself, but there is one more step I am looking to add in.
I would like to add in an in-app purchase of a 'play on' feature, that is, starting where the user's game originally ended so they can continue on. I'm okay with in-app purchases on the whole, but I guess what I want to know is how does one make it possible to 'play on' following the in app purchase? I'm just looking for something basic I can build on.
I'm a Stack newbie, as I've only created an account today (but I've been programming for a little while and this site has helped me so many times), so I'm sorry if there has been a duplicate thread made elsewhere. I did look around for an hour or so before deciding to post (and Google was no help).
As a general stack overflow rule you should always post some of your own code or what code you have played around with.
I am actually also looking to integrate a playOn button in my game. Now I haven't actually found the perfect solution for this yet but hopefully this helps you get on the right track.
Step 1:
How have you programmed your game over scenario?
Are you just pausing the scene, are you pausing nodes or are you removing all children from your scene?
The way I pause my scene is by creating a worldNode and than adding all objects that I need paused to the worldNode.
You can read my two answered questions for more detail
Keeping the game paused after app become active?
Sprite moves two places after being paused and then unpaused
This way when I pause my game I dont actually pause the scene which gives me more flexibility adding pauseMenus etc. Furthermore its seems smoother than pausing the skView.
I also call pause when the player died, which means I could resume the enemies/obstacles from where they left of if I call resume.
So my game over method looks like this
func gameOver() {
pause() // call pause method to pause worldNode etc
//show game over screen including playOn button
}
Step 2:
Now in regards to respawning the player, it depends on how he is positioned, how far he can move etc.
If your player is mostly in the same area than you can probably just respawn you player manually once "PlayOn" is pressed and than resume the game as if it was just paused.
So once your playOn button is pressed you can call a method like so
func playOnPressed() {
// Remove current player
// Doesnt have to be called, you could just change the position
player.removeFromParent()
// Add player manually again to scene or just reposition him
...
// Remove obstacle that killed player
// haven't found a great solution for this yet
// You could make the player not receive damage for 5 seconds to make sure you dont die immediately after playOn is pressed
// Call resume method, maybe with delay if needed
resume()
}
If your player position could be all over the screen, as in my game, I have been playing around with a few things so far.
I created a position property to track the player position
playerPosition = CGPoint!
and than in my scene update method I constantly update this method to the
actual position of the player.
override func update(currentTime: CFTimeInterval) {
if gameOver = false {
playerPosition = player.position
}
}
I than have been playing around with the "playOnPressed" method,
func playOnPressed() {
// Remove current player
//Doesnt have to be called, you could just change the positioon
player.removeFromParent()
// Add player manually again to scene or just reposition him
...
player = SKSpriteNode(...
player.position.x = playerPosition.x - 40 // adjust this so it doesnt spawn where he died but maybe a bit further back
player.position.y = playerPosition.y // adjust if needed
// Remove obstacle that killed player
// haven't found a great solution for this yet
// You could make the player not receive damage for 5 seconds to make sure you dont die immediately after playOn is pressed
// Call resume method, with delay if needed
resume()
}
I hope this helps you playing around with your playOn button, if someone has a better way I would also appreciate it immensely.

How to effectively pause a game in spritekit?

This seems like such a basic concept but there is really no good answer.
I currently have a pretty basic setup, in my game's scene, I have an enum gameState which is currently either inGame or gamePaused.
I have my button set up, and I have it so pressing simply toggles gameState.
Then, to make it work, I have two separate update methods: One for when gamePaused, one for when inGame.
This works for 95% of my game, as the updates in my game can be pretty readily started and stopped without any issues. There are some issues I cannot tackle though.
First and foremost are actions. I use SKActions for a bit of my project (some movement, scaling, fading...) and this method does NOT pause them. This can be catastrophic in certain points. Secondly, this doesn't handle particles, physics, and a few other things that are not directly associated to my update methods.
The only clue I have is self.view.paused = YES, but that isn't going to work either.
First off, this DOES fix my actions, particles, and physics problem... kinda. But This question suggests that SKActions aren't actually PAUSED by this, but actually STOPPED completely. Is this true? If it is, then it won't work smoothly either because my actions are thrown out of whack.
Also, pausing the view seems to do what it says: stop everything. EVERYTHING. Newbie question here, but how am I supposed to get any code to run at that point? It's all cut off. Is this where I need subViews? I have never used a subView yet, but it sounds like its what I want in this case.
Simply put, there are a lot of unanswered questions for me, and I don't know how to proceed. I'm hoping there's some 'standard procedure' for pausing in Sprite Kit, but with pausing the view halting actions I truly have no idea where to proceed.
Should I move away from using actions? Is my idea of a pause subView sound?
I don't want to babble, all I want to know is how you go about pausing in your average Sprite Kit project. Additional info provided upon request.
Pausing a node will pause (not stop) the node's actions, and i suppose pause will also be applied to all children of the paused node in the same way. All other unpaused nodes will continue to run their actions to completion.
You should have a "game layer" node with all game nodes in them that you want to pause, and then just pause that "game layer" node. Then have a "pause game menu" node where you add all the pause menu stuff you need which will continue to function normally even if the game layer is paused.
Be very sure you do not use performSelector or NSTimer or GCD or any other scheduling methods besides actions or the scene's update: method because those will not adhere to a node's paused state.
Pausing the view effectively freezes everything in it, pausing the scene according to some will not pause the update: calls - but I have not verified this myself. If this were the case you can always check inside the update method whether a given node that you send a message to is paused and if so, decide not to send certain messages to that node.
I just called a map function on all children of the scene and set the paused property to true
self.children.map{($0 as SKNode).paused = false}
By setting it to true you can easily undo the freeze.
EDIT:
Better use a for-loop to iterate over the children.
for node in self.children as [SKNode] {
node.paused = false
}
I can tell you what I did in my game:
Pause the SKView on -applicationWillResignActive: (or equivalent, using NSNotifications),
Un-pause the SKView on -applicationDidBecomeActive: (or equivalent, using NSNotifications),
For the actual game scene only, I set a boolean flag _isPaused when resigning active, and if it is true I just skip the -update: method (frame updates). (I also show the "paused" menu when the user resumes the app).
...But my game is a simple puzzle game, and there's no long actions that should continue past the pause/resume. I can not confirm right now that all actions are aborted, but I think it's not the case.
I also used self.children.map{($0 as SKNode).paused = false} and it does work if you create a var layer of type SKSpriteNode and add it on top of the scene. But I also have an NSTimer I'm using to spawn sprites on the scene. Everything currently on the scene is paused, but sprites keep appearing and moving across the screen. It is not pausing the spawning.
I tried pausing the NSTimer when I call the above code by setting repeats to false, then setting it to true when I remove the layer but it doesn't work. I also tried self.scene?.view?.paused = true but that freezes everything and the layer I create does not even appear onscreen.
You need to set the delegate for the View!
func PauseGame(){
self.scene.view.paused = true
}
fun playGame(){
self.scene.pause = false
}
This function is work perfectly if you are not using the NSTimer to call a function. If you use NSTimer your view will pause perfectly but when you play the game again by play game functionality you see that all the functions that use the NSTimer function that runs in the back end and your screen full with your sprite-kits. So when you use NSTimer in the function you have to first pause the NSTimer functions also after that this function work perfectly.
//For Pause
func pauseGame() {
scene?.view?.paused = true
}
//For play.
func playGame() {
scene?.view?.paused = false
}

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