Letter Buster

App Information

It's raining letters! The meteorologists have never been more bewildered by a weather phenomenon such as this - English letters falling from the sky. Sharpen your English spelling prowess and your reaction time with this fast-paced mini-game that requires you to shoot letter cubes emerging from dark clouds against various sky backdrops. The ultimate test of letter identification, it will help you to spell words varying in length depending on difficulty level. But be careful, if you spell the words wrong or if too many letters fill the night sky, your dreams of winning the next spelling bee may come to an end.

How to Play

Each level requires that you "spell" a target word, which is listed in the HUD display at the top of the screen. You must tap letters in the order in which they appear in the target word. If the wrong letter is tapped, you will lose a life. Life count is indicated by a heart icon in the HUD display. If the number of nodes on screen exceeds the spawn limit corresponding to the selected difficulty level, you will likewise be considered as having lost the game and will be prompted to eithe restart to return to the main menu.

Adjusting Difficulty Levels

Select "Difficulty Level" from the Preamble menu, then select the cube corresponding to the desired difficulty level. More difficult levels will require you to spell longer words, with correspondingly higher spawn limit. Easy level usually only require that you spell 3-letter words.

Advancing to the Next Level

In order to advance to the next level, spell the target word for the level. Once the target word for a given level is spelled completely, you will be prompted to continue to the next level or return to the main menu. Letters must be exploded in the exact order in which the word is spelled.

How are letters spawned?

A spawn point is represented by an enum type with associated values. The enum cases include LeftOScreen, RightOfScreen, AboveScreen, BelowScreen, BehindScreen, and BehindCloud cases. Each enum case has an associated value, which is [SCNVector3] type for the BehindCloud case and a single SCNVector3 for the other cases. The position of the camera is provided as parameter for the associated SCNVector3 for the off-screen enum cases, while the array of randomly generated spawn points is passed in as the paramters for the CloudSpawnPoints case. This allows spawn points to be created dynamically based on the current position of the camera, in the case of off-screen points, or behind the randomly located cloud, in the BehindCloud case. See the Swift tutorials seciton for a more detailed discussion of this topic.

Swift tutorials: Enums and Associated Values

How are letter cubes generated?

Letter cubes are generated via a helper classe with two nested enum types, one for defining the specific letter (i.e. 'A','B','C',etc.) and the other for the letter style (i.e. metallic, wood, blue, yellow, etc.). Each nested enum type has String rawValue, which allows for the rawValues of the combined enums to be used to construct a string for the filepath corresponding to the diffuse texture map for that particular letter cube. See the section on the enums and raw values for a more detailed discussion of this topic.

iOS Swift Tutorials: Enums and raw values

How is difficulty level updated dynamically?

Difficulty is varied in terms of the allowed spawn limit for each level, where switch statements that switch on a specificed integer range corresponding to game levels is used to determine the spawn limit for any level falling within that range. "Where" clauses are used to provide spawn limits that vary based on the user-selected difficulty rating for the game. See the section on Enums and "where" clauses for more detailed information on this topic.

iOS Swift Tutorials: Enums and "where" clauses

Alien Sniper Defense

You are earth's last hope for salvation. As a highly-trained laser sniper, you must defend the earth against an array of alien invaders, each equipped with unique abilities that enable them to elude your target crosshair. Some of these enemies can hide, others can disappear, while others camouflage with the dark. Regardless of what the enemy is, one thing is certain: only those quick on the trigger will succeed in vanquishing humanity's greatest threat ever.

Alphabet Pilot Saves the ABCs

Planning a trip to Seoul? Get a quick preview with this mini-travel app, which allows you to: get Korean language help, view image galleries and videos related to Korea Tourism, play a 2D side-scroller mini-game to practice learning Korean, get up-to-date weather forecasts for key Korean cities, see product price information in KRW and user-specified foreign currencies, use region monitoring and Apple location services to get updates when entering and leaving the proximity of key tourist sites, view navigation aids that allow users to search and view places by category for specific city areas.

Seoul Tourism Aid

Swift Tutorials

Learn the basics of Swift3 with this set of tutorials which provides context through use cases in iOS app and game development. Topics covered follow Apple's documentation for the Swift3 language, such as collection types, value-types (i.e. enums, structs) and reference types(i.e. classes), protocols, inheritance, optionals, and so forth.

Game Development Tutorials

The set of tutorials builds upon the Swift3 tutorials but aims to approach iOS development from a design-oriented approach, demonstrating how a multitude of solutions (i.e. singletons, notifications, delegation, etc.) can be available for frequently-encountered programming problems. It also attempts to provide insights into game and app development by providing simplified adaptations for sample projects and code (e.g. Demobots game) offered through Apple's official website.

Zany Zombie Maze

A deadly virus has broken out and infected all of humanity. Rescue a team of scientists and help them acquire all of the tools and materials they need to research a cure for the zombie virus. In the mean time, avoid crossing the path of the dozens of zombies roaming the landscape or else they will follow you until they can shoot you to oblivion. Kill mutant zombies before the virus can mutate and evade the research efforts of scientists. Complete a series of missions in this top-down shooter mini-game and save humanity from a dystopian nightmare where zombies dictate the lives of humans.