Why can't SpriteKit go multi-platform?

Question

Created Jan ’16

Replies 2

Boosts 0

Views 2.4k

Participants 3

So here I am just finished my first iPhone game made with SpriteKit, It has passed the review and will be released in few days. I'm now thinking about my next game and how I want to release it on Android platforms, the Android market is too big to ignore, but, unfortunately, it can't happen with SpriteKit. I really like working with SpriteKIt & Swift and I would have loved to continue working with it, but, unfortunately, I can't anymore and I have to start looking for an alternative and start learning another Framework/Language from scratch.

My question here is, why don't Apple separate SpriteKit from Xcode and release it as a Stand-alone app? make it run exclusively on Mac computers, but also, publish to Android. In my opinion, a move like this will see SpriteKit numbers sky-rocket because it already has so many features and after checking some alternatives, I consider it miles ahead all the other 2D frameworks/SDKs.

Boost

Answer 1

pavelgubarev OP

Jan ’16

In my humble opinion Apple just doesn't need "SpriteKit numbers sky-rocket". Also Apple has no interest in providing a tool for Android developers.

0

Answer 2

deeeds OP

Feb ’16

Shocking question. Given Apple's still clearly working on Sprite Kit with a very minimal team (no internal testers, that's for sure) it's highly unlikely you'd ever want them making an engine for someone else's platform. Especially one that's far more fragmented (and fractured).

Do you not see Apple is having enough trouble making Sprite Kit stable and performant for iOS and Mac OS X?

Do you really want to burden and stretch a thin team further?

Sprite Kit was supposedly developed to provide performance and ease of use benefits to iOS developers.

Neither seems to have panned out as expected because Apple simply hasn't given enough budget to Sprite Kit (nor Scene Kit, and looks to be stalling on Metal).

So far iOS devs are not diving at Sprite Kit, nor climbing over each other to get at it, and the mobile game market has radically rationalised in the last couple of years.

Swift is now Open Source, you could just wait for the cocos2D-X guys to make a wrapper for cocos2D-X that uses Swift instead of C++. That might be the fastest way to a performant and stable Swift 2D game engine for iOS, too.

I'm only partly kidding.

0