Chapter 14
Playing Games
Get ready to . . .
Open an Account in Game Center
Master iPad Game-Playing Basics
Play a Game with Friends in Game Center
The iPad is super for playing games, with its bright screen, great sound system, and ability to rotate the screen as you play and track your motions. You can download game apps from the App Store and play them on your device. You can also use the preinstalled Game Center app to help you find and buy games, add friends to play against, and track scores.
In this chapter, you get an overview of game playing on your iPad, including opening a Game Center account, adding a friend, purchasing and downloading games, and playing basic games solo or against friends.
Of course, you can also download games from the App Store and play them on your iPad without having to use Game Center. What Game Center provides is a place where you can create a gaming profile, add a list of gaming friends, keep track of your scores and perks, and shop for games (and only games) in the App Store, along with listings of top-rated games and game categories to choose from.
Open an Account in Game Center
1. Using the Game Center app, you can search for and buy games, add friends with whom you can play those games, and keep records of your scores for posterity. From the Home screen, tap the Game Center icon. If you’ve never used Game Center, you’re asked whether to allow push notifications: If you want to receive these notices alerting you that your friends want to play a game with you, tap OK. You should, however, be aware that push notifications can drain your iPad’s battery.
2. On the Game Center opening screen (see Figure 14-1), tap Create New Account.
Figure 14-1
3. If the correct country isn’t listed in the New Account dialog, tap in the Location field and select another location. If the correct location is already showing, tap Next to confirm it.
4. In the next dialog you see, tap the Month, Day, and Year fields, enter your date of birth, and then then tap Next.
5. In the Game Center Terms & Conditions dialog, swipe to scroll down (and read) the conditions, and then tap Agree if you want to continue creating your account. A confirmation dialog appears; tap Agree once more to accept for real!
6. In the next dialog that opens, tap each field or the Next button above the onscreen keyboard and enter your name, e-mail address, and password information. Tap the Question field to select a security question to identify yourself, and tap the Answer field and type in an answer to the question. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this dialog and choose to turn off the e-mail notification subscription if you don’t want to have Game Center send you messages. Tap Next to proceed. See the following task, “Create a Profile,” to create your Game Center profile in subsequent dialogs.
When you first register for Game Center, if you use an e-mail address other than the one associated with your Apple ID, you may have to create a new Apple ID and verify it using an e-mail message that’s sent to your e-mail address. See Chapter 3 for more about creating an Apple ID when opening an iTunes account.
Create a Profile
1. When you reach the last dialog in Step 6 of the previous task, you’re ready to create your profile and specify some account settings. You can also make most of these settings after you’ve created your account, by tapping your Account name on the Game Center Home screen. In the Create Profile dialog that appears (see Figure 14-2), in the Nickname field, enter the “handle” you want to be known by when playing games.
Figure 14-2
2. If you don’t want other players to be able to invite you to play games when Game Center is open, tap the Game Invites On/Off slider to turn off the feature.
3. If you don’t want other players to be able to see your real name, tap the Public Profile On/Off slider to turn this feature off.
4. If you want your friends to be able to send you requests for playing games via e-mail check to see if the e-mail address listed in this dialog is the one you want them to use. If not, tap Add Another Email and enter another e-mail address.
5. To use your contacts saved in the iPad Contacts app to get friend recommendations tap the Use My Contacts On/Off slider to turn this feature on. Gaming Center can now recommend friends from that list.
6. Tap Done when you’re finished with the settings. You return to the Game Center Home screen, already signed in to your account with information displayed about friends, games, and gaming achievements (all at zero initially.)
7. To add a picture to your profile tap on Change Photo. You see a message that your photo will be shared with all other Game Center players. Tap OK.
8. The two options of Take Photo (on iPad 2 only) or Choose Photo appear. Tap Choose Photo to select a photo from your camera roll or a photo library. Tap the library you want to use and scroll to locate the photo.
9. Tap the photo and it appears in a Choose Photo dialog. You can use your finger to move the photo around or scale it, and then tap Use. The photo now appears on your Game Center home screen (see Figure 14-3).
After you create an account and a profile, whenever you go to the Game Center, you log in by entering your e-mail address and password and then tapping Sign In.
You can change account settings from the Game Center Home screen: Tap your account name and then View Account, make changes to your settings, and then tap Done.
Figure 14-3
Add Friends
1. If you want to play Game Center games with others who have an Apple ID and an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, add them as friends so that you can invite them to play. From the Game Center Home screen, tap the Friends button at the bottom of the screen.
2. On the Friends page, tap Add Friends.
3. Enter an e-mail address in the To field and edit the invitation, if you like.
4. Tap the Send button. A confirmation message tells you that your invitation has been sent. Tap OK. After your friend accepts your invitation, his or her name is listed on the Friends screen.
With iOS 5 Game Center gained a Friend Recommendations feature. Tap the Friends tab, and then tap the A-Z button in the top-left corner. A Recommendations section appears above the list of your current friends. These are people who play the same or similar games, so if you like, try adding one or two as friends.
You will probably also receive requests from friends who know you’re on Game Center. When you get these e-mail invitations, be sure that you know the person sending it before you accept it — especially if you’ve allowed e-mail access in your account settings — otherwise you could be putting a stranger in communication with you.
Purchase and Download Games
1. Time to get some games to play! Open Game Center and sign in to your account.
2. Tap the Games button at the bottom of the screen, and then tap Find Game Center Games (see Figure 14-4).
3. In the list of games that appears, scroll through the list of featured games. To view different games, tap either the Top Charts or Categories button at the bottom of the screen. Note: Accessing these from the Game Center displays only game apps, as opposed to accessing apps from the App Store which shows you all categories of apps.
Figure 14-4
4. To search for a particular title, tap the Search field and enter the name by using the onscreen keyboard.
5. Tap a game title to view information about it. To buy a game, tap the button labeled with either the word free or the price (such as $1.99). Then tap the button again, which is now labeled Install App. A dialog appears, asking for your Apple ID and password. Enter these and tap OK. Another verification dialog appears, asking you to sign in. Follow the instructions on the next couple of screens to enter your password and verify your payment information if this is the first time you’ve signed in to your account from this device.
6. When the verification dialog appears, tap Buy. The game downloads.
If you have added friends to your account, you can go to the Friends page and view games your friends have downloaded. To purchase one of these games, just tap it in your friend’s list.
You may see buttons labeled Buy It Now or Available at the App Store while you’re exploring game recommendations in the Games section of Game Center. Tapping such a button takes you from Game Center directly to the App Store to buy the game.
Master iPad Game-Playing Basics
It’s almost time to start playing games, but first let me give you an idea of iPad’s gaming strengths. For many reasons, iPad may be the ultimate gaming device, because of the following strengths:
Fantastic-looking screen: First, the high-resolution, 9.7-inch screen has a backlit LED display that Apple describes as “remarkably crisp and vivid.” It’s no lie: See the Haunted Manor game in Figure 14-5, for example. In-plane switching (IPS) technology lets you hold your iPad at almost any angle (it has a 178-degree viewing angle) and still see good color and contrast.
Faster processor: The superfast A5 processor chip in your iPad 2 can run rings around your iPhone, making the iPad ideal for gaming.
Game play in full-screen mode: Rather than play on a small iPhone screen, you can play most games designed for the iPad in full-screen mode. Seeing the full screen brings the gaming experience to you in an even more engaging way than a small screen ever could.
Figure 14-5
Ability to drag elements onscreen: Though the Multi-Touch screen in the iPad may be based on the same technology that’s in the iPhone, it has been redone from the ground up for the iPad. The newer screen is responsive — and when you’re about to be zapped by virtual aliens in a fight to the death, responsiveness counts.
Ten-hour battery life: A device’s long battery life means that you can tap energy from it for many hours of gaming fun.
Specialized game-playing features: Some newer games have features that take full advantage of the iPad’s capabilities. For example, Nova (from Gameloft) features Multiple Target Acquisition, which lets you target multiple bad guys in a single move to blow them out of the water with one shot. In Real Racing Game (Firemint), for example, you can look in your rearview mirror as you’re racing to see what’s coming up behind you, a feature made possible by the iPad’s larger screen.
Stellar sound: The built-in iPad speaker is a powerful little item, but if you want an experience that’s even more up close and personal, you can plug in a headphone, some speaker systems, or microphone using the built-in jack.
The iPad has a built-in motion sensor — the three-axis accelerometer — as well as a gyroscope. These features provide lots of fun for people developing apps for the iPad as they use the automatically rotating screen to become part of the gaming experience. For example, a built-in compass device reorients itself automatically as you switch your iPad from landscape to portrait orientation. In some racing games, you can grab the iPad as though it were a steering wheel and rotate the device to simulate the driving experience.
Play against Yourself
Many games allow you to play a game all on your own. Each has different rules and goals, so you’ll have to study a game’s instructions and help to learn how to play it, but here’s some general information about these types of games:
Often a game can be played in two modes: with others or in a ‘solitaire’ version, where you play yourself or the computer.
Many games you may be familiar with in the offline world, such as Carcassone or Scrabble, have online versions. For these you already know the rules of play, so you simply need to figure out the execution. For example, in the online Carcassone solitaire game you tap to place a tile on the board, tap the placed tile to rotate it, and tap the check mark to complete your turn and reveal another tile.
All the games you play on your own will record your scores in Game Center so you can see how you’re progressing in building your skills.
Play Games with Friends in Game Center
1. After you have added a friend and both of you have downloaded the same games, you’re ready to play. The rules of play are different for each game, but here are the basic steps for getting a game going. Tap the Game Center app icon on the Home screen and sign in, if necessary.
2. Tap Friends. The Friend page (see Figure 14-6) appears.
3. Tap the name of the friend you want to play and then tap the name of a game you have in common. At this point, some games offer you an invitation to send to the friend — if so, wait for your friend to respond, which he does by tapping Accept or Decline on his device.
4. The game should appear, and you can tap Play to start playing according to whatever rules the game has. Your scores mount up as you play.
5. When you’re done playing, tap either Friend or Game in Game Center to see your score and your friend’s score listed. Game Center tracks your achievements, including points and perks that you’ve earned along the way. You can also compare your gaming achievements to those of top-ranking players across the Internet — and check your friends’ scores by displaying the Friends page with the Points portion showing (refer to Figure 14-6).
Figure 14-6
If your friends aren’t available, you can play a game by tapping its title on the Games page and then tapping Play. You can then compare your scores with others around the world who have also played the game recently.