Shapes & Numbers 4+

Shapes & Numbers is a game about matching the correct shape & number combination within a set time period. Clear the 3x3 board in the time and you'll have to do it again, but faster. Be careful though wrong answers will reduce how much time you have left to complete the puzzle. Clear the board without making a single mistake and you'll earn a perfect clear bonus!

Shapes & Numbers was created out of a challenge to create a game and publish it to the AppStore using only the Swift Playgrounds app for iPad. While Swift Playgrounds is not designed with game development in mind it does not mean a game can't be created and Shapes & Numbers is a proof of that theory. That being said there are some unnecessary design and functionality restrictions in place with Swift Playgrounds that do limit ability to the game that I wanted to make. Some examples of this include the inability to add Game Center integration for leaderboards, lack of .sks file support for particle effects, and no way to easily lock the rotation of the game to portrait mode - yeah don't rotate your device (it's not a good time).

That being said, this is early days for Swift Playgrounds, and I do hope that Apple is already working on Swift Playgrounds 5 with the hope that they are going to build a unique, simple, and elegant way to make casual games like Shapes & Numbers.

If you enjoyed this game, or the idea of making a game on your iPad, please consider rating Shapes & Numbers 5 stars on the AppStore and sharing it with friends and family. Let them know that this is the kind of stuff that even they could learn to do with a little time and effort and if Apple can figure out ways to make these tools even easier to use I do think we'll see the barrier to entry for game development come down even further.