Have you owned an iOS device? Or any other smartphone? If so, it means you have played at least five endless runner games. At the moment, the runners' genre is becoming a remarkable thing that distinguishes the smartphone devices from any other gaming platform out there. So learning how to make a runner game is something very important when it comes to learning about iOS game development with Unreal Engine. As the engine is well made and highly optimized, you will see how easy it will be to make a runner using Unreal Engine 4.x for iOS.
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Implement 2D sprite animations
- Learn about the basic tap controller
- Use the Character Controller class
- Build endless level logic
- Understand the importance of collectables
- Perform advanced communications between blueprints
- Pool the scene objects for better performance
If you are going to see the already finished project that comes with this book, then you will find that it was made with Unreal Editor 4.30. If you are using a higher version, it might ask you that the project will be upgraded to a higher version, which is an undoable step. Just keep that in mind!
Since this game should have some sort of animation, I managed to build a character with a running animation, and also some items for the environment. Feel free to use your own handmade assets, or use the assets that come with this chapter's code or any other educational purposes. This chapter's code folder structure contains the following:
- The Animations folder: This contains two of the Paper2D flipbook animations.
- The Blueprints folder: This contains all of the blueprints (regardless of type).
- The gameScene folder: This holds only one level, which has the game in it.
- The Materials folder: This only contains one material which will be used for the font of the UI.
- The Shapes folder: This is the home for the basic 3D shapes that were used to block the level.
- The Sprites folder: This is the home for all of the textures and sprites. It contains the main textures and the generated sprites.