Apple Game Frameworks and Technologies

Create a Bigger World with Tile Map Nodes

Like other nodes in SpriteKit, the SKTileMapNode class is a subclass of the SKNode class, which means you can set the usual node properties like position and name. You can also run actions and use shaders^[40] on these nodes. More important, though, you can define a tile set object using the SKTileSet class.

A tile set object stores an array of related tile groups. A tile group (SKTileGroup) can contain either a single tile (SKTileDefinition) or an array of tile group rules (SKTileGroupRule). A tile’s definition, along with the group rules, define how the tiles are placed within a tile map node.

Confused? I’m not surprised. The rabbit hole of tile maps and supporting classes can get pretty deep, especially ...