For the past few months, I’ve been building Handit Remote, an EV3 controller app for iPhone & iPad in collaboration with my robotics team.
Today it’s officially live on the App Store and available for every EV3 enthusiast out there. 🎉
Now back to SpriteKit and game dev. 👾
#iosdev #swiftlang
Thanks for the context! I’ll check it out!
I meant I don't like this pattern architecturally. For me, losing the automatic MainActor guarantees and having to manually manage what runs where isn't what I'm used to in my projects.It's a design preference, not a safety concern especially for a game where I want clear UI thread guarantees.
🚩 Personal Opinion: Red flag for production.
After discussion with @massicotte.org, I explored watchOS, SpriteKit, Swift 6 and Default Actor Isolation. On watchOS, Main Actor breaks the scene, forcing all functions to be nonisolated. Switching to nonisolated works but feels unsafe.
#SwiftLang #SpriteKit #gamedev
Back to Business! 🚀
Thanks Matt! Good to know! 🤜🏼🤛🏼
Yes I am making a game on macOS… but I’m trying to construct solid foundation modules to achieve reusability and maintainability for my future projects, with clear separation of concerns and concurrency safety. That’s why I’m taking it with slow and steady steps.
Sick! Nice pixel art btw! 👌🏼
Makes sense Matt! To be honest, I’m 100% focused on macOS and haven’t dug deep into watchOS yet. But after our discussion, I’m definitely going to check this setting and revisit watchOS behavior. I’ll post an update with my findings!
Not at my Mac now…Is there a specific value you think might help with this issue?
Oh I see… I haven’t changed this Xcode setting… it’s on the default value. Should I adjust it?
I agree with you! SpriteKit has a really small community… 😕
No, I’m explicitly marking methods as nonisolated override like didAppear() and wrapping the scene class as @MainActor if that’s what you mean! 😅
Yep, I’m using default nonisolated override
The issue is specifically with WKInterfaceSKScene on watchOS, its lifecycle methods like didAppear and willDisappear aren’t marked @MainActor even though they run on the main thread. So Swift 6 strict concurrency complains. On iOS/macOS it works fine because SKScene methods are properly isolated.
Sounds good man! Do you have a prototype?
Thank you 🙏🏼
Friendly advice do not migrate to Swift 6. Complete your project with Swift 5 as the migration causes errors and warnings as a casual watchOS application. 🙂
Yes but requires nonisolated workarounds that make the code messy. Seems like watchOS SpriteKit APIs weren’t updated for Swift 6 concurrency yet. 👀
SpriteKit is the official framework, but Swift 6 strict concurrency breaks a lot on watchOS since override functions don’t run on the main actor and need nonisolated context. You can either stay on Swift 5 or build with SwiftUI and custom animations. Are you planning to develop a game for watchOS?
Clarity through modules. Separation through design. 👾
#SwiftLang #SpriteKit #gamedev
I also can’t see a viable replacement for SpriteKit at the moment, and given that there are so many production projects relying on it, I don’t think Apple would deprecate it anytime soon… 🙏🏼
I completely understand your concern. To be honest, I’ve had the same worries. However, Apple has shown that handling deprecations thoughtfully. Even when they deprecate frameworks, they typically provide clear migration paths to avoid breaking existing projects.
What makes you think SpriteKit is about to be deprecated? 🤔
Anyone else building their SpriteKit games with a modular approach? 👀
#SwiftLang #SpriteKit #gamedev
Working on an inspector tool for SpriteKit projects… 👀
Would this be useful for your debugging workflow? What features would you want to see?
#SwiftLang #SpriteKit #gamedev
Silent killer 🤪
I see the problem, definitely a pain point, but we build to learn even when it hurts…😅
I’m building a tool for simulators running SpriteKit with Swift6, but watchOS is a red flag. My test game has tons of nonisolated content on watchOS, while iOS and macOS have zero issues and follow concurrency rules perfectly.Plus zero type safety on watchOS…Reconsidering watchOS support entirely…
