Setting up

If you already read project 34 you'll know how much I love GameplayKit. In that project we used a new class called GKMinmaxStrategist to produce an AI that can win at Four in a Row games by looking ahead many moves in advance, but the truth is that we only scratched the surface of what GameplayKit can do.

In this technique project we're going to look at another aspect of GameplayKit that is hugely exciting: randomization. This will, I'm certain, strike you as a strange topic to choose: surely randomization is a solved problem – what makes it interesting enough to warrant discussion, never mind to dedicate a whole technique project?

It's true that generating random data – or at least the pseudo-random that most of us consider good enough – is old news, but the GameplayKit implementation goes a step further: Apple thought specifically about random needs for games, and has built a randomization system that I promise you're going to love, and going to use even when you're not making games.

Don't believe me? Fire up Xcode, create a new playground, and let's begin!