“Tap To Resume” Pause text SpriteKit

Question

I know SpriteKit already handles pausing the game when the app enters the inactive state but what I\'m trying to do is add a SKLabelNode \"tap to resume\" when the app re-en

Answer 1

I believe your problem was setting self.view?.paused = true, as was pointed out by @Steve in a comment and @Linus G. in his answer. Therefore, when you tried to unhide the label, nothing happened because the view was paused.

I tried using self.paused to pause the SKScene instead. This solved the problems of showing the label, however it didn't actually pause the scene. This could be due to: since iOS8, SpriteKit automatically pauses your game when it enters the background and un-pauses the game when it enters the foreground. Therefore, trying to set self.paused = true, using applicationWillResignActive, had no effect because it was un-paused when entering the foreground.

To solve this you can observe UIApplicationWillResignActiveNotification. Then when the application is going to resign being active, you set self.speed = 0, which has the same effect as pausing the SKScene. This displays the label and pauses the scene as required.

For example:

class GameScene: SKScene {
    let tapToResume = SKLabelNode(fontNamed: "Noteworthy")

    override func didMoveToView(view: SKView) {
        NSNotificationCenter.defaultCenter().addObserver(self, 
                             selector: Selector("pauseScene"), 
                             name: UIApplicationWillResignActiveNotification, 
                             object: nil)

        tapToResume.text = "tap to resume"
        tapToResume.position = CGPoint(x: frame.midX, y: frame.midY)
        tapToResume.fontSize = 55
        tapToResume.hidden = true
        self.addChild(tapToResume)
}

func pauseScene() {
    self.speed = 0.0
    tapToResume.hidden = false
}

override func touchesBegan(touches: Set, withEvent event: UIEvent) {
    // Check the label was pressed here.
    if labelWasPressed {
        self.speed = 1.0
        tapToResume.hidden = true
    }
}