Universal iOS Games

There are three kinds of iOS apps:

•    iPhone-only
•    iPad-only
•    Universal (works on both)

If you are targeting both iPhone and iPad users, we recommend creating a Universal app, rather than creating separate apps for iPhone and iPad users. What are the benefits of this type of app?

•    Cheaper - Users pay for and download a single game, rather than two separate ones.
•    Consolidated - Rather than split your ratings and stats over 2 apps, they are combined in 1. This will boost your rankings.

For these reasons, we recommend you create Universal apps.

How to Designate a Game as Universal

Designating a game as Universal is simple:

1) Click the Settings button.

2) Click the Mobile button (shown in #1).

3) Pick the “Universal” option from the dropdown (shown in#2) and save.

That’s it!

(Note: In Stencyl 2.0, there is a new option called Universal 2X that automatically enables iPad versions of your game by using the 2X graphics and stretching. This mode is in beta but can be a time-saver because you don't have to anything else to make things work.)

Is Your App Running on an iPhone or iPad?

On occasion, you may want to know whether your app is running on an iPhone vs. an iPad, so you can adjust the game’s logic depending on the device.

We provide blocks to make this distinction. These blocks are located under Flow > Advanced

Graphics & Universal Apps

If you are making a Universal game, you have to decide whether you want your game to appear on the iPhone vs. iPad.

Some games blow up the graphics to double-resolution on an iPad. Others keep them at 1x resolution in order to provide more screen real estate. A few take the middle ground by creating graphics at a somewhat higher resolution to get the best of both worlds - more screen real estate and more detail.

(On the very left are iPhone graphics, on the right are iPad graphics)

One problem you may run into when shipping a game with two sets of graphics is a substantial increase in memory usage.

We recommend sticking iPad-only graphics in iPad-only atlases, and vice-versa. We describe how to mark an atlas as iPad-only in our article on atlases.

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