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Andres Lopez
Andres Lopez

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Xamarin WatchOS, create a game for Apple Watch

Xamarin is a development platform that goes beyond making cross-platform applications for iOS and Android.

In this tutorial we will see how to create an application for WatchOS in Xamarin.

Requirements

  • Visual Studio for Mac
  • Xcode 10
  • Mac OS Mojave
  • iPhone Simulator
  • Apple Watch Simulator

Creation of the solution

In this tutorial, you will create a small game for the Apple Watch based on the game of rock, paper and scissors and show a little of the great possibilities that Xamarin provides when creating a solution.

To start, we created a new solution in Visual Studio for Mac.

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Once the solution is created we will add the WatchOS project.

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We select Watchkit application.

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Uncheck the Include Notification option.

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Design

The graphical interface should be as follows:

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The construction of the interface is the same as in iOS dragging controls and should be as follows:

  • Label to see who chose the watch (rock, paper or scissors)
  • Label to see the result (win, lose, draw)
  • White thin line separator
  • GroupView with three buttons
  • GroupView with a label on the left and a timer on the right

The Label to see the result must have a height proportional to the size of the clock, to assign these values in the Size section.

  • Width, is assigned Relative to Container with a value of 1, which will take 100% of the width.
  • Height, Relative to Container is assigned with a value of 0.4, which will take 40% of the clock's height.

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A GroupView is a view that accommodates each control side by side horizontally.

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To align a control within a GroupView to the right in the toolbox within the Aligment section with right value.

The timer is a control that shows a type of clock in the form of Label.

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Code

  • Declares an arrangement with the 3 options and a counter to bring the number of games won.

  • When initializing we place the images to the buttons and the timer starts to show the elapsed time.

  • A function is created with the logic of how to determine the winner.
    The complete code of the controller is as follows.


using System;

using WatchKit;
using UIKit;
using Foundation;

namespace RockPaperScissorsXamarin.RockPaperScissorsWatchExtension
{

    public partial class InterfaceController : WKInterfaceController
    {

        private int Counter = 0;

        private enum Results { TIE, WIN, LOSE };
        private enum Moves { Rock, Paper, Scissors }

        private Moves[] Options = { Moves.Rock, Moves.Paper, Moves.Scissors };

        protected InterfaceController(IntPtr handle) : base(handle)
        {

        }

        public override void Awake(NSObject context)
        {
            base.Awake(context);

            RockButton.SetBackgroundImage(new UIImage("rock"));
            PaperButton.SetBackgroundImage(new UIImage("paper"));
            ScissorsButton.SetBackgroundImage(new UIImage("scissors"));

            Timer.Start();
        }

        public override void WillActivate()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0} will activate", this);
        }

        public override void DidDeactivate()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("{0} did deactivate", this);
        }

        partial void RockButton_Activated()
        {
            Check(Moves.Rock);
        }

        partial void PaperButton_Activated()
        {
            Check(Moves.Paper);
        }

        partial void ScissorsButton_Activated()
        {
            Check(Moves.Scissors);
        }

        private void Check(Moves selection) 
        {
            var random = new Random();

            var position = random.Next(0, Options.Length);
            var machineChoose = Options[position];


            if (selection == machineChoose)
            {
                ResultLabel.SetText(Results.TIE.ToString());
            }
            else if (selection == Moves.Rock && machineChoose == Moves.Scissors)
            {
                ResultLabel.SetText(Results.WIN.ToString());
                Counter += 1;
            }
            else if (selection == Moves.Rock && machineChoose == Moves.Paper)
            {
                ResultLabel.SetText(Results.LOSE.ToString());
            }
            else if (selection == Moves.Paper && machineChoose == Moves.Rock)
            {
                ResultLabel.SetText(Results.WIN.ToString());
                Counter += 1;
            }
            else if (selection == Moves.Paper && machineChoose == Moves.Scissors)
            {
                ResultLabel.SetText(Results.LOSE.ToString());
          }
            else if (selection == Moves.Scissors && machineChoose == Moves.Paper)
            {
                ResultLabel.SetText(Results.WIN.ToString());
                Counter += 1;
          }
            else if (selection == Moves.Scissors && machineChoose == Moves.Rock)
            {
                ResultLabel.SetText(Results.LOSE.ToString());
          }

            WinnerLabel.SetText($"Wins: {Counter}");
            OponentLabel.SetText($"Oponent: { machineChoose }");

        }
    }

}

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The project is executed and the application is executed as follows:

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Conclusion

In this example we saw the wide possibilities offered by Xamarin when creating applications, adding support for WatchOS, TVOS, Android Wear and even Android TV applications. ๐Ÿ˜„

You can check the application code on Github

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