Gaming has been a major part of the apps we see on the iPhone and iPod touch, and now the iPad’s App Store. Apple has known this for a while and has now decided to share the spotlight with “Game Center”. With over 50,000 Game and Entertainment apps in the app store it is a major part in the overall picture of the App Store. This article will cover some of the basics of the brand new Apple Game Store!

Inviting Other Friends:

If you ever have played Tap Tap Revenge (Click For Review) you most likely have played a multiplayer challenge over the web. With Game Center people will be able to Challenge/Invite you to a game that they are playing or are going to be playing. When invited you will receive a push notification stating: “Invitation from –Player’s Name– to play –Game–” then the user will have the option to Accept or Decline. If accepted the game will launch and start, if the user presses decline you will stay in your current application and life we be as if it never happened.

Leaderboards:

When I look at Game Center all I can think of is Tap Tap Revenge as far as some features go. Leaderboards are pretty self explanatory. They will be displaying the “best of the best” at each game. They will also have different time periods, “Today, This Week”, and “All Time”.

Achievements:

For the sake of this article I wont make another Tap Tap reference, but the last big feature of the Game Center is Achievements. In the example used today at the keynote, things like “Alien Encounter” and “Energy Boost” were used in the example. Also seen in the example was a set number achievements that need to be met like 14 out of 50 or something similar.

With all that said and explained I think that the Game Center will be a great way for you to play anything from an FPS to a game of Checkers or Chess with other people. Apple has created what they call a Social gaming Network, which with what we have seen so far is going to be a great success.