As a mobile game developer I sometimes use systems like Apple's Game Center to allow
people to do things like share high scores, track achievements, and even challenge other
players.
Now if you're not signed into Game Center you may find some functionality in some games
that you download don't work on your iPhone and iPad.
It's fairly easy to sign in to Game Center.
Assuming, of course, in Settings you're already signed into your Apple ID with your iCloud
account and everything like that Game Center is just basically a toggle switch to turn
on.
You can scroll down and find Game Center down in the section that includes music, TV, photos,
etc.
You can see there's a Game Center option there.
Go into that.
You can see on this iPhone it's turned off right now.
So to turn it on just flip the switch.
It's going to ask you if you want to set it up.
So hit Continue and then it's going to ask you to authenticate with your Apple ID password.
Now you're all set.
It shows you that you're using this account for Game Center.
One option here is the Nearby Players option.
Sometimes with Game Center you can do things like other people in your household on the
same Wi-Fi network or within Bluetooth range you can play games.
There's also a Game Center profile.
Now this is what a lot of people are looking for sometimes in Settings.
They will notice that they have a name when it comes to Game Center for the high scoreboards,
for challenges, and things like that.
They want to know if they can change it.
Sometimes a lot of people think it's strange that it's not the same as the name they're
using say for iTunes reviews or in other places.
But it is different and this is where you change it.
Just go right here and you can set it to whatever you want.
Now it's going to go and check to see whether or not that name is available.
Each name is going to be unique.
So we'll just leave it at that for now instead of searching for one.
You've got the option of removing all Game Center friends.
People can, you know, setup friend relationships on Game Center and that way you can challenge
your friends.
You can just remove them all and just kind of start from scratch.
A future version of iOS is going to allow you to go and see the list and edit it.
So you'll have that feature as well.
Now there is the possibility that you may want to use a Game Center account that isn't
your Apple ID.
For instance, say you have an iPad that's yours and you have children at home and you
want them to each have their own Game Center ID.
So you have an Apple ID for them setup with very simple settings and you want them to
be able to switch back and forth with who's playing and who's high score will be recorded.
You can do this.
At the bottom here you can tap on Use different Apple ID for Game Center and then you can
tap on the NOT option and signin with a different Apple ID.
This Apple ID can just be used for Game Center.
It won't change the Apple ID being used for everything else.
iCloud, iTunes, etc.
So you do have that option to be able to have a separate ID for Game Center than you do
for everything else.
So that's the basics there.
That's all it takes to do it.
There's one thing I will say though is, this was more true in the past than it is now,
but sometimes when Game Center isn't working, like you're trying to submit a high score
or an achievement and you're getting a Game Center error message or something like that,
the easiest way to fix that is to simply go here and turn off Game Center and then turn
it back on again.
In the past that fixed tons or problems.
It doesn't seem like I'm getting that many people having problems with Game Center nowadays
so things are a bit more stable.
But if you do run into a problem with Game Center the first thing to do is just turn
it off and turn it back on in Settings and that seems to take care of it in most cases.