When you create achievements that truly surprise and delight your players as they make their way through a game, you can help elicit a feeling of accomplishment, or even make the player laugh. Most of us have experienced playing games where we have unlocked some kind of achievement or trophy that stirs some of these emotions. This is exactly what we want you to consider when you create Game Center achievements for your apps or games — and now, we’re challenging you to show the developer community your best, funniest, strangest, and most delightful achievements.
Begin the challenge
This challenge focuses on crafting an achievement that gives someone just enough of a clue to send them on their way. That means how you present the locked version of your achievement is crucially important. Focus on ensuring you’re providing just enough of a hint that the player doesn’t get frustrated. And, of course, be sure to make the player feel it was worth it with the unlocked version once they do figure out how to achieve it!
We welcome all achievements, new, old, existing, or imaginary: Show off locked and unlocked versions of your “teaser” from one of your existing apps or games, or put your wordsmithery to work and create an entirely new achievement. And share it with the developer community on the Developer Forums.
Best of all, we’ve made it easy for you to participate and dream up awesome achievements even if you haven’t yet implemented Game Center or you want to try something entirely new: Just download the attached Game Center achievement template.
Visit the Apple Developer Forums
Best practices for great achievements
It’s a lot of fun to create unique and engaging achievements to connect people with your app or game. Below are a few of our recommendations when thinking about writing and designing achievements.
Be creative with an achievement’s title, but straightforward with its description
Although most people appreciate entertaining titles, they expect an achievement’s description to specify how to earn it. If you were to create a WWDC21 achievement, for instance, you might write the following:
Title: Code Completionist
Description: Watched every WWDC21 Code-Along session.Be succinct
The Game Center achievement card limits your title and description to two lines each before truncating the text — brevity is key to a great achievement.
Think inclusively
Follow the Human Interface Guidelines around inclusivity when creating achievements. The best jokes, puns, and wordplay are those that are intuitive and friendly to everyone who might interact with your app or game, and make players feel recognized and rewarded.
Add unique, high-quality images
People appreciate earning unique achievements that remind them of each accomplishment. When you create custom artwork, you can help that achievement stand out from the others in your app or game and make it more recognizable to people who interact with it.
You can learn more about how to design great achievements in Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines, and in the WWDC20 session “Design for Game Center.”
Design for Game Center
Get your game’s interface ready for Game Center. We’ll show you how to deliver personalized touches to the GameKit interface that provide a rich experience for players, with features like achievements, leaderboards, and multiplayer gaming. Learn how to customize your game’s access point, design…
Download the Achievement Unlocked Challenge material
