How to Make a Game App for iPhone: 6 Steps (2026)

By Sigsten Gustavii· 27 October 2026· 9 min read

Most of the games people play every day are not big. A daily word puzzle, a sliding-tile game, a quiz with friends, a round of solitaire on the bus. They have one loop that takes a minute to learn and a reason to come back tomorrow. That kind of game is exactly what you can make without writing code.

This guide is about how to make a game app for iPhone with Borel, an AI app builder that writes native Swift. It is honest about which games fit and which don't, then walks through the steps from an idea to the App Store.

Which games an AI app builder makes well

Borel writes games with SwiftUI, Apple's framework for app screens, plus Apple's tools for haptics, sound and motion. It doesn't use a game engine. That decides what fits:

If your game needs a physics engine or 3D, start with Unity or Godot. Both are free to start, and both expect you to learn their editor and write some code.

How to make a game app in 6 steps

Step 1: Pick a small game and its core loop

The core loop is the thing a player does again and again: guess a word, slide a tile, answer a question. Write it in one sentence, along with what makes a round end and what brings the player back. "Guess a six-letter word in six tries; one new word a day; keep a streak" is a whole game. Copying someone else's well-known game is not, both for players and for Apple, whose Guideline 4.1 says plainly: come up with your own ideas.

Step 2: Write the rules down

A one-page design note saves many rounds of changes later. Cover:

• The loop and the goal. What a turn is, and how a round is won or lost.
• Scoring. Points, stars, a timer or a streak.
• Difficulty. How the game gets harder, or how a daily puzzle is chosen.
• Screens. Start, play, pause, results and settings.
• The feel. Colours, sounds, and where the phone should tap back with a haptic.

Step 3: Describe the game to Borel

Open Borel and paste your rules as a description. Borel's planner reads it, asks about anything unclear, and the builder writes the game in Swift.

Make a daily word game. Every day there is one six-letter word, the same for everyone, chosen from a list by the date. The player has six tries. After each guess, letters turn green if right and in place, yellow if in the word but elsewhere, grey if not in it. Use a big on-screen keyboard. Keep a streak and show stats after each game. Add a light haptic on every key and a stronger one on a win. Dark background, bright tiles.

Within a minute or two the game opens on a live iPhone in your browser, running in Apple's iOS Simulator on Borel's Mac. Play a round. You'll know at once whether the loop is fun.

Step 4: Play it, then tune it

Games are tuned, not specified. Play ten rounds and change one thing at a time: "give the player 90 seconds instead of 60", "make the tiles flip one by one", "show a confetti burst on a win". Every change is built and opened again, and every version is kept, so a change that ruins the feel rolls back in a click.

A few things worth asking for:

• [Haptics](/native-ios-features/haptics) on taps, wins and losses, which make a small game feel physical.
• Tilt controls from the phone's motion sensors, for a game you steer by tilting.
• A leaderboard kept in Borel Cloud, where everyone signed in can read the scores and each player writes only their own.
• Pictures for cards or backgrounds: attach your own art, or have Borel draw pictures from a description.
• A saved game that is still there when the player comes back.

A daily puzzle chosen from the date needs no server at all, which keeps it free to run. A leaderboard does need the cloud, and a determined player could still send in a fake score, so treat it as a bit of fun rather than a competition with prizes.

Step 5: Test on a real iPhone

Haptics and tilt only work on a real phone. With Pro, Borel Companion installs the game on your iPhone from a Windows PC or a Mac, a cable once and then over Wi-Fi. Hand it to three people who have never seen it and watch without explaining. Where they get stuck is your next change.

Step 6: Publish to the App Store

Stamp, Borel's reviewer, checks the game for the rules Apple most often turns apps down for. Then Publish builds, signs and uploads it to App Store Connect under your own Apple Developer account, and walks you through the name, icon, screenshots and description. Choose the Games category and a subcategory like Word or Puzzle, and use screenshots from the middle of a round, not the menu.

App Store rules for games

Most small games run into none of these. The one to watch is 4.1: a game that looks like a copy of a famous one is the easiest kind to turn down. See App Review for how the review works.

How game apps make money

• A one-time unlock. Free to play with a paid full version: every level, unlimited games, or no daily limit.
• A subscription. For games with new puzzles every week, or extras like a puzzle archive.
• A paid download. Set a price in App Store Connect and skip in-app purchases altogether.

Use the Add payment button in Borel to set a plan's name, billing cycle and price. Borel builds the purchase on Apple's StoreKit, with Restore Purchases, and creates the product at Apple when you publish; see in-app purchases. Apple keeps 15% of sales under its Small Business Program for developers earning up to $1 million a year, and 30% above that.

Ads are another common model, but Borel apps don't include third-party ad networks, so plan on unlocks or subscriptions.

How much does it cost to make a game app?

So a small word or puzzle game can reach the App Store for $339 in its opening year on Borel's lowest monthly tier, or $291 paid yearly, including Apple's fee. See pricing.

How to choose the right way to make a game

• Borel, for word, puzzle, quiz, card and simple tap games on iPhone, when you want to describe the game rather than learn an editor.
• Godot, for 2D and 3D games with physics, if you are ready to learn its editor and scripting language.
• Unity, for 3D, action and games on many platforms at once.
• Xcode with SpriteKit, if you are a developer on a Mac and want to write the game by hand.

Game tools compared

The Bottom Line

If your game is one clear loop with a reason to come back, you can make it this week. Describe the rules to Borel, play it on a live iPhone in your browser, tune it with plain words, and publish it under your own name. If it needs physics or 3D, pick a game engine and enjoy learning it. For a quick win, start with a quiz or a daily word puzzle.

I started Borel because I wanted to make iPhone apps without a Mac or a team behind me. If this helped you build something, I would love to see it.

– Sigsten

Make your iPhone app in Borel

Describe the app you want and see its first screens before you pay anything.