Favorite games: The Guardian Legend, Final Fantasy VII, Dr. Mario, The World Ends With You, Rhythm Heaven, Puzzle Fighter, and Fallout 3 Sprite Paintings and Mosaics: SaturnValleyArt’s shop ...

It's true many independent games go the 2D route, and it's likewise true said 2D games typically fall back on sprite-based graphics that recall 8- and- 16-bit games from the '80s and '90s.

And with iOS 7—and Mavericks—comes Sprite Kit, which contains everything developers need to write a 2D game from scratch, without having to worry about OpenGL.