How to divide screen into a grid using 2d arrays in swift? - swift

Question

Below is my code so far using for loops, and this is what it looks like right now. As you can see it is very condensed
for i in 0...12{
for j in 0...16{
let block = SKSpriteNode(texture: blockImage, size: blockSize)
block.position.x = block.frame.width/2 * CGFloat(j)+1
block.position.y = frame.height - block.frame.height/2 * CGFloat(i)+1
block.zPosition = 1
addChild(block)
}
}
However, I am only trying to have 2 rows of blocks on the top and 1 row of blocks on the bottom. The screen should have a height 12 blocks and a width of 15 blocks.
Is there a way I can create a grid that is 15x12 with a cell size of 64x64 using 2d arrays? Because eventually, I want to add blocks to random cell locations in the grid(besides the fixed top and bottom rows)
I am looking for tutorials on how to do this, but I am finding people that use other open source options that are not included in swift. Please drop any tips or advice you have for me to tackle this I am very new to SpriteKit and Swift, thank you! (lmk if you need more clarification as well)
update:
I got it to look like this now, but I don't know how to remove the rest of the blocks that arent in the top and bottom rows. How would i get the location of each block?
for i in 0...12{
for j in 0...16{
let block = SKSpriteNode(texture: blockImage, size: blockSize)
block.position.x = block.frame.width/2 + CGFloat((64*j))
block.position.y = frame.height - block.frame.height/2 - CGFloat((64*i))
block.zPosition = 1
addChild(block)
}
}

Answer 1

I don't really code for SpriteKit but maybe can offer some tips based on the logic I see.
One way could be to add some logic in the for loop to check if you are currently iterating the first 2 rows or the last row and only in these cases, add the row of blocks.
let rows = 12
let columns = 16
let topBoundary = 1
for i in 0...rows {
for j in 0...columns {
if i <= topBoundary || i == rows {
let block = SKSpriteNode(texture: blockImage, size: blockSize)
block.position.x = block.frame.width/2 + CGFloat((64*j))
block.position.y = frame.height - block.frame.height/2 - CGFloat((64*i))
block.zPosition = 1
addChild(block)
}
}
}