Update: As of 13 June 2016, Apple has confirmed that Game Center will be scrapped for iOS 10. So, be aware that if you’re here to find out more about it and continue to use it, you’ll want to stick with the version of iOS 9 you’re using.
The Tabs: The Me Tab
We’ll start with the Game Center’s five tabs.
The Me tab is an at the glance summary of your Game Center activity, including how many points you’ve acquired. Points are gained from accomplishing certain tasks in-game and unlocking ‘Achievements’
As you can see, I’m not a huge Game Center user so there’s not all that much happening here!
You can add/change your Game Center photo and change your status from this screen. You can also click on the spheres to be taken to each corresponding tab.
The Tabs: The Friends Tab
The Friends tab is used to add new contacts to play against, and keep on top of your current list of Friends. Game Center Friends are obviously essential for multiplayer gaming, and also allow you to interact via Challenges.
As well as your current friends (at the top of the list) you can also see Game Center’s friend recommendations – which are drawn from Game Center itself. It will also make recommendations from your iCloud contacts and your Facebook profile, if you’ve connected them – more on that later.
You’ll also see any pending friend requests others have sent you here.
Inviting Friends
There are two ways to connect with Friends.
In the first method, you simply scroll along the Friend suggestions and click a name that appeals to you. This will bring up an option to send a friend request.
In the second option, click the ‘+’ at the top right hand corner, which will take you to a screen where you can add a friend based on email address, or Game Center nickname. In this way, you can add people who you want to connect with, but who haven’t shown up in Game Centre’s recommendations.
Game Center friends
Once they’ve accepted a friend request, you can use the Friends Tab to get a more detailed look at your new Game Center friend.
Tapping on their profile reveals three coloured bubbles – which will show you how many points he/she has earned, how many friends he/she has and how many games he/she plays.
Connecting iCloud and Facebook
Connecting to your iCloud contacts and Facebook account is optional, but will allow Game Center to recommend Friends based on your existing contacts.
To do enable this, navigate to Settings > Game Center and scroll down to ‘Friend Recommendations’. Enable both ‘Contacts’ and ‘Facebook’.
(not) messaging your friends
Another thing to remember with Game Center is that you can’t use it to message people, even Game Center friends.
However, if you added an existing connection (i.e someone you already knew) you could message them outside of the Game Center using iMessage.
The Challenges Tab
The Challenges Tab is where you are notified of challenges presented to you by your Friends.
Challenges are issued by selecting a game that your friend has installed, then selecting an Achievement for that game and challenging your Friend to complete it.
In fact, you can issue challenges even if you don’t’ have the game installed yourself.
Read: How to save ad restore iPhone and iPad game progress data
How to issue a challenge
Go to your friend’s profile in the Friends tab, see what games they have installed, – click a game and then browse it’s Achievements.
Click one of these Achievements and then the ‘send challenge’ bubble.
This will allow you to send the challenge, along with an optional message.
Challenge accepted
Once issued, your friend will see the name of challenge, along with the game it’s for, and who sent it (i.e you!) show up on this tab.
Note: Not all games have ‘Achievements’. Some are purely points based- which means you can’t issue a challenge for every game.
The Turns Tab
This tab is mostly used for co-ordinating between multiplayer, turn-based games – showing you how many players are in the queue before it’s your turn.
It’s not used for games that you play against others in ‘real time’ (non turn based games).
The Games Tab
The games tab allows you to see, at a glance, what games you have installed and what games are recommended to you by the Game Center. You can find out more info about Games here.
Scroll down below ‘recommended’ to see the games you currently have installed on OS X and iOS.
Click the game’s title to get more information, rate it, see the leaderboards and ‘like’ it in Facebook
Adding a game
To add a game, click on the title of the game you want to download, which will take you to a screen with more information.
Click on the right hand corner where it’ll either say ‘free app’ or state the price for the game.
This’ll take you to the App Store app, where you can confirm your purchase.
Read:
Removing a game
To remove a game, tap on the game you want to get rid of, and then scroll left until the red ‘remove’ box appears.
Clicking this prompt you to confirm the delete request, and remind you of you’ll lose all your data for the game, such as the achievements unlocked and ranks gained.
Change your username
The username or ‘nickname’ by which you’re known on Game Center can be easily changed – here’s how
Go to Settings > Game Center and click on your current username.
You’ll be prompted to sign in with your Apple ID. Once you’ve signed in, you can change your username on this screen.
Log out of your Game Center account
If you want to log out of your Game Center account for one reason or another, it’s quite simple.
Go to Settings > Game Center and then click on your Apple ID – which will be the email address you’re currently signed in with – a dialogue box will appear that’ll let you sign out.
Disabling multiplayer features and Game Center alerts
This is might be useful if you’re a parent concerned with your child’s safety online, or you just don’t want to deal with anyone else!
In involves the ‘Restrictions’ feature in Settings
Settings > General > Restrictions (scroll right to the bottom to get to it)
Then disable ‘Multiplayer Games’ and ‘Adding Friends’
This also sometimes fixes bugs that involve interruptions by a Game Center ‘alert’. These are alert that comes up onscreen in Game Center or right in the middle of a game you’re playing – they’re native to Game Center and are not the same as standard iOS notifications.
You can also use Game Centre on the Mac.
Adding a profile picture
Adding a profile picture, although not compulsory, can help make you a little more memorable to other Game Center users.
To add a picture – go to the ‘Me’ tab and then click ‘add photo’ at the top.
Game Centre and iOS 8
From a few peaks at other people’s iOS 8 developer builds, we know that Game Centre will be included in iOS 8, for a time earlier this year there were rumours that Apple would ditch the service.
What’ll change remains to be seen because in the most recent beta version of iOS 8 the Games Centre app is identical to the Games Centre app in iOS 7 as you can see from this image taken in iOS 8.
With the release of new developer tools for game developers coming in iOS 8, and the new Metal technology designed to boost iOS gaming, it seems fair to expect Apple to continue with its development.