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If you’re building games with hyperPad on iPad, you’re already tapping into a nimble, touch-first game engine that lets you design, code, and publish with creative freedom. But to make your games truly shine, you’ll want assets, UI elements, and visual polish. That’s where the Affinity suite for iPad comes in. They are a professional-grade set of tools for layout, design, and photo editing, fully optimized for iPadOS. Use them in tandem with hyperPad, and you get a workflow that blends intuitive design tools with game creation, all right on your iPad.

Meet the Affinity Tools 

Here's how they can be used with hyperPad to create amazing games on iPad.

Affinity Publisher 2 for iPad

This is a full-featured, layout and publishing app that handles multi-page documents, text flow, booklets, and more. For hyperPad users, Affinity Publisher 2 becomes especially useful when you want to create:

  • Game manuals or digital handbooks

  • UI mockups and dialog layouts

  • In-game lore, codices, or storybooks

  • Marketing material or PDFs to distribute alongside your game

Because of its iPad-optimized gestures, context bars, and drag & drop support, you can bring assets from hyperPad into polished layouts without switching to a desktop. 

Affinity Designer 2 for iPad

Affinity Designer 2 is your go-to for vector art and illustration on iPad. Make your own icons, logos, character sprites, UI buttons, vector-based assets, and more. Some key strengths:

  • It’s been redesigned to mirror desktop equivalents while adapting to iPad’s interface.

  • You can seamlessly work between the vector and pixel “personas” (vector + raster) to get the best of both worlds. Check out this YouTube video.

  • According to some Reddit users, Affinity’s cross-app workflow allows you to take a design in Designer and drop it directly into Publisher without re-exporting.

For hyperPad, that means you can design UI elements, icons, and scalable vector assets. Then bring them over to your game engine with consistency and precision.

Affinity Photo 2 for iPad

Photo is the raster and image-editing powerhouse. It is essential for textures, background art, image filters, or stylizing photographs you want to generate or edit. With Affinity Photo 2, hyperPad developers can:

  • Edit or refine textures, backgrounds, or in-game screenshots

  • Apply non-destructive filters, masks, layer effects, and retouching

  • Export image formats ready for hyperPad (e.g. PNG, JPEG) while preserving high quality

It’s built to fully harness Apple Pencil, gestures, and iPad’s hardware so you feel minimal friction in editing.

Why These Tools Work Together In Your Workflow

  1. All iPad native, no desktop required.
    The entire chain: “concept → design → game build → publish” can happen on iPad. You don’t need to shuttle files between devices.

  2. Intuitive cross-app integration.
    Reddit users have found that Affinity’s apps are built to talk to each other (often via “StudioLink” concepts in their desktop versions), so your assets can move fluidly across Designer, Photo, and Publisher.

  3. Optimize for hyperPad’s needs.
    You get vector clarity and scalable assets from Designer, refined raster images from Photo, and polished layouts or UI prototypes from Publisher, all in sync with what your game engine expects.

  4. Free unlocking for iPad editions (as of late 2025).
    The Affinity iPad apps have been made free to unlock! Meaning designers and game creators can access Publisher, Designer, and Photo on iPad without paying the typical in-app purchase. Cite CG Channel. This reduces barriers for developers, hobbyists, and educators to adopt a pro-level design workflow alongside hyperPad.

  5. Language and file flexibility.
    Affinity supports many file formats, layered documents, linked files, and text exports. Useful when localizing or exporting assets for different platforms.

Sample Workflow: From Concept to Game Screen

Here’s how you might use hyperPad & Affinity together on iPad:

  1. Sketch wireframes or UI flow in hyperPad as prototypes.

  2. Jump into Affinity Designer to vectorize icons, menus, or HUD elements.

  3. Use Affinity Photo to create or stylize backgrounds, apply effects, or retouch visuals.

  4. In Affinity Publisher, compose in-game comp layouts, dialogue boxes, or manuals that pair visuals + text.

  5. Export your assets (PNG, SVG, PSD, etc.) and import them directly into hyperPad to build your scenes, place UI, animate, and publish.

Everything remains on iPad, so you reduce friction, file juggling, and waiting on desktop sync. Read more here!

Other Tips & Considerations

  • Monitor performance: Large files or many layers may slow things down on older iPads. Test your asset sizes and flatten or compress where possible.

  • Keep your naming conventions consistent: Use asset naming that matches hyperPad’s structure to avoid confusion when importing.

  • Use grouping & constraints in Designer/Photo to create responsive UI elements that adapt well to different screen sizes.

  • Start small: Try designing a single UI screen or character in Affinity & hyperPad before scaling up to your whole game.

Before You Go

When you combine hyperPad’s game engine (built for iPad-first creation) with the mighty design power of the Affinity suite, you get an all-iPad creative ecosystem. No desktop needed. From concept sketch to polished in-game assets to layout design and publishing. It’s a full creative loop in your hands.

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