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AppGameKit Classic Chat / iOS Game Center

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 1st Mar 2011 14:26
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I was wondering what you guys think about support for the Game Center that is now available on iOS devices. For those who doesn't know it is a leaderboard system that you get on all new iOS devices, I think it's part of iOS 4.

I find this to bring a lot of extra value to my games as I can easily compare my scores etc to others, and especially my friends. I can also see what games my friends have and easily download them, bringing in extra sales to the developers.

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Veron
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Posted: 3rd Mar 2011 06:01 Edited at: 3rd Mar 2011 06:03
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Agreed 100%, I really love Game Centre. The achievements make the game so much better for me and increase the lifetime of the game so much, working hard to get all the tough achievements.

I think the Tier 2 AppGameKit will support Game Centre if you learn the SDK for it, but don't quote me on that.

EDIT: Nup, it appears no multiplayer game supported in the first release, so I assume this means no Game Centre support at all. I'm sure it'll be supported eventually.

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LeeBamber
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 05:07
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Precisely, Tier 2 will allow you to integrate Game Centre if you have a Mac and a good understanding of their SDK. Of course as soon as you add it, you cut yourself off from every other device unless you create some compile configurations to exclude the Game Centre feature when you compile for Windows or Samsung, e.t.c. It's worth considering the devices you intend to target when looking at cool proprietary features.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 09:42
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Lee:
I know that if I add Game Center support it would only be for iOS devices. But there are a lot of iOS devices and I think it's worth adding that in sometime in the future. I would not be surprised to see similar features added to other platforms.

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DMXtra
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 11:21
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Lee:

This is worth adding in for Tier 1 in the future.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 11:36
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YES!

Not before launch, not before adding more platforms. But something that will probably be requested a lot in the future.

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LeeBamber
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 13:28
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So lets say we have a few Game Centre commands that only work on iOS, what would happen on all the other platforms? Just for fun, what would the commands look like to you? Have a go at creating a few commands and a description of what they do.

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Van B
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 13:49
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If iOSDroppedInToilet() then AdvertiseOnEbay(GetDeviceName$()+" in great working order.")

j/k

One thing about iOS apps is they tend to have auto-saving when you close them down, not sure how that applies to other platforms - but I'd like to have some generic handling functions... like OnClose(Function Name). So when the app is shut down, it will run the function specified. Inside that function there might be more specific platform stuff, but passing to that would let us save progress and clean up after ourselves.

One iOS specific command might be to return the playing state of music - so if the user is already listening to music, the game might forgoe any background music and just have sound effects.

Having access to the standard iOS keyboard would be brilliant too.

I know AppGameKit is multi-platform, but iOS is the daddy of those platforms - I think people will appreciate a few platform specific commands here and there, let them get the most out of the device.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 17:55
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I'm expecting platform specific commands for more platforms then iOS to be honest. Maybe not now but sooner or later.

Just like you can check for screen resolution, why not check what platform you are running on? You can even allow checks for exactly what version of the OS is installed.

if getPlatform() = "ios"

You get the idea.

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DMXtra
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Posted: 18th Mar 2011 19:00 Edited at: 18th Mar 2011 19:02
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Lee:

I think it is possible to use the strengths of
different platforms by adding on specific libraries
that are external to the language itself. Maybe you
add it as an expansion module and then do an import
to pull it in or something.

Import ("ios_gamecenter")

or something like that. I think it is worth trying
to add in platform specific items but do it in a way
that it won't harm the cross platform abilities of
the language. Does that make sense?

I would like to see a compromise, yes being able
to run once on any platform with the same code using
the basic core and then expand around that with external
libraries that are outside of the basic language.
A very modular approach.

Does anyone agree with this or do you have a better
idea on how we can do this. I am all open to
suggestions here.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 19th Mar 2011 15:51
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I think it's worth adding features in one OS but removing them in others if, when, or until they could be supported. You could make this very transparent to people by simply having a chart with all the commands that aren't cross-compatible on all OSes. I don't know anything about gamecenter or how it works, but something like:



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Conjured Entertainment
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Posted: 21st Mar 2011 20:38 Edited at: 21st Mar 2011 20:52
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Quote: "If iOSDroppedInToilet() then AdvertiseOnEbay(GetDeviceName$()+" in great working order.")"

lol Windblows in great working order.

Quote: "So lets say we have a few Game Centre commands that only work on iOS, what would happen on all the other platforms?"

They would ignore the commands maybe? Or crash maybe? (flip a coin)

Quote: "if getPlatform() = "ios""

Interesting

Quote: "It's worth considering the devices you intend to target when looking at cool proprietary features."

That is why I never liked Apple....proprietary.

A leaderboard should be as simple as accessing an online database, which is something all of these platforms should be able to do.
A leaderboard would just be a webpage that is running a script to access the data file on a server, which gets updated by the apps, right?

I think these leaderboards are a great feature for single player games, because they bring a multiplayer aspect to them with the competition.
This would be the next best thing until mulitplayer is supported.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 21st Mar 2011 21:57
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I think Lee has confirmed somewhere around here that there will be directives that allow you to do something like this.

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Conjured Entertainment
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2011 01:38
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That's cool, thanks.

I can't wait to get started.
Is there any chance that the list of commands is out there, somewhere?
Or, should I just start snacking on DBPro examples?

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2011 18:54
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Quote: "
A leaderboard should be as simple as accessing an online database, which is something all of these platforms should be able to do.
A leaderboard would just be a webpage that is running a script to access the data file on a server, which gets updated by the apps, right?
"


There are 3rd party solutions for this on iOS but they all require a registration process. With Game Center this is just way easier for the users and something more and more games will support. It's a similar system to what Xbox 360 made popular.

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Conjured Entertainment
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2011 20:24 Edited at: 22nd Mar 2011 20:35
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Quote: "There are 3rd party solutions for this on iOS but they all require a registration process."

Well that figures.
Too bad, because leaderboards would increase a single player game's chance of success.

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Digital Awakening
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Posted: 22nd Mar 2011 21:05
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I agree, that's why I want Game Center support. It's pretty new to iOS but more and more games support it. It got leaderboards, friends and achievements.

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LeeBamber
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Posted: 7th Apr 2011 05:52
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I am all for keeping the core universal, and then introducing 'modules' for specific OS feature sets so if you CHOOSE to be proprietary (target one specific device). I think these modules will be done a little later once we have exhausted the ways we can get as much into the core as possible given the current device landscape. I think we will add something like a GetDeviceType()="iPad" so you know where you are when you start as this will be handy if you have different graphics sets based on where the app finds itself (i.e. iPad=big, iPhone=small). Our plan also allows the 'actual OS keyboard' to be used during an activity such as text entry as we feel users of a particular device have got used to the built-in keyboard and would not appreciate having to learn our own 'virtual keyboard' if they can help it.

I drink tea, and in my spare time I write software.
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