iAP and Game Center / Gamecircle best practices

jonmulcahy

I'm adding Amazon iAP & Gamecircle support to CAT-ACLYSM and I ran into a few gotchas I wanted to pass along. Nothing major (so far), but it did require me to rethink some things.

iTunes allows you to use periods and underscores in your leaderboard/achievement id names. I've always done the reverse domain method. i.e. com.icebergapps.product.leaderboardname

Amazon doesn't allow periods in their name. When creating all the leaderboards and achievements I shortened my iTunes ids to just the last section, leaderboard name.

What I ended up doing was creating a table for leaderboards and one for achievements. Col 1 was the iTunes ids and Col2 was the leaderboard IDs. I also created an attribute called osType. iOS I set to 1, Kindle I set to 2. So when triggering a leaderboard or achievement rule, I use the tableCellValue rule and pass in the osType as the column.

When and if we ever get the ability to detect the OS, this get's even easier. Right now I have to manually flip that attribute when publishing for each type.

Going forward all my iTunes leaderboards/achievements will have no periods

quantumsheep

That's some great insight there, Jon!

So the recommendation for a new game would be to NOT use the periods when naming stuff in iTunes, but use underscore instead?

Cheers!

QS =D

jonmulcahy

That's some great insight there, Jon!

So the recommendation for a new game would be to NOT use the periods when naming stuff in iTunes, but use underscore instead?

Cheers!

QS =D

I don't know if amazon can handle underscores either. I didn't even try it. I'll give it a go once I figure out this whole amazon iAP/Gamecircle stuff.

quantumsheep

I don't know if amazon can handle underscores either. I didn't even try it. I'll give it a go once I figure out this whole amazon iAP/Gamecircle stuff.

\o/

clee2005

A problem arises if you use the "grp." feature of Apple's App Store to share leaderboards and achievements. It prefixes everything with "grp." So you cannot avoid the "." usage. I'm in this boat, and came up with the same solution as @jonmulcahy - use a table and flip a bit.

The question I have and cannot seem to find anything on is, can I use GameCircle for Android, or is it just for Kindle Fire? I am trying to implement and test it, but when I use my Android tablet to signin to GameCircle I end up with a amzn://com.donkeysoft.wordio .... this web page is not available. Seems like a specific protocol for Kindle Fire maybe?

matarua

Hope all this gets sorted by the time I need to implement it

colander

@jonmulcahy I just ran into this problem setting up Game Circle and like @clee2005 I have the grp. prefix so I can't change my iTunes Leaderbaord ID's to fit Game Circle.

I read your post but I didn't understand it can you go into it a bit more. I'm not sure how you know if the user is on an iOS devise or android. Also can you use the expression editor in the Game Center Behaviours?

EDIT: See post below

colander

@clee2005 I know you don't need the prefix grp. for achievements as I have read it was not required so I didn't use it in my game and it works fine in ad hoc sandbox. But I have read it was needed for leaderboards so I used it in my game without testing to see if it really was required.

I just did an ad hoc test in sandbox for leaderboards in a group without the grp. prefix and it worked. I have already submitted my game to Apple for review but if they knock it back I will redo my leaderboards, use "_" instead of "." and drop the grp. prefix.

@jonmulcahy I also tried using the expression editor to reference the Leaderboard ID in a table and it also worked. I assume you are changing your osType attribute manually depending on which operating system you are making a build for is that right?

jonmulcahy

@clee2005 I know you don't need the prefix grp. for achievements as I have read it was not required so I didn't use it in my game and it works fine in ad hoc sandbox. But I have read it was needed for leaderboards so I used it in my game without testing to see if it really was required.

I just did an ad hoc test in sandbox for leaderboards in a group without the grp. prefix and it worked. I have already submitted my game to Apple for review but if they knock it back I will redo my leaderboards, use "_" instead of "." and drop the grp. prefix.

@jonmulcahy I also tried using the expression editor to reference the Leaderboard ID in a table and it also worked. I assume you are changing your osType attribute manually depending on which operating system you are making a build for is that right?

yea it's manual right now. I think i put in a feature request for an os detection.