my custom stats dashboard leveraging the networking functions

jonmulcahy

So it's been about a year since I first published my networking tutorial, and I finally have an application out in the wild that leverages the functions to provide real world information.

In my new game Building Jumper (download it now, it's free! ), I had added some code to capture some statistics to help me decide what to support in the future, but also help me balance the game. I can see how many times the game is launched, how far they play in the game, their high scores, and the device it is played on. It's part of a larger network I am building going forward, but an important piece of the puzzle.

So far, I've just built out the device statistics section of the dashboard. It ain't pretty (yet), but it tells a story. Tomorrow I'll be expanding it to capture the game statistics. It's basic, but very cool.

Here is a screenshot of the dashboard so far. I plan to implement a data vis plugin like Raphael to make it really nice to look at, but first I need to get all the numbers and calculations out of the database.

iamcartez

Really nice work!

robertkdale

@jonmulcahy Thanks for sharing! You have developed a VERY VLAUABLE process.

I am going to review your networking tutorial and attempt to
develop something similar. Admittedly it may take me a while as I attempt to figure it out. It seems really complex.

Thanks again for sharing.
It would be nice if GS had a custom behavior that does this for PRO Users.

jonmulcahy

yea I'll continue to update this post with developments on this. My next game is going to leverage the networking function pretty heavily, both for in game functionality, and a global look at how things are going. I'm excited for it, but I want to make sure everything works exactly as expected. So far so good!

jorkos

@jonmulcahy any interest in somehow selling this as a service? i'd pay to know basic stats on some of my apps

scottharrrules43

Check out my game uses online leaderboards and also support updatable news.
block wall jump by Joe Harrison
https://appsto.re/us/SLWo3.i

jonmulcahy

@jorkos said:
jonmulcahy any interest in somehow selling this as a service? i'd pay to know basic stats on some of my apps

Once I get it all figured out we will see, still too early in development

Iirc, I think @Hopscotch has some sort of service.

robertkdale

@jonmulcahy I also would pay. It is data gold!

Hopscotch

Thanks for the plug @jonmulcahy, yes we do, offering detailed analytics, messaging, event control, etc.

I will say though that for those who have the ability to host this kind of service themselves, it can put their apps on a different level.

Apart from the value of analytics, it opens a world of possibilities, multiplayer, cross platform leaderboards, affiliate networking, anti cheating mechanisms, etc.

As to hosting it as a service, @jonmulcahy, there is more than enough room. We are clocking 3000 events a minute and growing. So bring decent hardware.

jonmulcahy

Played around with the design this morning. I found a cool template that I liked (CeeVee), so I downloaded it this morning and started tweaking away.

It took about 20 minutes to tweak the format to suit what I needed and slide my existing PHP code in, but it works great. Clicking on the menu across the top brings you the detailed statistics for each app.

jamie_c

Very cool and powerful stuff, nice work.

Lovejoy

@jonmulcahy said:

Those are some interesting numbers. iPad, iPhone 4 and 5 in the lead.

jonmulcahy

@Lovejoy said:
Those are some interesting numbers. iPad, iPhone 4 and 5 in the lead.

yea, but it's only 863 (866 now!) people, not nearly enough to get a really good sampling

What is really trippy is watching the number increase whenever I refresh it to test something new.

I pulled the individual countries out of the database this morning:

LumpApps

Cool stuff. Big @jonmulcahy is watching you

jonmulcahy

@LumpApps said:
Cool stuff. Big jonmulcahy is watching you

haha, I see everything!

These are 100% anonymous stats. The first time an app is opened it generates a unique id, but if you delete and reinstall it, the ID is regenerated.

jonmulcahy

not much work since my last update, but I did find this software when searching for something else:

Status Board by Panic Software
https://panic.com/statusboard/

It's a way to graph and display different things. I'm going to write a conversion script so I can have a realtime dashboard of my downloads, game plays, basically anything in it.

Hopscotch

Sleek!

StormyStudio

Very very very nice work Jon.

Hmm... I so want to do this with my next title (when ever that is). It would be great just to know which levels people get stuck on and adjust accordingly.

jonmulcahy

I took an hour today and wrote some code to display the stats for the actual game. I started looking into HighCharts to throw some graphical displays with averages and whatnot, but that won't be done till next week.