Game Center Leaderboard: Best Practices

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  • MagoNicolasMagoNicolas Member, PRO Posts: 2,090
    Still Can`t Fix My Problem.
    My LeaderBoards Shows 0 :(
  • azavegaazavega Member Posts: 362
    Just tried and its pretty simple, pretty excited how everything works perfect... Thanks Gamesalad my game got leaderboards now... yohooooooooo! Mago if you need any help ill be glad to help you... I speak spanish too.
  • 777ideas.com777ideas.com Member, PRO Posts: 895
    azavega said:
    Just tried and its pretty simple, pretty excited how everything works perfect... Thanks Gamesalad my game got leaderboards now... yohooooooooo! Mago if you need any help ill be glad to help you... I speak spanish too.

    i need some help can u explain the game center setup in itunes connect
  • azavegaazavega Member Posts: 362
    Ok first you go to manage you applications

    Then select the game that you want to create the leaderboard for.

    Click on the manage game center option

    Then enable game center for this app clicking on enable

    Then click on set up to begin creating your leader board

    Click add leader board, this depends on how many leaderboards you wan to have on your game ( for example I got 3 on mine one for beginner points another for professional point and last for expert points)

    Then used single leader board( after you have more than one you can used the combined leader board option never used yet)

    On leaderboard reference name use just a name you want to put to it ex. Beginner level

    Leaderboard I'd it's the most important cause is the one you going to use in your game and it's have to be unique so use the same domain you use for your game. Ex. Com.thenameofyourgame.nameofyourleaderboard

    Score format type I used integer depends on what type of data you want to store.

    Select the sort order

    Score range if you want any

    Then on add language you select the language you want your leaderboard to show on gamecenter

    Name it's actually the name that appears on the game center page for your leader board

    And to finish select the score format

    Press save and if you want to create another one you have to do all the same steps again.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    jonmulcahy said:
    It will pop up an alert saying that game center is no supported on this device with an ok button

    This button stuff is confusing. Does the alert show for all of the Game Center behaviors or only the "Show Leaderboard" behavior?

    With games like Cut the Rope, Angry Birds and Tiny Wings... I don't press a login button. I simply load the game and I'm automatically logged in. With that scenario, I wouldn't want an alert to appear.

    I don't see a way for me to tell GameSalad the difference. It doesn't know if I'm using a login button. That means iOS users without Game Center will always see an annoying message? "You can't log in. Upgrade your phone you loser!"

    Does the login button have an alert too?

    I think there should be an option to silence or activate the alert messages for the GameSalad behaviors.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    Maybe I'm thinking too hard about this.

    I did some testing...

    • iPhone in Airplane mode
    • Launched Tiny Wings
    • Launched Angry Birds

    Both gave warnings about being unable to connect.

    I think there should be a way to customize the alert message.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    tshirtbooth said:
    what i did was made a Gamecenter ON/Off button
    and in all my gamecenter rules i said is game.gamecenteronoff was true log in and post score.
    this way if its off then there are no alerts.

    I'm thinking of adding an option menu, with the ability to disable Game Center... but that's not the professional way to handle this matter. It's getting really annoying to be unable to use simple functions. I should be able to use rules and device data...

    If game.iOS.version is ≥ 4.1 then...
    - Run Game Center Code

    This is not hard code. How many updates are going to go by before I can do simple stuff like device detection and device time?

    I'm very frustrated. I know you like this update, but it's been almost three days of frustration for me.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    Do the Game Center behaviors do iOS detection automatically?

    I think I'll have do downgrade one of my iOS devices. There's a lot of testing here.
  • xarmianxarmian Member Posts: 124
    tshirtbooth said:
    what i did was made a Gamecenter ON/Off button
    and in all my gamecenter rules i said is game.gamecenteronoff was true log in and post score.
    this way if its off then there are no alerts.

    So simple. This completely escaped me. Thank you.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    tshirtbooth said:
    Yes it detects the device and spits out a msg when your on a device that does not support GC

    That's the problem. I think there should be a way to detect the iOS version and completely ignore Game Center options for devices below 4.1. It's never going to work for them, so why bombard them with messages?

    I'm going to mention the "C" word...

    Corona has this feature. I can't do as much with that software as I can with GameSalad, but I can display the time and other system info...

    http://developer.anscamobile.com/reference/index/systemgetinfo

    I think that's Best Practice. If the device doesn't have Game Center, then hide it. I can't do that automatically because I can't detect the iOS version. I can't customize the alerts either.

    The workaround is an option menu... but that's not ideal. The message is in English, but my game is being designed for an international market. So, my choices are...

    • Annoy International and/or Legacy uses with alerts — that they might not be able to read!
    • Don't use Game Center
    • Limit the minimum iOS version to 4.1

    In any scenario, that's unacceptable.

    I don't understand why GameSalad ignores this simple data? Why can't there be a series of new device attributes?

    game.clock
    game.iOS version
    game.model

    Also, an attribute to determine if the player is logged in would also be a step towards best practice.

    If game.Game-Center.login = True
    Then... run behaviors
  • RodericRoderic Member Posts: 145
    Photics said:
    That's the problem. I think there should be a way to detect the iOS version and completely ignore Game Center options for devices below 4.1. It's never going to work for them, so why bombard them with messages?

    I'm going to mention the "C" word...

    Corona has this feature. I can't do as much with that software as I can with GameSalad, but I can display the time and other system info...

    http://developer.anscamobile.com/reference/index/systemgetinfo

    I think that's Best Practice. If the device doesn't have Game Center, then hide it. I can't do that automatically because I can't detect the iOS version. I can't customize the alerts either.

    The workaround is an option menu... but that's not ideal. The message is in English, but my game is being designed for an international market. So, my choices are...

    • Annoy International and/or Legacy uses with alerts — that they might not be able to read!
    • Don't use Game Center
    • Limit the minimum iOS version to 4.1

    In any scenario, that's unacceptable.

    I don't understand why GameSalad ignores this simple data? Why can't there be a series of device attributes?

    game.clock
    game.iOS version
    game.model

    Also, an attribute to determine if the player is logged in would also be a step towards best practice.

    If game.Game-Center.login = True
    Then... run behaviors

    I second that motion. This should be part of the basic Game Center integration.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    tshirtbooth said:
    I suggested the game.ios thing when we were testing the beta .. they did not seem like they wanted that :(

    Yeah... it seems like they're avoiding it. I don't understand why.

    This is like what... five minutes of work for a good programmer? So if it's not a skill issue, then what is it? Why can't GameSalad games tell what time it is or detect system information?
  • beefy_clyrobeefy_clyro Member Posts: 5,390
    Photics said:
    Yeah... it seems like they're avoiding it. I don't understand why.

    This is like what... five minutes of work for a good programmer? So if it's not a skill issue, then what is it? Why can't GameSalad games tell what time it is or detect system information?

    Absolutely we should have access to such simple data!
  • RiffelRiffel Member Posts: 1,272
    azavega said:
    Leaderboard I'd it's the most important cause is the one you going to use in your game and it's have to be unique so use the same domain you use for your game. Ex. Com.thenameofyourgame.nameofyourleaderboard

    This do not make sense for me... why not the system: app ID+Game Center ID?
    other way I can cheat leaderboards...
    Is possible to search in the .ipa this IDs?
  • MarkOnTheIronMarkOnTheIron Member Posts: 1,447
    Hey Tshirtbooth, does the message only appears when he try to login to GC or also every time a score is posted?

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  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    MarkOnTheIron said:
    Hey Tshirtbooth, does the message only appears when he try to login to GC or also every time a score is posted?

    It seems that a message appears whenever a Game Center action fails...

    • Logging in
    • Sending High Score
    • Loading High Scores

    I'm still very disappointed with 0.9.3 - as I can't customize Game Center in a way that's less annoying for players.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    tshirtbooth said:
    Photics you are not disappointed in 9.3 you just dont like GC setup. But you have to like the more stable creator.
    So its not all bad.

    I haven't even had a chance to enjoy the new stability. For the last three days, I've been redoing artwork because my game was too large to upload to GameSalad.

    I didn't really care about restarting the creator. I could work around that...

    Save... Quit... relaunch

    I can't work around the limits of GameSalad. There's no way to work around the limitations of GameSalad. Stability doesn't let me...

    • Customize alert messages
    • Read the system clock
    • Detect the iOS version and hardware

    Leaderboards are nice, but not if it's so spammy for players that are not interested (or don't have) Game Center.

    The standard way of using Game Center is auto-login. All the top games do it that way. I don't want to have to build my game with buttons all over the place.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    tshirtbooth said:
    Well you can always use corona! the time you would save not having to post over and over about how much you dont like gamesalad would = the extra time it will take you to code :)

    The main reason I stuck around was Game Center heading to GameSalad. It's a big reason why I built BOT with GameSalad and not learn Corona. Now that the feature is here, I'm disappointed.

    This is not a coding issue. This is a feedback issue. GameSalad was given the correct answer - iOS version detection. You gave them the correct solution. The correct answer is not me learning to code in Corona, as I can do that. The correct answer is actually building up the software.

    If the answer to issues like this is "Learn Corona"... then that's what people will do.

    Heh, maybe that's what I should do. I'll have to think about this matter after BOT is done. I've pushed the software as far as it can go.
  • MarkOnTheIronMarkOnTheIron Member Posts: 1,447
    What about this? Will the on/off system described by tshirtbooth be enough?

    From Apple GC guidelines:

    "Your game must disable all Game Center features when there is not an authenticated player.

    Important: On devices where Game Center is not available, Game Kit returns a GKErrorNotSupported error when your game attempts to authenticate the local player. Your game must handle any authentication errors by disabling all Game Center features."

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  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    Did I complain when iPad support was added? Nope! (That was awesome!)

    Did I complain when Interpolate was added? Nope! (That was also awesome!)

    Did I complain when the price dropped? Nope! (Nope! That was a good move!)

    Game Center was launched almost a year ago. Just now we're getting a small piece of what Game Center can do. It's good, but it's not as polished as it should be. What would fix it? Not much! It's a simple addition that would make lots of GameSalad games better. GameSalad should access system info!

    Didn't I see a post from you, wondering if you should downgrade your menu system? Wouldn't it be better if you could simply detect the platform and then use the proper behaviors and settings?

    What's getting old is the constant letdowns and good feedback being ignored. This update is disappointing. The big feature is that it stops freezing? That's not a feature. That's something it should do normally. Game Center is the main update for 0.9.3 and it's limited.
  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    MarkOnTheIron said:
    What about this? Will the on/off system described by tshirtbooth be enough?

    From Apple GC guidelines:

    "Your game must disable all Game Center features when there is not an authenticated player.
    The problem is that GameSalad doesn't do that automatically. I can create a setting for the player to choose, but the player has to manually disable Game Center... or manually turn it on is probably less intrusive.

    The problem is that the alerts are in English, which hurts localization. And for iOS devices below 4.1, they never have to be given the choice. They don't have Game Center.
  • MarkOnTheIronMarkOnTheIron Member Posts: 1,447
    I know that GS don't do that automatically that's why I asked if the "Enable GC" method would pass Apple review. Then I found that this method is not so uncommon so we should be OK:

    image

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  • PhoticsPhotics Member Posts: 4,172
    MarkOnTheIron said:
    I know that GS don't do that automatically that's why I asked if the "Enable GC" method would pass Apple review. Then I found that this method is not so uncommon so we should be OK:

    Yeah, I'm thinking that GameSalad's current implementation is good enough to get through Apple's review process. I checked Angry Birds and Tiny Wings. They have pop-up alerts when Game Center fails.

    I'm not worried about that. The reason why this update was disappointing to me is because I can see how players without Game Center could get confused or annoyed with the alerts. If the players are frustrated, they're more likely to leave bad reviews.
    tshirtbooth said:
    * YEs you complained that there was no more custom splash screen.

    Well, that was a pretty stupid thing to do... and they eventually fixed it. That's a separate issue. You don't see me harping on further price drops at this time. That's because $499 is OK. There are cheaper alternatives, but they're not as easy to use.

    And realistically... when you spend two months on creating backgrounds... and then you see those backgrounds disappear in 0.9.3... it tends to kill enthusiasm for updates.
  • MarkOnTheIronMarkOnTheIron Member Posts: 1,447
    Ok apparently we're allowed to put an "Enable GC" message/scene/option in our game so that the user can choose on its own.

    Unfortunately I found another problem with GC. When you have no internet connection on your device you continuously get connection error messages. Something like this doesn't happen to the other GC games I have and it's really annoying for the user. And it gets more annoying by the fact that they almost always appear in the wrong orientation.

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  • hrsmediahrsmedia Member Posts: 522
    I am testing at the moment, and I am getting constant error message: "There was an error logging into Game Center"...
    The internet connection on my device is fine. I assume it's a sandbox server issue?
  • MarkOnTheIronMarkOnTheIron Member Posts: 1,447
    hrsmedia said:
    I am testing at the moment, and I am getting constant error message: "There was an error logging into Game Center"...
    The internet connection on my device is fine. I assume it's a sandbox server issue?

    I got this message once and it appears it was because I wasn't logged in GC. Check your rules and make sure that the login to GC behavior is before any other GC behaviors.

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  • hrsmediahrsmedia Member Posts: 522
    It was working fine yesterday, I haven't changed any rules.

    You don't have to use GC login before other GC behaviors, I tested them all yesterday. If you hit leaderboards it will prompt you to log in, and same with post score.
  • UtopianGamesUtopianGames Member Posts: 5,692
    I cant even log into GC now :( internet is fine password correct but all im getting is a spinning wheel in top left (next to signal)

    If i try and make a new account it hangs in the same way as log in:(

    Darren.
  • design219design219 Member Posts: 2,273
    Okay, I'm finally trying to add GC to one of my games.

    What is everyone doing with enable/disable?

    Also, is there a thread with a list of GC games made with GameSalad? I can't find one, but I though one was started a month or so ago.
  • SAZ_1SAZ_1 Member Posts: 397
    the rules aren't 100% right with GC...there needs to be a prompt to check if GC is logged in or not... for that reason i put a on/off but in my options page just to make things more simple for anyone who doesn't want to use it... anyone who does use it will just post there scores for them automatically.
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