Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Ideas for an easy to use API for quickly adding trophies/scoreboards/other cloud-based features

A topic by Tangent (Rose) created May 02, 2018 Views: 686 Replies: 6
Viewing posts 1 to 3

If you haven't heard of Game Jolt, go look up their API real quick. That's what I'm inspired by right now, but I want to make a service that doesn't require going through adding your game to their market to allow you to take advantage of it.

So right now I'm copying their API and developing my own system to essentially strip as many requirements as I can between you using the API and having to sign up for or set up anything on a website.

My question here is what features would you like to see in such a thing or differing from how they do it? For example, I'm going to make it possible to have "guest accounts" so that users don't have to sign up for an account to have trophies. And games don't have to be registered before you can use the API. Just call with an ID that hasn't been used already and the API will give you access under that name.

(My core thought process behind this comes from my recent participation in the weekly One Hour Game Jam, where I don't have time to sign up for a site if I want to use their API in my game.)

Here you go, mate, try this...

https://mybadstudios.itch.io/simple-achievements

All you need is a unique name for each user and you are good to go. You can create your game's achievements right inside of Unity using the included prefab and for the achievement's images you can either store a URL then fetch the graphics online or you simply save the name of an asset in a Resources folder and you are now ready to move on to the rest of your game.

You clearly didn't read my post. I'm asking what features and ideas developers would want, not for a tool to do these things.

I apologise for my generosity and for wasting my time to offer you something out of the goodness of my heart. Please don't send me a pipe bomb for my efforts!

I thought you said you didn't want to waste time signing up with sites during 1 hour game jams and so I offered you a solution. Nothing is stopping you from still making your own version with whatever features you wanted. I just offered you a working solution you could use right NOW during your weekly sessions UNTIL whatever system you are making is done. 

I did not expect you to be this ungrateful for me dropping my price by 100% to give you a proven tool as the only response to your 2 week old post. Remind me to not do anything good for people in future. Apparently they will just spit in my face for doing so.

Here's a thought: DON'T download the tool. Problem solved.

Sheesh. If you want a features request list, look at Sparks and just include everything they offer. Done. 

Ignoring the extremely passive aggressive language for a moment, I see where you were misled by my post, but I was purely looking for thoughts from developers about what they would want with such a system. Excuse me for being a little annoyed by what looked like a thoughtless marketing shill for a moment..

I am not familiar with Sparks, are you referring to GameSparks?

(+1)

All's well, mate.  

I realise that you were asking for suggestions and my pot was not entirely on point.  As such, I can see how you could have seen it as self promotion instead, however, the fact of the matter is that I read your post and I uploaded that entire package to this site especially for you. Heck, I don't think I even posted an announcement here in the forum to tell people the asset is on itch... It's available to all, sure, but I uploaded it for you. Buy on the Asset Store or download for free here... trying to be a good neighbour :) That is why I was so upset by the apparent spit in my face with your reply.

Anyway, we are on the same page now and all is well. As for GameSparks, yeah. I refer to them as Sparks or sometimes Sparky. I do that so often that I often forget the full name :P My Bad :P The way I look at them, they basically do everything a person could want and if only I didn't have such a hard time getting their API to work I would have used them for everything and recommended them to everybody for anything. When it comes to "features" there are few websites that make me fall in love every time I read them... Oh such lovely words ... all those features with the word "free" mixed in between... I think I'm going to faint... ;) So if you are asking "what features should I"... I  can usually stop reading right there cause I already know what my answer is going to be: "Just do whatever GameSparks does and you will be golden" :)

Not sure if that was helpful but that is my opinion non the less :) Good luck with your tool

Peace out

(+1)

Thank you, and while I won't be using it, I do suggest you do some advertising for your package because it does look good. (I don't use Unity at this time, which is the primary reason I wasn't interested in it.)

Like I said, version 1 when completed is going to be fairly closely aping GameJolt's API, but I'm glad you introduced me to GameSparks, I'll be looking there for inspiration as well. ^^ (I'll also post back to you when it becomes available if you'd like, so you can see if it is useful to you or not.)