2 days to go! – Facebook

Hello kids,
When I started this blog, it was just for one purpose> to let people know what I'm doing and maybe to help some of them start doing something similar. So obviously I wanted to inform people about my blog, that it exists and that they can find here some (maybe :) ) interesting information. But how to do that? All I've heard and read was -> you have to be on Myspace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and maybe other social networks to be known and your blog to be known.

Well, I've listened to that advice and created my Twitter account and started writing there. I also created my YouTube account and with help of my grandsons I've created some videos and put them there. But no Myspace, no Facebook. You couldn’t find me there and I was not planning to change it in the future.

But I still felt, that if I wanna spread Gelex world wide as much as possible, I need to somehow connect at least one of these social networks with the game or this blog. It was shortly after that, when I found out, that many other iPhone games use Facebook integrated to them. You know the story already -> I started searching and learning more about it :) The result is Facebook Connect API for iPhone – small code and some libraries, which you can easily integrate into your application.

With Facebook Connect API you (as a programmer) have access into users' accounts (of course only if they agree with that) and use it for various purposes. The simplest one is to write some new status message (again, only if the owner of that account agrees with that). More complicated are things like take information about all your friends and compare your game score with theirs. In the game you can see all your facebook friends and compare with them.

So I've integrated Facebook API into Gelex, but for now only the simple way. That means -> if you finish your game, you can easily boast about your score in new facebook status message and ask your friends to beat it. You can see how it looks like on the picture below:



As you can see on the picture I’ve created my own facebook account. I did that yesterday and you can add me as your friend if you want :) I can reveal you little secret -> there's gonna be another new contest related to Facebook starting with the Gelex release! But I can't tell you more right now.

Back to Facebook connect topic :) I hope I will be able to improve it in future and add more Facebook related functions. Like achievements, this is good way to update your application and add new features.

Thank you for reading
Marie

Social network system - part 2

Hello kids,
Oh my dear! Nearly one week without any new post on my blog! Finalizing the game takes me so much time, that I’ve completely forgot to write some fresh news here. But don’t worry, I’m fine and Gelex is really close to finish. It could be like two weeks or little bit more and it’s gonna be done.

I would like to continue with the topic about “social network systems”. As I’ve already said, they are fine, quite easy to implement (as far as I know) and they offer a lot of functions. But these positive information you can find easily on their web sites. What you can’t find so easily is – what’s wrong with these systems. Like:

- Visual customization – you must stay with the design and visual style they have done, even if it’s completely different from visual style of your game

- They don’t guarantee you anything – now it’s free, but if they decide to change it, you can’t do anything about it. Or if they decide to put advertisement into it. Or if they go bankrupt or something and close this service. Part of your game simply depends on somebody else and you can’t really control it.

- Too much functions – when I’ve seen OpenFeint for the first time as a user (in game StickWars) I was so confused. I just wanted to put my high score online! It’s like – you wanna buy small car for shopping and going around the city, and they give you spaceship :) I don’t need that.

- Useless functions that make it even more confusing – like that chat function. It has no reason for that game (StickWars) and it was kind of confusing (at least for me) to enter a room and find other people to chat with.

For me all these negative things I’ve mentioned are just small problems. Sometimes you can even avoid or solve them. In some systems the visual style can be changed, if they put advertisement into the system, you can switch and implement another one; some systems offer you possibility to make them as simple as possible with just one function. So, there is a way, how to deal with all these problems. But there is one thing that I really hate; it is in all social networking systems and you can’t avoid it anyhow.

It is registration process and the need of making some account. For example: you as a user play you favorite game and you’ve just made a huge score and wanna impress the world with it. So you click “submit” button to put it online. But hey, there is a login screen! You don’t have any account like that, so you spend next five, ten, maybe even more minutes registering – filling all those forms, confirming that the email you’ve entered is valid (so you probably need to turn on you computer and check the email), waiting for activation and so on. Just because you simply wanted to put your score online.

Maybe it’s a banal thing, but for me it really matters. I don’t want to bother players. If I’m playing a game I wanna have fun, not to be bothered. Like in the game Flight Control. I really love it and I admire authors. There is online system that is exactly what I’m talking about. You wanna put your score online? No problem, just click submit, enter your name/nick and it is done. In few seconds! And if you want to control your score from PC, to have an icon and other features, you can register and make account. But only if you want, if not – the system can deal with it anyway.

But for my bad their online system is not for public. So I had to invent my own system. It’s already implemented in Gelex and it’s working great – that means the way I wanted :) Next time I will write more about it and what features it brings to players. Thank you for reading.

Bye bye,
Granny Marie

Social network system - part 1

Hello kids,
Few people asked me if I'm going to implement some "online social network system" into Gelex. And I was like: "What is it? I don't know what you mean?" So I started searching the web for some information about that and after a while I've realized what these systems are, that they are mainly for handling online score and…. that I'm NOT going to use anyone of them. And here is story why.

There are quite a few social network systems (or frameworks), which can be implemented into your application. Some of them are free, some open source and some are just commercial and you must pay for using them. Right now many iPhone games use OpenFeint, Scoreloop or Plus+ system.

The main purpose of social network system (which I’ve found) is to handle online high score. You can compare your results with other people all around the world. These systems are closely connected with facebook or twitter and (for example) you can compare your score with your facebook friends, which played that game too. You can also send some kind of challenge to your friend. That means that you send them invitation to play that game and that invitation includes your highest score and he/she must beat it.

Social network systems usually offer much more - like chat system, where people can talk to each other online. But this functionality is not really useful for the game. At least for games I've been playing.

Overall I think it is quite good thing to have system like that in your app. But I’ve decided to create my own high score online system with features that fit exactly a needs of Gelex.

Next time I will write more about reasons why I have decided for my own system and how the system works. That’s all for now.

Love,
Granny Marie