Game Centre - game design etiquette...

StormyStudio

Ok, so since its just bven acknowledged that we are getting GameCentre in 0.9.3 and its for Pro users, and its coming very very soon.

I thought I'd quickly ask some stuff about GameCentre.

Personally I normally ignore GameCentre and OpenFeint and just get on with playing a game for around 5 minutes, analyse the basic game play, menu design, sound, controls, ideas then jump back into playing with GameSalad. (Some games break this rule where I truly love them and play them for ages, again and again... (Chopper 2, Grisly Manor, Game Dev Story)

GAME CENTRE QUESTIONS

So whats the deal with Game Centre from a design point of view.

- Is it the norm to add a GameCentre logo to your main menu?

- Can we add anything to our game icon to point out it has GameCentre?

- Do people normally sign into GameCentre the first time they load the game? (will it be a button they press to use, or have it ask them to login once the first scene loads?)

- What sort of achievements would you add to GameCentre for you game? just high scores? or lots of other things? ...

.... and yes before some suggests it, I will go play some games and look what they do with GameCentre in them... Flight Control is first up...

GamersRejoice

These are all good questions. From what I can tell once you've signed up with gamecenter its all automatic. I signed up for gamecenter in fruit ninja and now any game that uses gamecenter automatically signs me in. I think we need to supply buttons with links to the gamecenter leaderboards and whatnot though. That's pretty much all I've gathered so far.

jonmulcahy

be careful, apple specifically states to not put anything on your icon about gamecenter. I think it could cause a rejection

StormyStudio

jonmulcahy said:
be careful, apple specifically states to not put anything on your icon about gamecenter. I think it could cause a rejection

Ok, wont be doing that then... how about the gamecentre icon, do people put it on their main menus in the same way you see openfient branding on game menus.

Metronome49

stormystudio said</... how about the gamecentre icon, do people put it on their main menus in the same way you see openfient branding on game menus.

I have seen that before, I don't think it's an issue, especially if you make the icon go to the GameCenter leader boards or something.

Edit: oops, I messed up the formatting somehow typing on An iPad screen.

tenrdrmer

There is not achievements available as I understand. Only leader boards

I dont think there is any need for a game Center Icon in your game just a button that will take you to the leader boards.

StormyStudio

thanks for the replies...

I'm thinking adding an icon to your main menu, will mean people will see it when they look at the screen shots for your game, and be like . "Oh... cool it uses GameCentre", as I don't suppose everyone would read all the description text for your game.

Whether the icon when pressed goes anywhere is a different matter, but would make sense.

ApplaudApps

If you look at games in the App Store you'll notice that Apple adds a GameCenter badge by the icon so everyone can see which have GC already. You don't need to put it in your game.

When a player opens your game and you have GC integrated they will automatically log in and a GC welcome box will drop down - all you might need is a button to go the leaderboards. Wait and see what instructions we get from GameSalad.

imGua

stormystudio said:
Ok, wont be doing that then... how about the gamecentre icon, do people put it on their main menus in the same way you see openfient branding on game menus.

http://i.piccy.info/i5/36/42/1434236/GC.jpg