Welcome to the latest installment of From the Forum. In this series, guest blogger Alex Jackson highlights outstanding threads from the Corona Forum. The goal is to bring attention to the most captivating, interesting, and thought-provoking discussions taking place in our very own backyard.
Please visit the forum to join these conversations or start your own!
Kick the tires on Game Center
Whenever I start to implement iOS Game Center into a game I’m making, I always remember to have my lucky horseshoe, and cross all of my toes. I feel like just a little bit of magic is needed to make sure everything goes seamlessly when I’m putting Game Center mechanics in, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.
The forum is full of questions, concerns and issues that are encountered when folks start to wrestle with the dragon that is iOS Game Center integration. It’s a heady game of winner-take-all and leaves ruined wreckages of lives in it’s wake.
One or more of the previous comments is completely false, but now, rather than giving yourself a headache trying to figure out the nuts and bolts from scratch, our friendly neighborhood Developer Evangelist Brent Sorrentino has dropped a dynamite shortcut in the forum thread below, in the form of a simple project that has Game Center implemented. With this, you too can master the ways of the iOS-branded social media integration. Head over to the original link to grab it up now.https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/60889-how-do-i-test-gamecenter-multiplayer/
The building blocks of Lua
What’s the best place to start, in any situation? If you said “from the beginning”, then head to the front of the class to get the (arguably) most important part of Lua knowledge. Getting for loops squared away, fitting them nicely in your toolbelt between proper use of scope and module creation, could not be more paramount.
Fortunately, the forum, as always, is an endless font of Lua enlightenment from which we can all benefit. In the forum thread below, you’re going to see various examples of looping, how one can leverage them for any purpose, and how all of this can relate to you. Click through to the original link below!
Corona server solutions; the Coronium story
Coronium: the very name conjures visions of a holy grail of scalability, ease of deployment, and kitchen sink functionality in the world of third party servers, supporting the varied depth and breadth of Corona app development.
With Develephant on the Corona staff now, it’s no surprise that his server technology will get the good ol’ spit-shine, and having Perk’s resources backing development, I can’t be the only one giddy over the awesome stuff that we’re going to see come about. To this end, I am suggesting that we all take the time to review the below links, digest what we’ve seen in the world of Coronium and the current state of their development timeline.
Spoiler alert: I included the Parse forum thread because there is a very important (and I think, fantastic) detail that tells us what is coming down the pike. Check it out, and don’t worry, you don’t have to thank me.
https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/50957-coronium-gs-the-coronium-game-server/
https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/60497-coronium-ace/
https://forums.coronalabs.com/topic/59820-parsecom-plugin-v2/page-2
About Alex
Alex Jackson is an indie developer and the founder of Panc Interactive, specializing in retro-style gaming. He has created several mobile applications, enjoys long walks on the beach, pixel art, and reading the Corona forums. Contact him by email or follow him on Twitter: @pancinteractive. Check out his new game Segreta on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Amazon devices.