Supported alternatives to corona cloud (sepcifically turn based and player matching)

Solar2D General Questions/Discussion
#1

Hi All,

I for one was very excited when Corona Cloud was launched as it had everything I was looking for to create a turn based game.  I was of course disspaointed that it was later phased (phasing) out but sometimes things arent feasible which i understand.

I recall in the email that there would be some alternatives discussed with exampes etc but i have yet to see these.

I wondered if any body out there knew of any good alternatives that can provide the same i.e.

Achievements

Turn based / Real time gaming

Independent user registrations (as in you can register with your own email address or facebook, etc)

Player matching

(basically everything that corona cloud did!)

I know there is support for google play thing but that seems to require a google account and doesnt have the turn based gaming ability (correct me if im wrong)

Any adivce greatly appreciated

cheers

#2

Hey, @david.hunt15, you might really want to look into Google Play Game Center.  So long as the user has a Google+ account (and all gmail users get it automatically anyway), it would work.

http://docs.coronalabs.com/daily/plugin/gameNetwork-google/index.html

And here’s the link to a sample code for a simple turn based game:

https://github.com/coronalabs/plugins-sample-gameNetwork-google-gemwars

Please note, for this sample code to work:

“What you have to do is to have multiple Google+ accounts which are in each others circles.  They also have to be on the list of testers on the Google Developers page.  Once they are friends then you can select them in the create match screen.  Once a friend is invited then they can join the room that was created and then when both players are there then the game should start automatically.”

Naomi

#3

BTW, from what I understand, the sample code is really an attempt at creating a turn-based game on top of GPGS’s real time multiplayer offering, and as far as I can tell, it is not fully debugged.  That said, I think it’s still a good place to start.  At least it won’t hurt to check it out?  (If your app is a very long turn-based game, like something played over hours, days and even weeks, I’m not sure how it would fare, though.)

Naomi

Edit:  Ah, one more thing… multiplayer feature can only be accessed by Android app.  If you are looking for a service that works across all devices (iOS, Android, Kindle, etc.), then GPGS won’t do the job…

#4

Hi Naomi,

Thanks so much for your time and the reply… Im really sorry i should of mentioned that i wanted something that would work cross platform - thats why I want the user registration independant from any ‘special’ account like google plus…

My game is also going to be a turn based architecture such as words with friends and the like although a compeltetly different game of course haha

thansk again :slight_smile:

#5

@david.hunt15, ah, okay, there might be some service out there that does it, but I don’t know any.  

I suppose you do not want to set up your own database server with web service that would take care of all user data and game data and enable you to do all you want.

Let’s hope someone else knows of a service that would do the job if it does exist.

Naomi

#6

Hi Naomi / All

I have just been googling around and I’ve come across ‘Photon Cloud’ which appears to do what i need.

Has anyone heard of this / used this? it appears to be supported / supports Corona SDK (cloud.exitgames.com) - can anyone from corona comment?

Anyway thought I’d post in case anyone else was interested in another serivce that does multiplayer with matchmaking, etc…

#7

Ah, that’s interesting.   @david.hunt15, thank you for sharing!

Naomi

#8

I am also looking for alternatives now that cloud is no more. I did notice the photon cloud service, but not sure how it would work for turned based play and not being realtime? would be interesting to try or to hear if anyone has tried this.

also see that this one could be interesting:

http://getmoai.com/products/overview/

#9

have you checked http://scoreoid.net/

#10

Hey, @david.hunt15, you might really want to look into Google Play Game Center.  So long as the user has a Google+ account (and all gmail users get it automatically anyway), it would work.

http://docs.coronalabs.com/daily/plugin/gameNetwork-google/index.html

And here’s the link to a sample code for a simple turn based game:

https://github.com/coronalabs/plugins-sample-gameNetwork-google-gemwars

Please note, for this sample code to work:

“What you have to do is to have multiple Google+ accounts which are in each others circles.  They also have to be on the list of testers on the Google Developers page.  Once they are friends then you can select them in the create match screen.  Once a friend is invited then they can join the room that was created and then when both players are there then the game should start automatically.”

Naomi

#11

BTW, from what I understand, the sample code is really an attempt at creating a turn-based game on top of GPGS’s real time multiplayer offering, and as far as I can tell, it is not fully debugged.  That said, I think it’s still a good place to start.  At least it won’t hurt to check it out?  (If your app is a very long turn-based game, like something played over hours, days and even weeks, I’m not sure how it would fare, though.)

Naomi

Edit:  Ah, one more thing… multiplayer feature can only be accessed by Android app.  If you are looking for a service that works across all devices (iOS, Android, Kindle, etc.), then GPGS won’t do the job…

#12

Hi Naomi,

Thanks so much for your time and the reply… Im really sorry i should of mentioned that i wanted something that would work cross platform - thats why I want the user registration independant from any ‘special’ account like google plus…

My game is also going to be a turn based architecture such as words with friends and the like although a compeltetly different game of course haha

thansk again :slight_smile:

#13

@david.hunt15, ah, okay, there might be some service out there that does it, but I don’t know any.  

I suppose you do not want to set up your own database server with web service that would take care of all user data and game data and enable you to do all you want.

Let’s hope someone else knows of a service that would do the job if it does exist.

Naomi

#14

Hi Naomi / All

I have just been googling around and I’ve come across ‘Photon Cloud’ which appears to do what i need.

Has anyone heard of this / used this? it appears to be supported / supports Corona SDK (cloud.exitgames.com) - can anyone from corona comment?

Anyway thought I’d post in case anyone else was interested in another serivce that does multiplayer with matchmaking, etc…

#15

Ah, that’s interesting.   @david.hunt15, thank you for sharing!

Naomi

#16

I am also looking for alternatives now that cloud is no more. I did notice the photon cloud service, but not sure how it would work for turned based play and not being realtime? would be interesting to try or to hear if anyone has tried this.

also see that this one could be interesting:

http://getmoai.com/products/overview/

#17

have you checked http://scoreoid.net/

#18

Hey david.hunt15,

I have just been googling around and I’ve come across ‘Photon Cloud’ which appears to do what i need.

Has anyone heard of this / used this? it appears to be supported / supports Corona SDK (cloud.exitgames.com) - can anyone from corona comment?

Anyway thought I’d post in case anyone else was interested in another serivce that does multiplayer with matchmaking, etc…

We just launched our Corona Plugin:

http://www.coronalabs.com/resources/plugins/

http://docs.coronalabs.com/daily/plugin/photon/

The main features Photon Cloud supports are

  1. Custom authentication: Integrate an external ID system like Facebook, Parse, Steam, Kongregate or your own

  2. Matchmaking

  3. Realtime data exchange / gameplay

With that turnkey feature set we see already great games:

https://cloud.exitgames.com/References

** Spoiler ** We will enable custom logic in our Cloud in Q4 this year. The extensibility will be in LUA.

#19

Hey,

Thanks for the reply :)  Sounds like you guys have been busy!

I took a look at the documentation and I was looking to see how I could persist the data for a turn based multiplayer…  I can’t seem to see where this can be done - it looks like if a user disconnects, all the data will be lost.  This is fine for a realtime multiplayer but I want a turn based type where the player might not immediately be available.

Can you point to somewhere that might explain how to do this?

#20

Can you point to somewhere that might explain how to do this?

Right now you have do persist/retrieve the gamestate from the client to e.g. your backend.

But as I mentioned - we work on making this very convenient.

Chris