WebProNews

Tag: Google Play Game Services

  • Android Game Developers Now Have A Few New Tools To Work With

    Over the last few years, Android has proven to be quite the versatile gaming platform. Not only are people playing games on smartphone and tablets, but Android games can also be found on TVs thanks to micro-consoles like the Ouya and MOJO. Now Google is readying some new tools to help Android game developers make the player experience even better.

    In a post today on the Android Developers Blog, the Android team says that it has two new tools available for Android game developers. The first is called LiquidFun – it’s a C++ 2D physics library that will help developers add realistic physics to their games.

    Here’s a video that demonstrates LiquidFun running on Android:

    To learn more about LiquidFun, check out its GitHub page.

    As for the second new tool, Google says that a Google Play Games plug-in is now available for Unity. In other words, those using the Unity engine to build their game can now integrate Google Play Game services directly into Unity to add Google+ sign-in, achievements, leaderboards and cloud saves on both Android and iOS.

    For more information on this plug-in, check out the Google Play Games GitHub page.

    While it’s not a tool, Google has one more update that Android game developers will be interested in. Starting February 2014, the Google Play store will add the following new game genres – simulation, role playing and educational. This will give game developers more freedom in choosing which genre their games fall in. You can change the genre of your app to one of the new ones today, but the change won’t go live on Google Play until February 2014.

    [Image: Android Developers/YouTube]

  • Still Playing Games On Google+? You Have Until June 30 To Clear Out

    Does anybody still play games on Google+? If you do, Google’s got some bad news.

    Google announced at Google I/O that it’s shutting down Google+ Games on June 30. Now, it doesn’t mean that the games on Google+ will cease to exist. They’ll just cease to exist on Google+. As such, Google recommends that players get in touch with the developers of their favorite games to find out where their favorite games will be hosted after June 30.

    Why is Google shutting down Google+ Games? The short answer is Google Play game services. It’s a rich set of APIs that allow game developers to offer a googlified game experience across Android, iOS and the Web. The games even have built in Google+ support for matchmaking and other services so those who still play games with friends on Google+ will be able to continue to do so on the new service.

    Google Play game services may be making Google+ Games redundant, but it’s probably not the only reason for the closure. Around this time last year, Google+ Games lost two major developers – Wooga and PopCap. Both developers said that they were removing their games from the service after finding that the player base on Google+ wasn’t worth their time. There haven’t been reports of any major developers leaving Google+ Games since then, but it might have been a sign of things to come as Google itself apparently feels the player base on Google+ isn’t worth supporting.

    So, what happens to the players who have invested hundreds of hours, and maybe even hundreds of dollars, into Google+ Games? Google says that “some games will be migrating data to an alternative destination where you can continue to use your unused payments.” You’re going to have to contact the developer of your favorite games to find out all the details though.

    [h/t: Engadget]

  • Here’s Everything You Need To Know About Google Play Game Services

    During today’s Google I/O keynote, the company announced Google Play game services – a series of APIs that help developers add more features and value to their Android and iOS games.

    Much like Apple’s Game Center or Xbox Live, Google Play game services adds a number of features to Android or iOS games that users expect, and developers have been wanting to implement. What’s unique about Google Play game services is that it’s not exclusive to Android, as it can be integrated into iOS games via a native SDK for iPhone and iPad.

    So, what does Google Play game services offer to developers and users? Here’s the full list:

  • Achievements that increase engagement and promote different styles of play.
  • Social and public leaderboards that seamlessly use Google+ circles to track high scores across friends and across the world.
  • Cloud saves that provide a simple and streamlined storage API to store game saves and settings. Now players never have to replay Level 1 again.
  • Real-time multiplayer for easy addition of cooperative or competitive game play on Android devices. Using Google+ Circles, a game can have up to 4 simultaneous friends or auto-matched players in a game session together with support for additional players coming soon.

    • Google has also enlisted the help of developers to make sure that some of the most popular games on the Android platform are already using Google Play game services. Some of those games include World of Goo, Super Stickman Golf 2, Beach Buggy Blitz, Kingdom Rush, Eternity Warriors 2 and Osmos.

    For more information on all things Google and gaming, check out Google’s game developer portal.