Multiple instances of a 2 player game

I have just started thinking about the logic that might be involved - first timer.

player1 ‘owns’ the game -> has logintoken1, is inserted into collection with _id and token
sends invitation to player2 -> shares login token with player2
player2 accepts -> is inserted into ‘activeplayers’ collection, fields player2_id, login token1
they play = game is unique, game document is linked to login token player1

I could get two players together by sending the _id + loginToken1 of player1 during an invitation to player2, then after accept use the loginToken1 as a requirement to be inserted into an ‘activeplayers’ collection and relate the document for each game to loginTokenn so that every game is unique.

Is that about the way to go ?

Hi there!

I’ve been working on a similar ‘invite to play’ system, so have been wrestling with the same question.

Your flow seems reasonable, but to get a better answer I guess I would be curious about what it is you’re trying to do. Are you trying to have player2 ‘log in’ as player1, somehow? I’m not sure why you’re passing login tokens around.

I think instead what you do is generate a unique identifier (or just use the _id for the game document). Give it a field that is an array of players, with item 0 being the one who started the game.

Then, depending on how player2 receives the invite, they enter it or click the link. For example, does player 1 have to tell them “type in 16749 as the game ID”? Are you using app deep linking? Do you assume player 2 is already logged in with an account? Does it matter - can they play anonymously as a guest?

I’ve been making games for 20 years, from consoles and PCs to handhelds and phones. One of the most common mistakes I’ve seen teams do is not give the shell (menu) flow enough love. It’s hard. Really hard.

If you let me know what your real needs are, I might be able to help more.

We’re actually thinking about making our service (which does this stuff, and more) available to game developers. Would you be interested in such a service, or would you write your own? Have you researched paid solutions that handle this already?

Thanks,
Aaron

Hi Aaron,

thank you for your reply.

This is for now a private project; it is a very simple game mechanism:

two players compete for words - actual vocabulary - in a given language

I have written language learning software for adults with a promising concept - highest frequency repetition - and this is a component, that I want to develop to ‘gamify’ the experience: 'high scores, leaderboard, badges, levels, statistics etc.

Right now I am combining meteor/blaze with d3.csv. The words are loaded from a csv/alternatively db and displayed graphically on screen, tooltip, audio, translation etc.

Please let me know what you could offer; I would consider paid solutions if they would give me what I am looking for.

Time savers would mostly be the gamification part - meteor/d3/chart

Regards

Eckhart

Hi Aaron,

thank you for your reply.

This is for now a private project; it is a very simple game mechanism:

two players compete for words - actual vocabulary - in a given language

I have written language learning software for adults with a promising concept - highest frequency repetition - and this is a component, that I want to develop to ‘gamify’ the experience: 'high scores, leaderboard, badges, levels, statistics etc.

Right now I am combining meteor/blaze with d3.csv. The words are loaded from a csv/alternatively db and displayed graphically on screen, tooltip, audio, translation etc.

Please let me know what you could offer; I would consider paid solutions if they would give me what I am looking for.

Time savers would mostly be the gamification part - meteor/d3/chart

Regards

Eckhart
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That sounds cool! Good luck with the project!

We don’t have anything ready for production, so I’d want to have a chat with you before we went further.

My game studio (voidALPHA) has been writing Meteor games since v0.5, and we can definitely help with the gamification part as well as technical design. If you’re interested in talking about hiring us to do some contract work, send me a private message (click my name, then “Message”) so we don’t bore everyone else. We just gamified a ‘serious game’ concept with all the stuff you discussed - leaderboards, return mechanics, level progression, etc. These are deep topics.

If we mature our solution to the point where it’s ready, I’ll let the board know. If you’re in dire need, maybe we can accelerate it. I’d have to talk to my tech team to see where it is at the moment.