Scoreloop features
Games app
The Games app is the social gaming hub where BlackBerry 10 users discover new friends and games, share challenges and achievements. The preloaded Games app on the home screen of BlackBerry 10 provides fantastic visibility for all Scoreloop enabled games.
The Games app focuses on social discovery, recommendations and social activities in games. For gamers, it is all about interacting with other gamers and possibility to communicate, compete in scores or share achievements.
Feature Description
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Connect with other BlackBerry 10 gamers
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Find friends on BBM
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Discover your friends’ games
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See friends' gaming activities
Connect with other BlackBerry 10 gamers
Challenge, share and discover through the Games app. The Games app offers a possibility to see your friends’ gaming activities or compare gaming skills with friends. It is now possible to start a BBM chat from the Games app to deepen interaction with your gaming friends.
Find friends on BBM
The Games app offers various possibilities to connect with friends and find like-minded players. It not only allows to add existing contacts as friends but also allows you to invite players from the address book or your BBM contacts.
Discover your friends’ games
The Games app is a place to share your favorite games. It allows you to take a look at your friends' favorite games.
See friends' gaming activities
The Games app offers great social discovery of games. Friends’ activities range from comparing gaming skills to discovering what friends are playing. Games can be directly downloaded from BlackBerry World.
User
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User refers to a game player, the end-user of your game.
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Each user is unique with a single, universal login for all Scoreloop games and is tied to a unique BBID.
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Users can edit or update their profile settings, such as their username and/or email address.
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Multiple devices, for example, a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or a BlackBerry smartphone, can share the same user profile.
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Multiple users cannot use the same device to connect to Scoreloop.
Feature Description
Connecting to Scoreloop for the first time
A user uses the BlackBerry ID account to connect to Scoreloop on a device. If it is the user's first time, an immutable Scoreloop account is created and associated with the BlackBerry ID. The account is used to identify the user in all subsequent Scoreloop sessions. In addition, the user is guided through a process to set-up his personal profile by defining a modifiable login name.
The Association between BBID, a device and a Scoreloop user
Every BBID on a device that is used to play a Scoreloop-enabled game is associated with a single, specific user. This close association between user and BBID is motivated by both convenience and fairness:
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Convenience: Users have a single, universal, one-time login that allows them to play all Scoreloop enabled games on devices associated with their BBID without having to re-enter their credentials.
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Fairness: Promotes a level playing field between users by preventing a user from creating multiple profiles on a single device and deliberately rigging challenges between these profiles in order to artificially increase their currency balance.
Although a particular device is associated with a single user, a single Scoreloop user can be associated with more than one device.
Leaderboard
Leaderboards display the top scores by players of your game. Each game mode (e.g., “easy", "medium" and "hard”) can have its own leaderboard. Foster rivalries between friends and engage players by allowing them to compare scores and compete for bragging rights.
Feature Description
A Score is achieved by a player of your game at the end of gameplay.
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Result is the primary score that is achievable in your game.
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A score can be a simple numerical score, one that is based on time or something more complex, having multiple criteria, such as the number of hits made, the average speed, or the maximum speed.
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You can model the score using the following:
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Result: Primary score, mandatory
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Minor result: secondary score, optional
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Level: secondary score, optional
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A score is submitted to the server. Score sorting decides the winner of a challenge and the leaderboard rankings.
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Scores can be sorted in ascending or descending order.
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Descending order: Highest score is on top.
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Ascending order: Lowest score is on top. E.g., the fastest user wins a game; sorting as time.
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If modes are defined, Scoreloop generates separate leaderboards for each mode in the game.
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Ready made search lists for global, 24 hour and friends leaderboards.
The result, minor result, and level are used to compare scores. You can configure the comparison schema on our developer website.
Best Practices
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Global leaderboard (all-time high scores of a game) is a great way to make your game more competitive.
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24-hour leaderboard (best scores within the last 24 hours).
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Friends’ leaderboard (high scores of the player's friends).
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Facilitate paging or scrolling to allow users to get full view of the leaderboard.
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Locate user on the leaderboard by highlighting their name or using a "ME" button so they always know where they stand.
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Give more visibility to the leaderboard, say by providing a link from the main menu or displaying a small leaderboard after each game.
Get Creative
Integrate added features to your game for enhanced gameplay and player engagement.
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Mini leaderboard displayed at the end of gameplay and in the menu are a great way to give quick access to scores as well as social context (option to see your friends' scores).
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Friends' score markers during gameplay to motivate users to beat their friends and keep going.
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In-game live ranking to provide real time information to the player. Players can be notified of their standing as compared to their friends.
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Attach item to score (gameplay replay/image): gives context to top scores and engages players.
Challenge
A challenge takes place between two players. In a challenge, the two players obtain a score in a particular game and submit it to Scoreloop. The player with the best score, as defined by the score comparison schema for the game, is declared the winner of the challenge and receives a prize. Scoreloop takes care of managing and comparing the scores that are submitted as part of a challenge.
Feature Description
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Contender: creates the challenge. Contender is necessary for a challenge.
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Contestant: accepts the challenge. Contestant is necessary for a challenge to be assigned, accepted and completed.
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The player is allowed only a single try to beat the challenge, which could result in a win or a loss.
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The challenge must be created with a stake, which must be greater than or equal to zero.
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The challenge remains valid for a period of time that you can configure on the developer website, during which the challenge may be accepted and after which it expires.
Types of challenge:
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Open (challenge that any player can accept)
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Direct (challenge a particular player)
Challenge prize
The winner of the challenge receives a ‘prize’, which is an amount of in-game currency. The challenge prize is calculated depending on the challenge sink that the developer has chosen to use.
The challenge sink represents the cost of a challenge, and is calculated as a percentage of the total virtual currency pool of a challenge (the sum of the stakes contributed by each player). For example:
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When 25% sink is in place: If both players contribute 5 coins to play a challenge, the winner is awarded 7.5 coins ((5+5)*(1-0.25) = 7.5).
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When no sink (0%) is in place: If both players contribute 5 coins to play a challenge, the winner is awarded 10 coins ((5+5)*(1-0) = 10).
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Prize = (2*stake)*(1-sink) The following examples demonstrate the currency wallet during a challenge:
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25% challenge sink |
0% challenge sink |
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Winners and Losers
The winner of the challenge receives the challenge prize. The player who loses the challenge loses their stake outright.
Best Practices
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Give user the option to play challenges in two different modes: Direct Challenge/Open Challenge.
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Display the result at the end of the challenge gameplay to motivate for a rematch.
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Display challenge history with actionable player names.
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Allow users to add opponent as a friend at the end of a challenge to increase virality.
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Tie virtual currencies to challenges for added pressure and stimulate your freemium ecosystem.
Get Creative
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Display challenge results as leaderboards for comparisons.
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Initiate challenge from leaderboard or friends list for easy access.
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Embed direct link to challenges features from main menu.
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Store game-specific information (i.e.: additional data about the level, mode or achievements made by contender) when creating the challenge. It can be accessed by the contestant-side, when accepting the challenge.
Awards and Achievements
Keep users engaged with unlock-able awards as they progress through your game and reward them for completing certain tasks by configuring game achievements.
Feature Description
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Awards are incentives or bonuses that players receive when they complete a certain task or reach a goal.
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When a player reaches the goal, the game informs the SDK that the player has received an award and has attained an achievement. This result is then saved on the Scoreloop Server.
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Awards are configurable, for example, you can set the number of stages required to reach the achievement.
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A player who achieves an award might, for example, be rewarded with in-game currency or by unlocking a new game theme.
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If an award is achieved when you are offline, it is saved on the Scoreloop server the next time you are online.
Best Practices
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Include at least 10 awards and ensure that players can regularly unlock them, to maintain players' engagement. Make sure your first award is easy to unlock, to get the ball rolling.
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Customize the icon and name for each award and display them in locked and unlocked state respectively.
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Upload achievement icons to the Scoreloop server to enhance social discovery of your game.
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Display achievements with a pop-up during gameplay to alert player.
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Display achievement progress, for example as a percentage indicator to increase motivation to unlock awards.
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Inform the player of what is left to accomplish to unlock an award to keep them going.
Get Creative
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Tie achievements to challenges and unlock-able content such as extra levels and game modes to give a prize for the achievement.
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Get creative with displaying achievements in a variety of ways such as medals and table format.
Default UI
Scoreloop provides ready-made Default UI for your game. That’s the quickest and simplest way to show key social activities in a game. Default UI enables gamers to favorite a game and instantly add it to their list of favorites in the Games app, the social gaming hub of BlackBerry 10.
Gaming data storage
Support multiple devices? Support multiple platforms?
Keep your players' experience consistent across all their devices using Gaming Data Storage. Allow players to continue from where they left off on another device so they never have to start the game over again and unlock all those hard-earned achievements.
With Scoreloop, the player profile is automatically generated; so there is no need for players to sign up.
Best Practice
Store Items in the user context to keep the gameplay and user experience consistent.
Items supported:
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Game State, Game progress and unlocked levels
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Gameplay replays and screenshots
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Exchange replays on the leaderboard
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Seed data for challenges
Scoreloop Gaming Data Storage works across all Scoreloop supported platforms and devices, including BB10, PlayBook, iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7 and Marmalade.
