Hey all!
First time here, I am personally just getting started in game development though I have a bit of coding background by now. I am looking to start a side project that has interactions between a mobile platform, specifically android, and PC. Ultimately though, I'd like to be able to put the game on Steam, which I realize is another story but that's not specifically what I am concerned about.
So, I would like to avoid having a server component to my game. The idea is that I can have players playing the game on PC, but use the mobile app while they are out in order to collect items and play mini games to "augment" the PC experience. The mobile side of things is, for one reason or another, going to be exclusive to Android.
So my concern right now is what I can use to sycnhronize my app with my pc client. Again, I'd like to avoid using a server for it since I'd rather not maintain something that's just going to be a bridge. It seems like there are APIs I could use like the Google Play Game Services but I have no experience with it going cross platform. The other issue is if I want to put my game on Steam, I don't really want to start maintaining the Google API AND the Steam API even if it is possible.
I may just be barking up the wrong tree... Anyone have any experience with transferring data from a Mobile app to a PC client? Should I just end up using a server? Are there any APIs available I can look into to help me get data across?