Hey,

I am going to implement a turn based multiplayer game that is supposed to run on iOS and android.

For a network solution. I want:

* Turn based multiplayer, but with short turns and fast notification, that the other has done its turn.

* Player ranking based on how they played so far.

* Cloud storage of unfinished games.

* In game chat.

I am looking at Google Play Game Services. It is really nice, and it seems perfect ...

But! It requires the user to have a google+ account. For an android user this may not be a problem. But how about iOS users?

Has anyone experience with GPGS on iOS? Is the requirement of having a google+ account repulsing to iOS users?

Thanks!

Nathan

I have done this sort of thing before and just used Parse.com. This allows the user to sign in with Twitter or Facebook ( al ot more common than google+) or also create a username and password.

I don't think a G+ account is a turn off but, I also don't think anybody will create a new one just to play your game. With this kind of mobile game you usually have to appeal to the lowest common denominator and that is definatly Facebook.

Hey,

I am looking at parse.com. How does it work for turn based games? I see one gets 10^6 pushes in the free plan. Is every turn and chat message a push notification?

Guessing that an average game will have 200 turns, that means 10^6/200=5000 games per month. I find it really difficult to estimate, if that is enough.

You may well limit your more casual audience by requiring a Google+ account, but aren't the social media junkies more likely to generate attention for your game anyway?

Probably ... the sing is what I want to implement is a board game. So I will mainly be addressing people already playing the game. And they might not be that much of "social media junkies" ... but I do not know.

My $0.2 is that anyone who is serious about social media already has a Google+ account

I used to have one (still do) but I stopped using it because all I ever seemed to get was pictures of peoples lunch and people campaigning to boycot apple. But these types of games arn't there to appeal just to social networking junkies they are there to appeal to everybody and almost everybody has a FB or Twitter account that they use daily. If you can support G+ then go for it but if it is a toss up between FB or G+ then you need to go for FB. Ideally support every platform you can.

I see one gets 10^6 pushes in the free plan. Is every turn and chat message a push notification?

If you look at the plans there are pushes and there are api requests. Your game turns would be API requests not pushes.

If you look at the plans there are pushes and there are api requests. Your game turns would be API requests not pushes.

Mmh, ok. But that does not change anything. There is a limit of 10^6 api requests also. So I still would only have 5000 games/month. And I find it difficult to estimate if that is enough ...