austin

Howdy! We announced a few months back we're deprecating the old version of the API with leaderboards. The new SDK is still pretty limited, but much more robust (https://github.com/claydotio/clay-sdk-base). Do note that it's missing most of the social features from the previous version. Google Play Services is probably the best alternative.

Always fun to play through these puzzles

Tank upgrades (powerups) and vanity customizations. Bombermine does a good job at this type of stuff

This game is great Especially the fact that it runs well on so many devices

https://github.com/leereilly/games is probably the ultimate resource. It doesn't categorize HTML5 games that support mobile web, so here are a few good ones we know of: https://github.com/gabrielecirulli/2048 (http://gabrielecirulli.github.io/2048/) https://github.com/Hextris/hextris (http://hextris.clay.io) https://github.com/Zolmeister/prism (http://prism.clay.io) https://github.com/Zolmeister/zop (http://zop.clay.io) https://github.com/Q42/0hh1 (http://0hh1.clay.io/) https://github.com/Q42/0hn0 (http://0hn0.clay.io/) https://github.com/abejfehr/parity (http://parity.clay.io) https://github.com/grrd01/4inaRow (http://fourinarow.clay.io/) https://github.com/grrd01/Puzzle (http://grrdspuzzle.clay.io/) https://github.com/Zolmeister/Zoggle (http://zoggle.clay.io) https://github.com/daleharvey/battleships (http://daleharvey.github.io/battleships) https://github.com/Zolmeister/fuco (http://fuco.zolmeister.com) https://github.com/Zolmeister/pond (http://thepond.clay.io)

We'll be there - well, we're always here in SF, but we'll be at GDC as well.

Great feedback, thanks! Your last sentence is fantastic. Keeping the games as small as possible is critical - try out something that's fairly easy to make... if people like it, improve on it.

So to recap it sounds like some of the barriers have been (sorted by most painful to least): 1) the time it takes 2) having to deal with backend stuff 3) lack of demos/tutorials/engines 4) ideas 5) art Does that seem about right?

We don't really have plans to start offering advances, but we'll at least talk about it to see if it makes sense. I'm not sure we'll ever guarantee traffic for games based on how we currently display games. We pump an initial bit of traffic at new games and measure how well it performs with players and sort it accordingly. Either way, I don't want this thread to become one completely about Clay (I'm obviously paying attention to see how we can help, but I wanted this to be a more general discussion to see why these games aren't being made)

Turn-based games don't suffer the same load problems that real-time multiplayer games have, but that's not to say it's easy. It sounds like adding a backend component is just a huge complexity leap from client-only games. Has everyone here who has considered a multiplayer game looked into Parse, Firebase, and some of the of the other services that make things easier?

With ecosystems like Kik that are blend of web and native, push notifications are possible. There are also opportunities like SMS-based push notifications.

We don't, I'm trying to figure out if it's worthwhile to do or not. Maybe there are other reasons devs aren't making this type of game

I think the key is some sort of social integration. Eg I go to the game page and am given the option to play with a stranger (if one is available) or invite a friend to play with me. This is where the web really stands out... I can either invite them via Facebook, Twitter, ... or I can get a link to send to them however (email, a messaging app, ...). And since it's asynchronous, you would make the first move, then invite a friend. That situation is very different from going to a game with a room-based system, seeing all the rooms are empty, and leaving without playing. Zynga's 'with friends' games really nailed down the async experience. The web is really powerful for getting a new user to play async games initially without any friction. The drawback is notifying a user it's their turn to play after their initial turn. To do this, you have to get the user to login with something like Facebook, or funnel them into a native app after their first play. If it's a good game, we have a really large userbase we can push it to for the initial audience, and the goal would be that the seed audience would spread it to more and more people.

There are very few asynchronous, turn-based HTML5 games out there (think Draw Something, Words with Friends, ...), which is really unfortunate because the web is a fantastic platform for that type of game. This forum is probably the best place to figure out why that is, and what can be done to fix it. So I ask, why haven't you made a turn-based multiplayer game?

Bombermine is probably the best multiplayer HTML5 game I've seen. You can see what Ivan wrote about building the backend here: http://www.html5gamedevs.com/topic/2734-creating-a-mulitplayer-game-using-html-5-javascript-and-websockets/?p=18370 Not sure I'd recommend Java for this, but it's an option... A game like Bombermine probably has a little more room for lag than a shooter (but not a ton). The other option as you mentioned is RTC (WebRTC). Mozilla used it for one of their demo games, Banana Bread: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/03/webrtc-data-channels-for-great-multiplayer/ Though without verifying moves on a server, cheating is obviously easier. Here's another great article related to multiplayer: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Multiplayer_Networking - things like interpolation are incredible important.