Roku Developer Program

[EnTerr]

Requires me to surrender my email address?
Tough! Thanks, but no thanks.

I do understand the desire to link to an account, i do.
Speaking of which, how are we going to deal with change of email on Roku account? 

[Romans_I_XVI]

Sorry, but an online game requires you to log in in some way. I figured I made it about as easy as possible. I asked Roku if there is a way to get an account ID (because I just need something unique to identify the user) but they said it's not possible.

I have to store a large amount of user data; levels you've published, highscore/rating/difficulty vote for every level you play, all your work in progress editor levels, etc. It exceeds the amount of storage that we're allowed to use on an individual Roku. Plus this makes it so even if you get a new Roku you don't lose all your data, and it can sync between multiple devices in your house. And as far as someone changing their email, well I guess they will start with a new account, but I doubt that happens often.

If hundreds of thousands of people are willing to share their email with PBS Kids for no apparent reason, I'm sure the majority of people will have no problem clicking a button that instantly takes care of the hassle of going to a separate website to create an account.... where they would also enter their email to create said account...

It's essentially the same as OAuth, people love OAuth. I'm sorry you can't enjoy my game.

[Romans_I_XVI]

@Komag

Those are a lot of good ideas! Some are more extensive than others, and you're really dabbling in the area that I never initially intended to venture (but seem to keep getting closer too), and that is having solid user interaction where each player is uniquely identified to the other players in the game. For instance right now I can set my name to Joe, I can publish levels as Joe and get highscores as Joe. And nobody will ever know anything other than Joe is doing these things. Right now I have it very ambiguous, one of the reasons is so that a family can share the same Roku, but if somebody different is playing they can change their name so that their highscores and such refer to them.

Essentially what I'm getting at is, everything you said sounds awesome, and some of it I've already considered before. However, I never originally wanted to go that far down the rabbit's hole. It still might happen someday, but for now I like that there's no sense of the players having an "in game persona" if that makes sense. You just get the satisfaction of seeing your own name on the leaderboards or next to the level you created.

Also, you are correct on how the editor list works. In the builder you no longer have access to a level after you publish it, and it gets removed from your list of WIP levels. i'm going to consider a few of the other things you said, and possibly implement/change accordingly.

Thanks again for the great feedback.

[Komag]

Thanks for the further explanation, understood 🙂

[EnTerr]

I "wasted" last night kicking tires and - my reservations re email indiscretion aside - this is phenomenal work! I mean the attention to detail, the consideration put into it - the preview when choosing level, the replay after level end, the level editor which is hard to out-wit (trying to put 2 green or red tiles - or no such tiles at all), the multi-step undo. Outstanding like all your previous work, Romans_I_XVI! I am awestruck. 

In fairness, this kind of game (button mash) is not my cup of tea, i am more puzzler kind of guy. E.g. it would been to my taste if i were to "program" the walk, e.g. for "Stair Steps" #1039 to say "repeat 8 times (right, up) - then right" and then run it. Though i can imagine a macro facility added for "pro" gamers like say so: punching "<ruru>AAAAr" instead of "rurururururururur" saves 6 keys (this format i just made-up as i go, "<<" to start recording macro, followed by Right-Up-Right-Up, followed by ">>" end macro, followed by game button "A" to assign to and then 3 invocations of A, followed by Right).

I noticed something that might be a bug: on multiple occasions my results were not added to the highscore table, even as the number was within the top 10. So, server-side trouble perhaps?

Oh and... Bender is great!   :twisted:

[EnTerr]

"joetesta" wrote:
I concur, this is really fun (and challenging!)  May I ask, did you build this using SceneGraph?

Alas, the only one rumored to be built with RSG is the utter embarrassment of a "game", one "Tic Tac Toe Free" - as well as the other crapola shoveled by "StuffWeLike", made literally by replacing couple of images and publishing under new name (WTF?! Who approves such shovelware? No one in RokuCo to say "We Don't Need Any More Fart Apps"??) 

[Romans_I_XVI]

@Enterr

Oh, well you see I have anti cheat code that silently doesn't post your score if it thinks you're using a macro to play the game... Which is what you are clearly doing lol. Me and you both know about the ECP of course, so I assumed people would figure out that you can use that to complete a level as fast as possible. However, I recently made it really slack because if I tried really hard I could still trigger a false positive by actually playing the game. Although, looking at how easy it was for you to post ridiculous scores I think I'll have to tighten the bolts on it again.

I just wish there was a way to definitively tell if someone was using the ECP, and that problem would be solved.

Either way, I'm glad to see you are enjoying your own unique style of play 😛

[Romans_I_XVI]

@Komag

I just updated the game, the change came somewhere out of inspiration from your wishlist. Now when you are browsing through the levels, levels that you've completed will be darkened slightly and your best time will be displayed below.

When you mentioned stats and such I realized there was no way to really see what levels you've completed and the scores you got, that is, without actually beating the level again and seeing your previous highscore lol.

So yeah, thanks for that.

[EnTerr]

"Romans_I_XVI" wrote:
Oh, well you see I have anti cheat code that silently doesn't post your score if it thinks you're using a macro to play the game... I think I'll have to tighten the bolts on it again.

Then i am extra impressed, if that was at all possible. And I seriously doubt if Bender B. Rodriguez will be playing again.

I just wish there was a way to definitively tell if someone was using the ECP, and that problem would be solved.

There is a proposal to that extent https://forums.roku.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 13#p536689
and you can help to make it through by supporting/keeping it alive, so that roWanda does not forget   :mrgreen:

"Romans_I_XVI" wrote:
When you mentioned stats and such I realized there was no way to really see what levels you've completed and the scores you got, that is, without actually beating the level again and seeing your previous highscore lol.

i was going for "failing" instead - lots of it - to check for each level. Differentiating the played from unplayed in the list is a useful addition! Bonus idea: << and >> for PgUp/PgDn 

[Romans_I_XVI]

Thanks, and that's not a bad idea to have PgUp/PgDown, it'd be easy enough to do.