I have created a short video preview of my next upcoming game. It is a word game that requires you to match colored bubbles to collect letters. With those letters you form words and score points. It allows you to compete with your facebook friends for the highest score. It includes two game modes, timed gameplay and endless gameplay.
One of the challenges for my next upcoming game is Facebook integration and leaderboards. I was looking for a simple way to associate a Facebook user with a leaderboard and a score. I wanted to keep it as SIMPLE as possible and do it as CHEAP as possible, so I turned to Linux, PHP and Redis.
Redis (http://redis.io) is an open source key-value store. This would be the simplest method for storing high scores for my game. To save a score I would just have Redis “SET” the score. For instance, using the user’s Facebook UID I would save a score of 1000 for leaderboard “A”. In Redis I would run: SET UID12345_leaderboardA 1000. Then to retrieve the score just “GET” it. (GET UID12345_leaderboardA). This took no time to setup but having Redis open to the world would not be a great idea. This is where PHP comes in to play…
PHP is a web scripting language (http://php.net) used on TONS of web sites. In order for PHP to communicate with Redis I grabbed Predis (https://github.com/nrk/predis) from GitHub and included it in my script. I threw together a simple script that uses a hash to help keep things more secure. The script is listening for a PUT or a GET request method and based on the method knows whether to SET or GET the score from Redis. The user data (key and score) are JSON encoded in the body of the request.
Here is a working example of the PHP script:
Pawn Store Game has been updated on iOS to address the font issue.
I have submitted a new update to address the font issue (text not displaying).
Pawn Store Game has been released to the iOS App Store.
View app in the iTunes Store.
After about 3.5 months of development (nights and weekends) I am happy to have published my latest creation. I had loads of fun learning to do pixel art (good?) and learning to use Corona SDK.
I am planning to release to Amazon shortly and am working on getting setup to publish to Apple’s iOS app store.
You can grab it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spoonfedsoftware.pawnstoregame
Pawn Store Game is officially code complete. What this means is that it is nearly ready to be released 
Great progress is being made on our latest mobile game. I have added some screenshots to show off some of the progress. Cheers!
We are pumped to announce that a new game is in the works!
Have you ever wanted to run your own Pawn Shop? Do you like to negotiate for the best prices? Buy low, sell high and keep your store safe.
More details and screenshots will be added soon.
Spelling Companion FREE has been downloaded over 1,000 times! Thanks for checking it out!