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Cocos2d games website tab

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Started 2 years ago by itlgames
Latest reply from itlgames

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itlgames
Moderator

Hi, I have been talking with Ricardo and we are going to improve the games tab on the cocos website, at the moment just links to the forum, but we would like to create a more elaborated page, kind of those review websites but dedicated to cocos2d and for us developers, it could also be a good entry point for users to check what games are out there from the cocos2d community.

Basically the home page would display apps with option to order by rating, release date, name,... and filtered by category.
People registered (us developers) would be able to rate/vote and add comments maybe.
Once registered as developer, we would be able to create the games, upload images, link to video, description,...
Maybe have an approve system for all contents uploaded.

Only thing I am not too sure is the rating/voting system as maybe is not a good idea to detrimental any game against others, so may need your feedback here.

The idea is to make a nice and easy place for people to check all cocos2d games available, as at the moment there is no way unless you check the whole forum.
Doesn't need to be a substitution of the forum as well.

I will do all the server side development (PHP/MySQL) and basic HTML/CSS, I may need help with wording as English is not my first language. Also any help in any other aspect appreciated, but I think I can manage to get the site running with a basic design.

Feedbacks/comments/suggestions appreciated.

Posted 2 years ago #
aerostat
Member

I think that sounds like a great idea! I've been thinking a lot about how I will market my games (because I am thinking about how to market my current app that was just released that is not a game) lately.

My own personal opinion would be to not bother with the rating system ... for several reasons, but mainly this: users (who are not developers) have so many other avenues for seeing how things are rated, etc. I think we should focus on a nice list of games, maybe with more screenshots, etc. Just my opinion tho.

One suggestion I will make to help riq out ... sign up for iTunes affiliate program and make a "Get it on iTunes" link for each app. That way the site can make a little bit of cash for everything a user buys after clicking on one of those links.

I'll help with the wording if I can.

I had another thought and that is what if our community started to do some cross-promoting somehow? There are several ways I've thought of to do it:

1) have a cocos2d "network" framework that we can drop into our code. it launches an in-app page of 'other cocos2d apps' you might like. perhaps make it so the developer can choose specific apps, or a category of apps he would want to include. this framework would be something we could all spend some time working on and then share. very similar to the Indie Apps Alliance idea, but for any cocos2d apps. could even put the same affiliate links in there to make some scratch for cocos2d site.

2) same idea, but have a cocos2d banner ad system that advertised other cocos2d apps (no money for devs, but exposure - ie: you have to join the system and have the banner ad in your app in order to show up on other games banner ads)

3) use one of the five screenshots in iTunes for your game to display a collage of other cocos2d games (I like this idea the least, but I have seen it done)

anyway, just some brainstorming ....

Posted 2 years ago #
patrickC
Member

I think it's a neat idea, at the moment many games are being released and it's difficult to keep track of them for browsing users.

It would be neat if screenshots and description were pulled in from the App Store, and also rather than a ranking system it would be good (in my opinion) if each day you pull in the rank of each game and update it on the site.
This way, users can browse the games by release date, category, and also a list of games organized by ranking.
A more objective way of giving more exposure to games that are selling well.

I'd be happy to help, as I'm sure are many other people on the forum ;)

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Thanks!

So we don't bother about rating system, I wasn't too convinced either.

@patrickC, we still need the developers to register on our site, and create the app, so at that point, I would prefer to include specific description and images, and i.e. a youtube video link, also cos we could create our own list of categories. But we could get from App Store, sure it's easy, maybe providing the app ID, we could initially retrieve all information, then be able to edit it.

We can get ratings/comments from App Store using something like:
http://blogs.oreilly.com/iphone/2008/08/scraping-appstore-reviews.html

But still, we would have the same problem, detrimental games against others.
Maybe we could just display a random or rotating list of games on the homepage, then have the option to navigate per category, and reordering by name and date release.

@aerostat, I like your idea, that could be another project, I imagine this like an extension library, like OpenFeint, but just to share other cocos2d games, either all games or specific ones. Note the will have a database with all our games, so it would be easy to create an API to access the data.

I'm happy to do the development of the site, and if someone in particular want to help with the coding, then we would need to setup a SVN repository or something. Not sure Ricardo if we could use what you have for cocos2d code, but if not, I am happy to create a repository in one of my servers.

Posted 2 years ago #
MrLucky
Member

This sounds like a great idea! Best of luck guys :)

Posted 2 years ago #
riq
Key Master

I agree that scrapping the App Store info is a better idea. The only thing that the owner of the game has to do is:
-> create an account (perhaps we can reuse the blog/forum account)
-> provide a link to the game in the App Store

and the server should obtain:
-> Game name
-> description
-> What's new
-> icon
-> Screenshots
-> Category
-> Rating and quantity of votes
-> Date (of last update?)

it would be cool if the server could sort the games by:
-> name
-> rating
-> newest updates

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Yes, we could reuse the blog/forum account, for now I just need the database table structure (no data) for the members.

I think just providing the app ID we could get all the rest.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Only thing scraping the data from App Store is, we would need to schedule updates from time to time, is this something we can do at the moment within the website hosting?

Posted 2 years ago #
aerostat
Member

I like scraping the app store, it's a good start, but at least should *think* about adding (in the future) the ability to add more info (such as extra screenshots, links, videos, etc.) and don't do anything that would make that hard to do if we ever want to ...

Posted 2 years ago #
abitofcode
Moderator

I like the sound of this, I think pulling in the rating from the app store will act as a reminder to us all to fill in the little stars when we download an app, though the default sort should probably be by update/release date.

The categories Riq used recently on the cocos2d games page "doodle games", "Zombie Games", "Flying hero games" also added an extra dimension, Arcade and Action don't really mean anything in the current organisation of the app store.

I agree with aerostat that there should be a slot for extra information, some suggestions;

* Video trailer
* Blog link
* Cocos2d version + 3rd party extras
* link to member profile
* maybe a section for review site links/ratings (get some cross promotion going)

@Riq why not use the cocos2d twitter account we secured for tweeting game releases once published

Posted 2 years ago #
zenkimoto
Member

What about if we used categories as tags? (Just a thought) For example, would Doodle Kart fall under "doodle games" or "racing games"? Would Doodle Kart fall under both? How granular would we get? Though, I realize that this might be a bit of work.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

I think we could use the App Store game subcategory (Arcade, Puzzle,...) as our main category, and then maybe create a subcategory with our own list. We will be able to add more than one subcategory to the game, so that will solve your question @zenkimoto

The developer, once logged into the system (using forum username/password) will be able to add games, providing name and ID, then we could retrieve everything else from App Store, but with option to add additional data, like video link, ... as per @abitofcode suggestions.

@abitofcode , not too sure what you mean with the section for review site links/ratings (get some cross promotion going)

I think the cross promotion we could do, and we could link with the other possible new project @aerostat suggested, is just as simple as display games related by our cocos2d subcategories, so that way we don't manually interfere on the selection of games we want to cross-promote? Does it makes sense?

On the website would just be a list of related games (like in the app store with the other games people bought). And it would be awesome to have that cocos2d "network" framework to link to the website database and display an in-app page with the games on there. I wouldn't mind to try that once I get the site done to be honest.

Posted 2 years ago #
abitofcode
Moderator

The review link section was just an idea, i.e a space to put links to reviews;

4/5 link to Toucharcade.com "porktastic etc"
3/5 NoDpad "some soundbyte here"

If there was enough traffic flowing through these links, the review sites may be more willing keep an eye on released games from the cocos2d community, plus it would save people posting in the forum. I guess this could be scraped from the game info in iTunes (most people seem to post reviews within their description).

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

To be honest, not sure what you guys think, but the Apple rating system is actually a piece of shit, do you realize the OS will ask to rate the game once they delete it?? Of course, what are they going to rate!

I personally will try to create a rate suggestion on my next game update that after 10 or 20 times played the game, shows a popup with the suggestion, and option to "Yes", "Not now", "Don't ask again"

So that is why I am not too convinced about using that rating for anything on our site, dunno, what you guys think? Wouldn't be better in that case have our own rating system? A developer-to-developer rating would be more useful. We could even rate different aspects of the game, like graphics, playability, controls, ...

Anyway, if we use Apple rating/reviews, what country would you use to get the rating? Should we create an average from all countries?

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

@abitofcode, ah yeah, definitively! good idea the links to reviews.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

By the way, you probably know this app, but in case you don't:

http://code.google.com/p/reviewscraper/

So we could do something similar so we get the average of global rating.

Posted 2 years ago #
manucorporat
Member

I have programmed with PHP and MySQL.
I have a website: http://www.manucorporation.com/ but it's deprecated.

@itlgame
I speak spanish.
Do you speak spanish?

@riq I think that I could help.

Posted 2 years ago #
Genji
Member

I think this is a great idea and will definitely showcase all of the awesome cocos2d games currently out! I also like aerostat's idea of some sort of cocos2d framework that helps us cross promote cocos2d games like openfeint does with their library.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

@manucorporat, yes I speak spanish as my first language (I'm spanish), that's why I was asking help with final wording of the site.

I need to sort out some SVN repository and start the project, then once that done if anyone fancy to help, will create tasks. That for the website.

Also @aerostat had a great idea to create a "network" framework, an in-app page where we could list all related cocos2d games, all linked to the website database. Once I finish the site, I may try myself, unless anyone else is available. Basically I would need to create a public interface to access the data, either webservice or just simple plain text or XML service.

Thanks guys.

Posted 2 years ago #
Dan
Member

Much like aerostat and itlgames said, an RSS feed with app icon, app name, and short description would be an interesting thing for cross-promotion within games. Not sure if many people would go through the trouble of connecting to the net and parsing the feed, and promoting other devs titles, but its an idea.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

@Dan - I am thinking to just use the categories tags to do the cross reference between games.

Posted 2 years ago #
Dan
Member

@itlgames That's fine for a web page or even a page that you want to display through an app, but I'd rather have the raw data so I can style and theme it to my game rather than some generic style for the site page. No reason not to have both.

For instance, I could call http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/catalog/catpage.php?cat=puzzle&max=5&sort=random and get back an XML doc with 5 random games in the puzzle category. Then I could pop those in my app any way I'd like.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

@Dan yeah that is the idea actually, to first have a public interface to get the data (i.e. a xml service as you suggest) and then create a standard in-app page as part of a cocos2d "network" framework. Of course anyone would be able to create their own page just calling directly the API. Like OpenFeint, where you can call the dashboard, or just use the functions to i.e. get the leaderboards data and create your own page.

We could also create a call to get you directly all related games, something like:
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/catalog/relpage.php?id=GAME_ID&max=5&sort=random

The relation would be the just the subcategories (tags) selected for the games. That way there will not be need to manually selection nor favouritism.

Posted 2 years ago #
pierotofy
Member

If this project takes on, would you be interested into a collaboration/partnership with the IAA? It seems that we share many common points (the exception is that at the IAA we require apps to pass a quality review process before including the apps inside our network), so I think that we could join forces.

I've also developed a good iTunes Scraper script that fetches information, screenshots, icons, add reflections and create thumbs of different sizes that I use in the IAA website and that I don't mind sharing.

Let me know.

Posted 2 years ago #
jd
Member

For my rejected app, I had written code to pull all the itunes data from itunes based on app ID. It parsed the xml in perl and took only the fields I needed and stored that in xml. I used php applying xslt stylesheets to display the data. I ran a cron job nightly to update all the info. You can use any frontend language to apply the stylsheet to the xml and sort it any way you like. If you would like to leverage the code let me know.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

@pierotofy, yeah looking at your project, it has lot of things on common! Yes I suppose we could see how to collaborate here.

@jd, thanks! that would be brilliant.

To be honest the idea was initially to just have a place on the cocos2d website where we could easily navigate all cocos2d games. Then thanks for some people's feedback we were penciling the idea so we could even create this "network" framework.

I have been talking with Ricardo and we agree we better take once thing at a time.

I am going to first create the simple site to have all games, easy navigation/filtering, and ability to registered members to add the games. I will start all frontend and server side development, so one of the tasks could be to scrap de data from itunes, so if anyone like @pierotofy or @jd want to share the code for this, much appreciated!

The system is going to be based in PHP/MySQL, and I will also do some basic HTML/CSS (design is not on my skills!)

So apart from the iTunes scrapped data, we will be able to add some more specific details, like review links, videos, ... and then the idea of this cocos2d category (like the categories Ricardo used recently on the cocos2d games page "Doodle Games", "Zombie Games", "Flying Hero Games"...). And here is where we could link our network, and start this other project, like a cocos2d addition/library, together with a public web interface. So the idea is simple, using our app ID we could get the list of related apps, jsut by search by this category (more than one per game), acting like tags really.

But this will come after the site is done! If I try to put too much on my plate I won't cope!

Posted 2 years ago #
jd
Member

I'll defer to piertofy for the scraping code for now. Let me know if you need mine. I was able to get rounded corners on my icons but it didn't line up properly in all browsers and I didn't get the icon reflections. That's front end though.

Let me know if I can help in any way. I know PHP, mysql, xslt as well as perl and shell scripting.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Thanks guys, will keep you posted.

Posted 2 years ago #
itlgames
Moderator

Just updating, I have got already the scraper working (thanks to piertofy), and already working on the database and front-end pages.

We need to agree on a list of cocos games categories, this is the initial list extracted from the cocos2d website:

Books
Strategy
Board
Shooter
Labyrinth
Platformer
Kids
Zombies
Flying Hero
Racing
Puzzle
Artistic
Doodle

Games will be able to have more than one of those categories.

Any other suggestions?

Posted 2 years ago #
jamesgrote
Member

Category suggestion: Photography (or Photo Editing)

Cocos2d is not just for games. It's perfect for my photo editing app which uses lots of sprites and animation.

Great topic and idea!

Posted 2 years ago #

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