OpenFeint Gold Requirements

What is OpenFeint Gold?

• OpenFeint Gold is recognition given to the best combinations of fun gameplay and complete OpenFeint integration.
• To be considered for Gold status, your game must meet some minimum integration requirements, outlined below. If you feel your game is Gold material, you can submit it for consideration here. OpenFeint will select Gold games based on quality of gameplay, production values and depth of integration.
• If your game is awarded Gold status, you’ll benefit from advertising and support aimed at pushing your work to the top of the sales charts.

Requirements

A successful OpenFeint integration enhances the fun and replay value of your games. Using OpenFeint, you can easily add modern social gaming features to your game, including Leaderboards, Achievements and Challenges.

OpenFeint allows deep customization. As you consider how you’ll use OpenFeint, strive to blend each OpenFeint feature into your interface and gameplay. Ideal integrations allow the player to benefit from OpenFeint without having to leave your game.

Leaderboards

Leaderboards provide a global means of tracking player scores. Players can see their scores on a global list or see rankings against just their friends.

Usage

OpenFeint APIs provide you with leaderboard data which you can use to drive custom interfaces. Your high score UI should match your game’s overall look and feel, maximizing the player’s immersion in your game’s experience.

Ideas

If your game is level-based, display a leaderboard after the player completes a level. Don’t want to show the whole leaderboard? You could also show the player’s friend rank.

If your game features fast, continuous action, consider integrating the leaderboard by displaying the player’s current global rank during gameplay along with your game’s next-highest score. This adds challenge and excitement for players as they watch themselves soaring up (or down) the charts.

You can stoke your player’s competitive fire by displaying current friend high scores on your game’s main menu. Highlight the player’s score and each time he launches your game, he’s able to see the score to beat, setting gameplay goals accordingly.

Leaderboards can also be accessible through your main menu. Curious players will know the latest scores are only a few taps away.

Examples

Solitaire Tri Towers displays inline leaderboard data.

Fieldrunners displays high scores in a custom view, available both through the game’s menu and displayed after a game is completed.

Hook Champ sports a heavily customized leaderboard view.

Achievements

Achievements provide recognition for in-game player accomplishments. Games can present a blend of achievements, ranging from the mundane (ten kills with a sniper rifle) to the nearly-impossible (finish the game with 100% health). By encouraging players to collect achievements, you improve replay value of your game.

Usage

OpenFeint APIs provide achievement data you can display in your games. Finding ways to integrate and acknowledge these achievements without requiring the player to leave your game is important. While players enjoy the accomplishment of unlocking an achievement, they don’t want that to come at the cost of interrupting their experience.

Ideas

When a player unlocks an achievement, immediately display a notification that matches your game’s look and feel while

For level based games, display a listing of completed achievements at the conclusion of each level.

Similar to leaderboards, you can allow players to access a view of their achievements through your game’s main menu. Your game can display a list of achievements using a list interface that matches the rest of the game experience.

You could also entice players by displaying a progress bar on your main menu showing how close they are to 100% achievement completion.

Examples

Fieldrunners provides a view of achievements that matches the game’s look and feel. This view is accessible through the game’s main menu.

Must Eat Birds breaks away from listing achievements altogether, displaying them instead like a rack of pastries, consistent with the game’s theme.

Player Data and Communications

OpenFeint’s social underpinnings provide significant, turn-key solutions for any game with social components.

Usage

OpenFeint’s API exposes powerful features you can use to provide both real-time and asynchronous communication among your game’s players. You can also access profile data, using it as a starting point for getting to know the player better.

Ideas

If having the player’s photo will let you enhance gameplay, consider capturing their OpenFeint profile image.

Expose the Fan Club directly on your main menu to your players. Encourage them to opt-in for your newsletter or favorite the game so their friends can see what they’re playing.

Challenges and Multiplayer

Social interaction through challenges and multiplayer gaming can take your product to a new level of engagement and value. These features should be exposed in your main menu, increasing the gameplay options your players can enjoy.

Usage and Value

Challenges are an asynchronous method to play against friends. After concluding gameplay, players can challenge their friends to beat their performance.

Examples

Arithmetic Master lets users begin a challenge once they’ve completed some gameplay.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is a feature of OpenFeint currently in private beta. Invitations to this beta are extended based on game quality. Contact us if you believe your game merits consideration.

General Integration Practices

OpenFeint should initialize at startup. This allows your game to log players immediately into OpenFeint or prompt them to create an account, as needed. As all other elements of the OpenFeint experience, you can create a custom start screen that matches your game’s look and feel.

Steampunk Hockey features a custom start screen that matches the rest of the game’s interface.

The OpenFeint logo should appear in your game’s icon. Players look for this logo in when expanding their library. Piyo Blocks includes the OpenFeint logo in its icon.

Notifications

OpenFeint’s drop-down notifications are customizable. The best integrations will create notification UI that keeps players in touch with their OpenFeint account while still maintaining the game’s overall flavor.

Branding and Dashboard

The OpenFeint dashboard should be accessible either from your game’s main screen or pause screen using OpenFeint branding. Players expect easy access to the dashboard across all their games. Honoring this expectation provides the best possible experience for your players. Customizing the OpenFeint art to fit your game’s interface is encouraged so long as you comply with the platform’s branding guidelines.

When OpenFeint data drives integrated leaderboards, achievements or challenges, brand those elements of your interface using the leaf logo.

Jet Car Stunts gives Jakob a standard OpenFeint notification that matches the rest of the game’s menu interface. Since OpenFeint drives its challenge system, detailed on the top-right of the menu, a leaf logo is present. A button to access the OF dashboard is also prominent. The leaf logo has been styled to match the menu’s ultra-modern look.

Bird Strike integrates the OpenFeint logo with its OF-driven Leaderboards in its menu interface.

Hook Champ displays the OpenFeint logo styled according to its 8-bit design motif, presenting easy access to the dashboard from the game’s main menu.