Following up on the second in a series of webinars covering Amazon devices, game services, and mobile applications, here’s a list of questions we collected during and after our presentation on Amazon GameCircle, including Achievements, Leaderboards, and Whispersync for Games.

Does the developer have access to the GameCircle nickname?

Yes, you can call getLocalPlayerProfile(), which returns a structure containing player id and player alias (same as nickname/username). NULL is returned if the player is in guest mode (they have not logged in). Player id is unique for each player.

When updating Achievement Progress can you decrement it as well or does the GameCircleCient hold onto the latest highest progress value?

Achievement progress is strictly increasing, which means updates must be greater than the current value or they’ll be ignored. Note that you can reset achievement data for draft achievements (those that have not yet been published).

With the update, does GameCircle still support Kindle Fire 1?

Yes. The GameCircle system app must be updated to v1.1_1101110, however. This should have been delivered OTA. On KF2, the GC system app should be v2.5.2500310 or greater.

Can leaderboards/achievements be translated?

Not yet, but localization is in development and will be available in a future release.

Is the same game discovery mechanism on Kindle Fire available on all Android devices as well?

The dedicated Games Tab is built in to the games library on Kindle Fire only. It’s not available on other Android devices.

What is the minimum OS supported?

GameCircle supports API level 10 up to API level 16 on all Android devices.

Is GameCircle available internationally?

Yes, GameCircle works internationally. Players in China are limited to Guest mode for now, due to data storage requirements imposed by the Chinese government, but we will address that in a future release.

Is the old version of GameCircle still supported?

Yes, for legacy games. Games that have been published using GameCircle v1.x will continue to work. If you had a game in development when GameCircle v2.0 was released, you can proceed to publish it using the old version. Since the Mobile App Distribution Portal no longer provides direct support for GameCircle v1.x app whitelisting, however, you must contact us to add or update package name/signature pairs. See the Whitelisting Notice on the GameCircle configuration page for more information.

What happened to the FileSync and BlobSync from Whispersync?

We greatly simplified the Whispersync interface to make it easier to integrate and expand auto-resolution of data conflicts. As a result, we dropped support for the blob and multifile sync options. They were complicated to integrate and forced the developer to manually reconcile data on occasion (or to ask the customer to do so). The new Whispersync requires significantly less integration overhead and provides a better customer experience in most cases.

Can I migrate old Whispersync data to the new format?

Yes, there are two methods on the WhispersyncClient that can help in the migration process. migrateVersion1GameData() and unpackVersion1MultiFileGameData() will download and unpack data stored using the previous version, respectively. They’re only meant to be used by games that integrated Whispersync prior to July 1, 2013. See the Javadoc for more info.

Is there any way to integrate game circle in Air apps?

Amazon provided an Adobe Native Extension (ANE) for GameCircle v1.x, but none is yet available for the new version. We are actively researching an upgrade to the existing ANE, but don’t have an official timeline. Check back here or follow @peterdotgames for updates on the availability of a new ANE. In the meantime, you can continue to the existing extension with GameCircle v1.x for games currently in development.

Where can I learn more about Unity plugin for game circle?

Check out the Amazon Unity Plug-Ins page on the Amazon Mobile App Distribution Portal.

Do users need to login with Amazon account username and password to use the game services?

No, GameCircle now supports a Guest Mode for users who don’t want to log in to an Amazon account. In this case, data will not be synchronized to the cloud or across devices.

Is there a good game to play to check out the features?

There are many great games that include GameCircle features, including well-known blockbusters and high-quality indies. In the Amazon Appstore, look for the GameCircle badge to quickly identify games that use Achievements, Leaderboards, or Whispersync for Games.

Don’t miss out next webinar event: How to Integrate Amazon Mobile Ads and Lift Your App Revenues 
on August 15th, 2013 @ 10:00 AM.

Pre-register here!