How to Create and Award Achievements via a Leaderboard.

In this exercise we'll create an Achievement that is awarded to a player when they beat their current high score in a game:

• First, we'll need to create an Event and a Leaderboard.
• When we've completed the configuration, we'll test it via the Test Harness.

Creating an Event

To start, we'll use the Configurator to create an Event that will allow your game code to log a score for the player with the GameSparks platform.

1. Go to Configurator > Events.

2. On the Events page, click to Add a new Event. The page adjusts to allow you to add the Event.

3. Now, fill in the Event details for Short Code, Name, and Description.

4. Under the Attributes panel, click to Add an Attribute to the Event.

5. Configure the Attribute:

• Short Code - You'll use this as the key for the score that you post into the platform from your game code.
• Name - Enter a name for the Attribute.
• Data Type - Set this to Number for our current example of a high score table, because the incoming scores are integers and we want to be able to sort them into numerical order.
• Default Value - This field can be ignored for our example.
• Default Aggregation Type - In the case of a high score table, we want to track the highest score posted by each of the game's players. Therefore, select Maximum. This will result in GameSparks platform storing one record per player and that record will contain the player's highest score.

6. Click to Save and Close your new Event with a single Attribute.

Creating a Leaderboard

Next, we'll create a Leaderboard that will arrange the players' scores in order from highest to lowest.

1. Go to Configurator > Leaderboards and click to Add a new Leaderboard to represent the game's high score table.

2. Enter the details for the new Leaderboard:

• Short Code - Unique identifier for the Leaderboard.
• Name - A name for the Leaderboard.
• Description - A description explaining the purpose of the Leaderboard.
• Team - The type of Leaderboard - Team or Player based. For this example, we want a Player Leaderboard, so do not select a Team for the Leaderboard, which means it's a Player based Leaderboard.
• Update Frequency - Select the rate at which the Leaderboard will be updated. Here, we leave the default setting of Real Time.
• Notifications - Settings you can use to control the notifications that are sent through to players or their friends regarding their rankings on the Leaderboard. Here we'll switch on only High Score Notifications, which means players will be sent a NewHighScoreMessage when they submit a new high score.

Note: You'll use the Short Code when your game code posts scores into the GameSparks platform.

3. In the Fields panel, add a Running Total:

• The Running Total field should be set to the Score Event that we created in the previous section. A System Generated Running Total was automatically created when you created that Event in the section above.
• In the Collector field, select the Event Attribute SCORE_EVT.SCORE_ATTR that we added to the Score Event.
• The Filter Type field is set to * (wildcard) so that all values are included.
• The Filter Value field is not relevant in this exercise.
• Finally, the Sort field is set to DESC (descending) to order the Leaderboard from highest player score to lowest.

Note: Running Totals are an advanced topic that we don't need to worry about for this exercise.

4. Click to Save and Close your Leaderboard.

Creating and Configuring Game Currencies

Before you set up currency awards for your Achievements, you can create and configure currencies for your game.

Default Game Currencies? You can also use the default game currencies you have enabled for your game in Game Overview>Edit for Achievement currency awards. However, in this tutorial we'll work with the custom Currencies you've created for your game.

1. Go to Configurator>Currencies and click Add to add a new custom currencies:

2. For this tutorial, we'll configure a sign-up bonus amount for CURRENCY_1 of 1000 and a sign-up bonus amount for CURRENCY_2 of 400:

• Now, whenever you register a player, they will be granted 1000 units of CURRENCY_1 and 400 units of CURRENCY_2.

Creating Currencies? For more details of how to create and configure game currencies, see Currencies.

Creating an Achievement

Now, we can create an Achievement that is triggered when a new high score is posted to the Leaderboard.

1. Go to Configurator > Achievements and click to Add a new Achievement.

Enter the details of the new Achievement:

• Short Code - A unique identifier for the Achievement for use elsewhere in the Portal and in Cloud Code.
• Name - A name to help you find the Achievement in the Portal.
• Description - A description explaining the purpose of the Achievement.
• Virtual Good Award - The Virtual Good to award a player as a reward for gaining the Achievement - for this example, no Virtual Good will be awarded.
• Leaderboard - Achievements can be triggered from a Leaderboard or through a Cloud Code script.
  • Here we select the High Score Table Leaderboard we created earlier as the Leaderboard which will trigger the awarding of the Achievement.

No Leaderboard? You can trigger Achievements using a Cloud Code script, if no Leaderboard was selected. To do this, you wouldn't select a Leaderboard but None - Triggered by Script instead.

• Repeatable - Enabling this means the Achievement can be earned multiple times.
• Property Set - Select the Property Set to which you want the Achievement to belong.
• Currency Awards - The amount of each of the Currencies to award a player as a reward for gaining the Achievement - here players receive 100 of each Currency.

Default Game Currencies? If you've enabled any of the six default game currencies in Game Overview>Edit, you can also configure an Achievement for awards in any of these default currencies.

2. In the Triggers panel, click to Add a new Trigger for the Achievement:

Enter the details for the Achievement Trigger:

• Trigger Data - Because we've selected the High Score Table Leaderboard for the Achievement, the Running Total Fields we added to the Leaderboard are available as the data that trigger the awarding of the Achievement.
• Filter Type - Operators which allow you to filter the trigger - here we select greater than or equal to.
• Filter Value - The value of the Filter - we've set the value at 100.

By linking our High Score Achievement to the High Score Table Leaderboard, using the Score Attribute field as the trigger data, and filtering that data, we ensure players are awarded the Achievement only when they score 100 or more on that Leaderboard.

3. Click to Save and Close the new Achievement.

Testing Achievement, Leaderboard, and Event with Test Harness

In this section we'll use the Test Harness to register a test player with the preview version of the game, authorize this player and post a new high score to the GameSparks platform. We'll see the JSON requests and responses and then request the player's details to see that they have been gifted with some in-game currency.

Registering a Test Player

Select RegistrationRequest from the Test Harness > Requests > Authentication menu. Now change the userName and displayName as shown below and send this JSON request to the GameSparks platform by clicking Send Request.

The Inspector shows the request (in green text) that was sent to the GameSparks platform via the WebSocket and the response (in blue text).

Checking the Player's Current Details

Select AccountDetailsRequest from the Test Harness > Requests > Player menu. Examine the currency values for this player in the response, notice that they are all zero, except for CURRENCY_1 and CURRENCY_2, each of which have the relevant sign=up bonus amounts accredited to the player:

Log Event

Select the option on the LogEvent tab. Now select the Score Event menu option from the submenu:

Under Requests, select LogEvent to send a LogEventRequest. Now select the Score Event:

• Notice that the eventKey field is set to SCORE_EVT, which is the Short Code of the Event that we created at the start of the exercise.
• Set the SCORE_ATTR value to 100.
• Click Send Request:

In the Inspector you can see the request you sent in green text and the response in blue text.

There will also be two Messages: an AchievementEarnedMessage and a NewHighScoreMessage. Both are asynchronous messages that the GameSparks platform has sent to this player:

Checking the Player's Updated Details

Finally repeat the AccountDetailsRequest you performed earlier and notice that the player now has the new Achievement and 100 of each currency has been added to the player's currency amounts.