I have GameCenter integrated into my application, as I have a leaderboard that displays user's top scores. I published my app to the app store, and then decided that I wanted to add achievements.
However, from in-game, it seems I can't view these achievements, as, the only way to test it seems to be to sign into a GameCenter account (which I did) and view the leaderboards/challenges/achievements. However, since the leaderboards are live, and the achievements are not, the achievements do not show up.
I tested this by creating a test application with a non-live leaderboard and non-live achievements, and the achievements did indeed show up.
Is there any way I can resolve this without just publishing the achievements to the app store so they go live and hoping they work okay (a terrible practice which I would really rather not do). I've contacted Apple already, but in the meantime, was wondering if anyone had any recommendations? I've heard a few things about Sandbox testing, but I tried making a sandbox GameCenter account and that didn't seem to make a difference, although I'd be open to any suggestions.
Thank you.
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I am developing a free app about marine life conservation. I am working with a foundation to help them raise money. I have an paid app in the iOS store now. While i am certain of the answer, i would like to ask and hopefully be pleasantly surprised.
Is it possible to create an app that is only available via an in app purchase? I would like of offer my app with the foundations' logos throughout the app, instead of my own, but i do not want this special app to be readily available on it's own.
Possible via any creative measures?
An interesting problem, a possible solution could be:
You will have your existing application with the in-app purchases that will give the user either a promo code or a deep link to your other application.
The other application will be essentially empty if someone random opens it, then will 'unlock' when a user has a code/link opens it.
If you did want to try the deep-linking, i've used Branch before that is quite easy to use. Link: https://branch.io
I recently submitted a multiplayer trivia app to the app store. There are 2 versions of the app but they are essentially the same thing just for different trivia.
One app was accepted but the other rejected
Here is the rejected reason
17.2 Details
We noticed that your app requires users to register to access non account-based features. Apps cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app content and features that are not associated specifically to the user.
My app has followed the process that is similar to other major apps like trivia crack and words with friends.
The user gets a screen to sign in with facebook or sign in with email. When they click on sign in with email it brings them to a screen where they enter their email. We then create an account for them in the app.
This is required so that we can keep track of the user in each of the games they are playing and who they are playing against we also keep stats for that user based on how many questions they get wrong and how many right, also how many wins. We are storing all of this on our webserver so that the user can also use his account on a different device so that they can play their games on their iphone, ipad, ipod and so on.
We ask for nothing other than email, and if we dont have them register then we cant maintain all this information for them, especially if moving from device to device. Again, this is how almost ALL other larger multiplayer apps in the store do it. I mimicked them exactly.
I dont get it. Plus, one reviewer accepted one of the apps and another rejected the other app.
Should I appeal?
Yes, you can appeal.
You can explain your position to reviewer, we had similar problem and after we've created appellation application was published.
I've created a leaderboard in the sandbox mode for my game. Then I tried to play the game using different gamecenter accounts. But I can see only the score for currently logged-in account. Is it correct? Or I have missed something? How can I fill up a sandbox leaderboard with a bunch of records to test my game?
Thank you!
Yes this is normal. In sandbox mode you can only see your own scores.
After you submit your app to the appstore and it doesn't use sandbox mode, you can see everyone's scores. (Gamecenter doesn't update instantly though, so you might have to wait a little while)
I don't have enough reputation to comment, so I'm writing my response as an answer. The same thing happened to me. I had made a bunch of sandbox test accounts and found that I could only see the score of the currently logged in player.
However, after a period of time (I wasn't sure exactly how long), the scores for other players showed up on the leaderboard. So maybe just give it a few hours or so for the scores to show up.
You'll see that scores. It takes time , for the real accounts it's same too . But there is a trick to see more quickly that just log out and log in (switch) between that accounts , this forces the apple servers to display new scores for you more quickly.
To clarify, I currently have a live app that does not implement in app purchases. Assuming I don't update the app in any way, does creating a new IAP in iTunes Connect affect my end users in any way?
Since there isn't any code deployed in the app that uses IAP I'm 99.99% sure it won't, but I want to be absolutely sure before I press the button. My heart rate always goes up a little bit when I'm mucking around with a live app. :)
Adding IAP will most definetly not affect existing instances of your live app.
So I've spent a lot of time making an iPhone game and have recently realized that I don't have to limit myself to just Apple - I know there are app stores for Palm and Android, but does anybody know of a good "app store" for the plain old PC? I would like to have one where individual developers can publish an app and not have to worry about all the billing and piracy issues!
Valve has Steam, although that's a bit of a game store. It comes with DRM so it might be what you want. http://store.steampowered.com/
From what I can see, their website has an email to coontact them about distribution and that's it. steamworks#valvesoftware.com
Stardock has Impulse, which is more of a general app store although it does have games as well. No DRM baked in, and it has a very liberal return policy. http://www.impulsedriven.com/
Impulse has a page with more info and a contact form - https://developer.impulsedriven.com/#publishing
The page states the base rate is 70% which is likely more than Steam gives you.