Defold on Facebook Instant Games

I once again tried to harass FB peeps with the marketing and support. But looks like they indeed have no idea :wink:

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Was the Canvas.toDataURL() giving a tainted canvas warning? That seems to be caused when testing on localhost (without turning on a special browser flag to allow it) and when loading images off servers which mess with CORS.

If that approach was to be used how would it be implemented? Flash the canvas for a frame to the desired graphics to screenshot? I’m not sure about that but if it works…

toDataURL captures the exact size of the canvas which is another issue though is fine for screenshots not workable for this maybe unless we used a slave copy of the engine that is hidden but used to generate custom messages although that too means double resources spent from the runtime overhead.

Did you talk with Chris Hawkins? It seems like he might be the guy to reach out to.

An official badge for " Play now in Messenger " doesn’t seem to exist yet so I made a temporary one, there are some options in the zip’s psd to customize.

messenger_badge.zip (139.8 KB)

messenger_badge_small

messenger_badge

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I’ve pushed out a new release of the extension. This version adds interstitial ads support and a couple of minor changes:

  • Upgraded to SDK v 6.1
  • Added on_pause() function
  • Added an example app for testing all of the FBInstant APIs (WIP)
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Linking this here so it’s easier to find until it’s fixed in engine

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For getting debug info on device, you can install logcat on Android, and then add a filter for Chromium, which will show you same info as browser console.

If your Android device isn’t rooted you can download a version of logcat which doesn’t require root such as “Logcat [NO ROOT]” then connect device by usb to your computer (you need to enable USB debugging on the device first too), and use adb as instructed. You don’t need to download all of the Android tools for adb you can download a small copy such as found here https://www.xda-developers.com/install-adb-windows-macos-linux/

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You don’t need a rooted device to use logcat. It should work perfectly fine on any device, as long as it is developer enabled.

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Only if you connect to a computer though? Apps like CatLog require root to use logcat disconnected from USB.

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Ah, so reading logs on device? Yes, that probably requires root, that’s true.

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Dunno, I spoke to many ppl on FB booth. But perhaps I was too pushy or asked too much complex questions, so folks pointed at one another. Then I just spent quality time with Colin Creitz, the old buddy of mine who’s on the devrel side of FB things.

Will follow up with him now. I think an online game jam about Instant Games is a decent idea.

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2018-03-26%2013_20_34-Instant%20Game%20Developer%20Community

Sounds like if you didn’t get an Instant Game approved already you’re going to wait as long as a month + to go live…

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If anyone is submitting an instant game soon I think maybe you should not but it’s up to you. My thinking is that once they open up for review again there will be a burst of new games released, which will clog up the list of games - they only allow so many to appear at once while giving newly released games without any data to prove they are good games some bonus ranking, but when you have a ton of new games which all compete for the same freshness bonus it may hurt launching. So unless you have another way to drive traffic to a game your game will be competing with that flood of new games being released all around each other for the same temporary traffic.

Facebook places games in the list based on retention, people playing, and if your friends are playing, so if you can drive traffic to a game releasing it while a bunch of other games are being released could be an advantage if you have everything in your game setup to be viral and sticky. There will probably be other good games being released at the same time, but because they are competing for the same “fresh” traffic they may not be able to prove themselves as well while your game which you can drive traffic to can better prove itself and get higher on the list thanks to the algorithm.

Still… up to you. I’ll be submitting 2 games soon anyway to see what happens when they open up reviewing again.

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Congrats to those who managed to release a game before the freeze. An opportunity to build your game and your audience during this period.

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For everyone else, don’t let this discourage you. Keep working on and polishing your games!

@britzl has been making good progress on the Facebook Instant extension for Defold and implementing the rest of the API for 6.1.

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Me and @Pkeod have added a couple of more functions and a new version has been released. New functions:

NEW: fbinstant.load_rewarded_video()
NEW: fbinstant.show_rewarded_video()
NEW: fbinstant.get_sdk_version()
NEW: fbinstant.get_platform()
NEW: fbinstant.get_supported_apis()

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I’ve repoked FB on the gamejam idea. Just in case =] It’s been a while since we had an online game jam.

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Thanks to @AGulev was able to figure out why the template .html wasn’t showing correct loading progress on Android (it jumped from 0 to 100% instantly) got a fix in PR.

During downtime, I’m going to redo the graphics for my Multiplayer Minesweeper game. I’ll maybe let people toggle between pixel art and more modern look with the modern look the default skin.

How are everyone’s projects?

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2018-03-31%2020_23_23-Instant%20Game%20Developer%20Community

Be aware to wait before attempting to access these features in the SDK and always link to the official SDK. They have added some automated tests to check for issues when uploading too I believe. Uploading was broken for a while but is working again now.

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The “activity store” API was stripped from the docs and the API reference, and today it appears to be broken. The devs have said they are changing to improve them, and today it looks like the features are now broken. As a consequence the XOXO demo no longer functions as it uses these API features. The features may be restored, otherwise will have to be adapted to whatever is coming to be the new features to replace.

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