Custom Leagues and New Landing Page

There are couple of new features that I'd like to talk about today.  Custom Leagues are in.  I cut back what is offered to just 2 and 5 person leagues at the moment.  The plan is to add in the ability to purchase larger tournaments but the purchase process was becoming a road block so I set it aside for now.  Eventually you will be able to buy TouchLeague credits that the service will use to create larger tournaments.  That paradigm greatly simplifies the purchase process on TouchLeague and will eventually allow me to offer the ability to buy credits directly to the applications.  We've created a few tournaments on Hold'em Ladder and they are going well.

Originally I was going to offer the set up of the tournaments through TouchLeague.com, but I decided that users really don't want to leave their application to use their application.  So I wrapped the functionality in services and dumbed it down quite a bit.  I may eventually build management screens on TouchLeague.com, but for now the services can be consumed by any game implementing the TouchLeague platform.

I've also added a new TouchLeague landing page to help explain what TouchLeague is all about.  http://www.TouchLeague.com/default2.aspx.  Check it out and let me know what works and what doesn't.

OpenFeint was released yesterday and it is a little frustrating to see.  They have more resources and a wider audience.  I feel that TouchLeague has more to offer in the mobile world but I need to find some resources to pump the PR and add some library wrappers.  If you can point me in a direction I'd love to hear your thoughts.  I am building this full time now when I'm not looking for a job so hopefully things will start flowing more quickly next week.

Leagues are in!

A few updates today for TouchLeague and Hold'em Ladder.

1. Leagues are now in! You can sign up for the January, February, or March opens right now. The January open starts this weekend. You'll be put in a division of 2-8 others and you'll play a round robin with them. Your finish dictates where you go for the next round.

2. Twitter is fixed. They started feeding 417 - Expectation Failed errors a couple of weeks ago and since I was in the middle of a release I couldn't fix it. Yikes. Fortunately I was the only Twitter user so I just turned it off. Twitter makes playing so much easier because your turns are texted to your phone. You don't have to play right then, but it is good to know when you have a turn waiting.

3. Ties are fixed. There was a bug where if you were leading and went all in, and were called that the pot would be split evenly. It is now impossible to more in the pot then your opponent has.

Join a league and lets play some cards. Private Leagues are next on the dev list.

Amateur iPhone / Web Game Developers Get a new Tool for Christmas - TouchLeagueSharp

Download TouchLeagueSharp: http://code.google.com/p/touchleaguesharp/

What Is TouchLeagueSharp? :

TouchLeagueSharp is a C# wrapper and demo web site that can be used to build games on the TouchLeague.com Competition API. An example application is http://www.holdemladder.com. Come try out the application and play some play money poker with us.

What is the TouchLeague.com Competition API? :

The TouchLeague.com Competition API is a set of web services that support turn based asynchronous game play. It is kind of like chess play-by-mail but on the internet. The functions currently supported:

1. User Registration on TouchLeague.com
2. Advertising Revenue Generation
3. Competitive Ladder for player rankings
4. Set/Get Turn web services for retrieving and updating game state. No database is required for your game
5. Match request by rank and by Team ID
6. BrowseMyGames web request returns all active games, requests, and recent results
7. SetGameNote web request allows in game comments and discussion.
8. Twitter integration for turn, game, and comment notifications.
   

A couple of Future Features that will be available to games built on the TouchLeague.com Competition API:

1. Play Ad Free Revenue Generation
2. Tournaments and Leagues

What is required to make a game? :

All you need to make a game is a public web server that can execute code that you write. The TouchLeagueSharp package contains an ASP.net web project that implements the API. There are comments instructing you where you need to write your game code. We recommend Aspnix.com where you can get web hosting for only $7.77 a month. You could also use the free Google App Engine

What kind of games should be developed for the platform? :

1. Turn based piece games like Checkers or Chess
2. Turn based fighting games like Final Fantasy.
3. Turn based war games like Civilizations or Risk.
4. Get creative!
   

How do I get an API key? :

Request one at TouchLeague.com. Just click contact us and tell us what kind of game you want to make.

Other Comments:

If you are anything like me you not only love games, but you love playing games with other people. As I have gotten older I've seen the amount of time I have available to play games has diminished as my responsibilities have grown. I build this API to accommodate my gaming style. When I have time to play a game it is often in five minute chunks and at odd times of day. This makes playing live multiplayer games hard. By the time I have a group of players ready to go the baby has started crying or my wife wants some help with something.

I also love making my mark on the world...even if this world is virtual. This API maintains a history. If you lose a game today, it affects how high you can advance tomorrow. Having this history helps people develop a community around a game. What happens elsewhere in the community can affect you.

The goals of this API are:

1. Help people build games that can be played at their own pace.
2. Help people build games that can be played with lots of other people.
3. Help people build games that maintain a history.
4. Help people build a community around the game they love.

So far I the API has been a huge success for me. A few friends and I have been playing Head to Head Texas Hold'em at our own pace for a couple of weeks now. With a few games going at one time it seems I always have turns ready to play when I have the time.

I like to invite you to http://www.holdemladder.com. It is free to play. Come play a few hands see what creative juices it gets flowing.

TouchLeague.com Competition API

You can now view the TouchLeague.com Competition API definition here:

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=drn9wbt_46gns6xvf2

Using this API you can add matchmaking, Ladder competition, and a revenue stream to your turn based game.

http://www.holdemladder.com utilizes this API. There is no database back end. Everything goes through touchleague.com. (Hold'em ladder works best with Safari or Chrome on a computer or on an iPhone or Android device).

If you have a turn based game and are interested in the API, just contact me:

1. Here: http://www.yourtownfootball.com/contact.aspx
2. Tweet me @afat

If you'd like to follow along as we enhance the service just subscribe to this RSS.

We're working on a Poke System and Twitter integration as we speak. We will be releasing a C# wrapper for the API early next week.

TouchLeague Launch

I have not given upon on the YTFL and creating an amazing simulated football league is still my end goal, but sometimes when life gives you lemons(and the current ytfl is certainly that), you make lemonade.

So today I'm releasing TouchLeague.com to the world along with the first TouchLeague.com integrated game HoldemLadder.com.

TouchLeague.com is a web service that supplies state management for turn based mobile games.

If that is spanish to you then let me put it this way: You can play head to head Texas Hold'em against your friends and you both don't have to be online at the same time. You play when you have time and then you wait for your friend to play. The it is your turn again.

Eventually there will me many more games. If you are a game developer and you have interest in this type of service. Please contact us. We'd love for you to use our framework.

For Texas Hold'em Right No:

0. Make sure you have a web kit compatable browser. Safari works ok, but Ladder Hold'em is designed witht he iPhone or iPod Touch in mind. Google Android's browser seems to work pretty well also.

1. Go to http://www.holdemladder.com

2. Click on Settings <- Start Here

3. Click on TouchLeague Credentials

4. Click on the link toward the bottom that says "click here to create one". This will allow you to create a TouchLeague account.

5. Enter your desired user and team info. Creat a team name that you like.

6. Submit the information.

7. Go back to http://www.holdemladder.com

8. Click on Settings again and the on TouchLeague credentials.

9. Enter your new credentials and click save.

10. Click back home

11. Click The Ladder

12. Click on a team to challenge them. If they accept your challenge then you'll see a red number show up on the home screen next to My Games. When someone challenges you you will see a red number show up next to 'Find a Match'. As you win and lose games you will move up and down this ladder.

13. Go back home. Click Find A Match. Click By Rank. On this screen you can submit a range of players on the ladder that you would like to challenge. Leaving Min and Max blank submits a request for anyone. Leave them blank and click submit. If you are lucky a was created for you. If not...check back in a while and you should have a game ready.

14. Have fun! If you don't know the rules of Texas Hold'em, check them out here.

15. Send us feedback! We want to make a great game and a great framework.

A couple things to note:

Challenge Me! My team ID is: 79 (The Lake Highlands White Rocks)
You can do this on the Find A Match->By Team ID screen.

Challenge a friend! Click on Find A Match -> Challenge a Friend and we will let them know about the game. Let them know your team id and team name and they can challenge you. The more players we have the more games we can play.

You can have many many games going on at one time so feel free to challenge as many Teams as you'd like. If you have a lot of games going on, chances are you'll always have one to play when you have time.

PayPal

I have slayed the PayPal integration dragon. Coming soon... Integrated PayPal!

Up Next: Coaching. That's right, something you can actually do.

Post Launch Blues - New Video

You have grand ideas when you're building something that when you release it into the world, the world will embrace it. We had about 30 visitors to the site yesterday. Not a terrible start, but not exactly a crazy internet mob.

The feedback has been good. The short term goals are:
1. Make it more obvious what to 'do'
2. Do something to keep our attention
3. Give us more to do

I'll be working on doing that for release 1.1. Here is a step in that direction:

#6 Los Angeles Flash vs. #21 Arizona Bearcats Video

Please give the file a shot and let me know if this is something that would help keep your interest. Try loading it on your iPhone! Our next version may have an iPhone specific site. Let me know your feedback in the comments.