PHP 8 upgrade

Game File Reference

Overview

• dbmodel.sql - database model
• gameinfos.inc.php - meta-information
• gameoptions.json - game options & user preferences
• img/ - game art
• Game Metadata Manager - tags and metadata media
• material.inc.php - static data
• misc/ - studio-only storage
• modules/ - additional game code
• states.inc.php - state machine
• stats.json - statistics
• X.action.php - player actions
• X.css - interface stylesheet
• X.game.php - main logic
• X.js - interface logic
• X.view.php - dynamic game layout
• X_X.tpl - static game layout

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Useful Components

Official

• Deck: a PHP component to manage cards (deck, hands, picking cards, moving cards, shuffle deck, ...).
• Draggable: a JS component to manage drag'n'drop actions.
• Counter: a JS component to manage a counter that can increase/decrease (ex: player's score).
• ExpandableSection: a JS component to manage a rectangular block of HTML than can be displayed/hidden.
• Scrollmap: a JS component to manage a scrollable game area (useful when the game area can be infinite. Examples: Saboteur or Takenoko games).
• Stock: a JS component to manage and display a set of game elements displayed at a position.
• Zone: a JS component to manage a zone of the board where several game elements can come and leave, but should be well displayed together (See for example: token's places at Can't Stop).

Undocumented component (if somebody knows please help with docs)

• Wrapper: a JS component to wrap a <div> element around its child, even if these elements are absolute positioned.

Unofficial

• BGA Code Sharing - Shared resources, projects on git hub, common code, other links
• BGA Studio Cookbook - Tips and instructions on using API's, libraries and frameworks
• Common board game elements image resources

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Game Development Process

• First steps with BGA Studio
• Create a game in BGA Studio: Complete Walkthrough
• Tutorial reversi
• Tutorial gomoku
• Tutorial hearts
• BGA Studio Guidelines
• BGA game Lifecycle
• Pre-release checklist
• Post-release phase
• Player Resources - add player help/rules to your game page

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Guides for Common Topics

• Translations - make your game translatable
• Game Replay
• Mobile Users
• 3D
• Compatibility

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Miscellaneous Resources

• Studio FAQ
• Tools and tips of BGA Studio - Tips and instructions on setting up development environment
• Studio logs - Instructions for log access
• Practical debugging - Tips focused on debugging
• Troubleshooting - Most common "I am really stuck" situations
• Studio Bugs - Reports against Studio itself (not BGA!)

Starting December 2023, BGA is upgrading game servers from PHP 7.4 to PHP 8.2. See https://boardgamearena.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33940 for more information.

Current Status

BGA studio and production are both currently running in a mixed environment, with some servers on PHP 7 and others on PHP 8.

Until this upgrade is fully completed, your game code must be compatible with both versions of PHP. You cannot use any PHP 8-specific features yet.

The following servers are currently running PHP 8.2:

• PHP 8 gameservers in Studio: 2
• PHP 8 gameservers in Production: 5, 7, 8, 12
  Real-time games may be created on either PHP 7 or PHP 8 servers (if the game indicates PHP 8 support). Turn-based games are always created on PHP 7 servers.

Control your game's PHP version

In studio, you can switch between PHP 7.4 and PHP 8.2 using the Managed Game page. You can also change the gameserver portion of the URL between "/1" and "/2" (although this doesn't test your game setup code). For example, https://studio.boardgamearena.com/1/nowboarding?table=575275 is PHP 7 and https://studio.boardgamearena.com/2/nowboarding?table=575275 is PHP 8.

In production, you can add the PHP8 tag using the Game Metadata Manager page to indicate support for PHP 8. This allows (but does not guarantee) new real-time tables for your game to be created on one of the PHP 8 servers.

Fix your game's code

Here are a few common scenarios that may make your game incompatible with PHP 8 and how to fix them:

implode argument order

📖 See https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.implode.php

The signature of this function is implode(string $separator, array $array): string. PHP 7 accepted the arguments in either order, but PHP 8 requires the string argument first and the array argument second.

Static calls to non-static methods

📖 See https://php.watch/versions/8.0/non-static-static-call-fatal-error and https://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.basic.php

PHP 8 no longer allows non-static class methods to be called statically. This may affect your game if you've created a class which extends APP_GameClass and you call various BGA framework functions statically using self::.

If possible, the simplest change is to replace self:: with $this-> (which refers to the current instance of your game class). This works if your function is non-static.

Non-compliant example:

   class NMap extends APP_GameClass {
       public function getPossibleMoves($playerId) {
           $planeHasNervous = intval(self::getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT COUNT(1) FROM `pax` WHERE `player_id` = $playerId AND `status` = 'SEAT' AND `vip` = 'NERVOUS'")) > 0;

Fix:

   class NMap extends APP_GameClass {
       public function getPossibleMoves($playerId) {
           $planeHasNervous = intval($this->getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT COUNT(1) FROM `pax` WHERE `player_id` = $playerId AND `status` = 'SEAT' AND `vip` = 'NERVOUS'")) > 0;

Otherwise, if your own function is static and $this-> doesn't exist, you can create a static variable like $instance in your game class, populate the variable in your game's constructor, and call the BGA framework functions through this variable.

Non-compliant example:

   class PlayerMgr extends APP_GameClass {
       public static function getMaxScore() {
           return self::getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT MAX(player_score) FROM player WHERE player_eliminated = 0 AND player_zombie = 0");
       }

Fix:

   class hardback extends Table {
       public static $instance = null;
       function __construct() {
           parent::__construct();
           self::$instance = $this;

   class PlayerMgr extends APP_GameClass {
       public static function getMaxScore() {
           return hardback::$instance->getUniqueValueFromDB("SELECT MAX(player_score) FROM player WHERE player_eliminated = 0 AND player_zombie = 0");
       }