Pre-release checklist

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
• Game.php - main logic
• X.js - interface logic
• X.view.php - dynamic game layout
• X_X.tpl - static game layout

---

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

---

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

---

Guides for Common Topics

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

---

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!)

If you think your game is ready to be reviewed by by BGA admins and/or Publisher (aka go to Alpha stage) please consult this checklist first

Move from Dev to Alpha

1. License
   1. BGA must have a license for the game for a project to be moved to production, even to alpha. If you don't have license yet you can continue checking other stuff from the list below, but at the end it cannot be moved until license situation is cleared.
2. Metadata and graphics
   1. Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php has correct and up to date information about the game.
   2. Game box graphics is 3D version of the game box (if available) and publisher icon is correct (see Game art: img directory). Space around the box has to be transparent, not white.
   3. You have added a game_banner.jpg and some game_displayX.jpg images to make the game page pretty (NB: on the studio, you have to create a build for these images to appear on the studio game page)
   4. There are no images in the img directory that are not needed anymore
   5. Multiple images (i.e. cards) are compressed in "Sprite" (see Game art: img directory)
   6. Each image should not exceed 4Mb
   7. Total size should not exceed 10Mb, image compression should be used otherwise (it also helps a lot to re-encode images as indexed palette vs RBG). If you have legitimate reason to have more than 10Mb (i.e. expansions), you have to make a note of that when requesting move to alpha
   8. If you use extra fonts, they should be freeware (please include a .txt with the licence information in addition to the font files)
3. Server side
   1. When giving their turn to a player, you give them some extra time with the giveExtraTime() function
   2. Game progression is implemented (getGameProgression() in php)
   3. Zombie turn is implemented (zombieTurn() in php). Note: it can only be tested if you explicitly click on the quit button to create a zombie. If you are expelled it does not generated a Zombie.
   4. You have defined and implemented some meaningful statistics for your game (i.e. total points, point from source A, B, C...)
   5. Game has meaningful notification messages (but don't overkill it, more user logs will slow down the loading)
   6. You implemented tiebreaking (using aux score field) and updated tiebreaker description in meta-data
   7. Database: make sure you do not programmatically manage transactions or call queries that change database schema or even TRUNCATE (queries that would cause implicit commit) during normal game opearations
   8. Database: make sure you DB schema would be sufficient to complete the game and good enough for possible expantions, changing db schema schema after the release even in alpha is very challenging (it is possible but much better if you don't need to deal with it)
4. Client side
   1. Check that you use ajaxcall/bgaPerformAction only on player actions and never initiated programmatically. Otherwise, your code will very likely create race conditions resulting in deadlocks or other errors. This can also break replays and tutorials. Exception: sometimes you can do no-op moves with timeouts (i.e. user has only one choice, but its unwise to reveal this information by skipping user turn), timeout has to be canceling itself if state transition happen automaticaly (i.e. during replay)
5. User Interface
   1. Review BGA UI design Guidelines BGA_Studio_Guidelines
   2. Check all your English messages for proper use of punctuation, capitalization, usage of present tense in notification (not past) and gender neutrality. See Translations for English rules.
   3. If the elements in your game zone don't occupy all the available horizontal space, they should be centered.
   4. If your game elements become blurry or pixellated when using the browser zoom, you may want to consider higher resolution images with background-size
   5. Non-self explanatory graphic elements should have tooltips
   6. Strings in your source code are ready for translation. See Translations. You can generate dummy translations for checking that everything is ready for translation from your "Manage game" page.
   7. A prefix for example a trigram for your game that you prepend to all the css classes to avoid namespace conflicts, i.e. vla_selected vs selected
   8. If you are looking for advice on design and some 3rd party testing you can post a message on the developers forum, and ask other developers, there are a lot of people who will gladly do it.
6. Special testing
   1. Click "Use minified JS" and "Use minified CSS" buttons on the game management page, then test your game. This will prevent you from having a panic attack when the game releases in alpha and it is stuck in "Connecting to game".
   2. Game is tested with spectator (non player observer): change the testuser in the URL to see the game as another user (same URL as when clicking on red arrow). As a spectator, you should be able to see the game as if you were sitting beside of the players at a real table: all public information, no private information.
   3. Game is tested with in-game replay from last move feature (by clicking on notification log items).
   4. After finishing a game, it is possible to watch the replay (using the "Replay game" button on the table page) from game start to game end without errors.
   5. Game works in Chrome and Firefox browsers at least. Also very recommended to test in Edge and Safari.
   6. Game works on mobile device (if you don't have mobile device to test at least test in Chrome with smaller screen, they have a mode for that)
   7. Test your game in realtime mode. Usually people will run out of time if you use default times unless you add call giveExtraTime($active_player_id) before each turn
   8. Test your game in 3D mode (if it makes sense; 3D mode can also be disabled through the 'enable_3d' parameter for gameinfos.inc.php, but if it "mostly works", it can be nice to keep it activated even if 2D is more appropriate for the game, just because it's fun to look at)
   9. Check your game against the waiting screen, otherwise game start can fail. See Practical_debugging#Debugging_an_issue_with_the_waiting_screen
7. Cleanup
   1. Remove all unnecessary console.log and other tracing from your js code (Note: technically it is removed by minimizer, but not console.error)
   2. Remove all unnecessary debug logging from your php code
   3. Copyright headers in all source files have your name
   4. Remove unncessery files from main folder (can move some to misc folder)
   5. Remove all unused graphics from img/ folder
8. Static Analysis
   1. Some of the checks above are automated, to run them go to control panel, go to your project and select "Check project" button (it will open like a game table, and you click on Start button to run analysis)
9. Finally move to Alpha status
   1. If possible (meaning if there is not already a project with that name) copy your project to a new project matching exactly the name of the game (no prefix or suffix). If not possible move on to the next steps, admin will have to retrieve the other project and overwrite it. In this case, after you request the alpha deployment, please reply to the automatic reply with the correct name.
   2. Create a build for your game from the "manage game" page (using the Build a new release version section) and check the log to make sure that everything builds fine (after a successful build, you should see a new version in "Versions available for production").
   3. Really ready? Click on the Request ALPHA status button available above your just built version. You cannot deploy yourself from the "manage game" page until this first ALPHA deploy has been done by the admins. Clicking this button will file a request in the BGA ticketing system and you'll receive a confirmation email allowing to reply to add some information on the ticket if needed. Note: you can also ask for moving your project to "private Alpha" - in this case you will invite people manually rather than having your game immediately visible to the whole BGA reviewers community. When you press you button you should receive acknowledgement email, you can reply to this email with more details if needed.

• Wait
  • When admins publish (push to alpha) they will send an email to the developer with all relevant information about the next steps.

Move from Alpha to Beta

1. The implementation must be approved by the publisher (if not a public domain game)
2. Generally it is recommended (but not essential) to have at least 10 approvals from reviewer with rank > 3.5 and not too many bugs opened
3. If the game is well-received (preferably game rating ≥4.5) and there are no pending issues the game may pass as administrative discretion without 10+ approvals
4. Click on the Request BETA status button available above your latest build. Clicking this button will file a request in the BGA ticketing system and you'll receive a confirmation email allowing to reply to add some information on the ticket if needed.