Pre-release checklist

Game File Reference

Overview

• dbmodel.sql - database model
• fonts/ - game fonts
• gameinfos.jsonc - meta-information
• gameoptions.jsonc - 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
• sounds/ - game sounds
• States/ - State classes
• states.inc.php - state machine
• stats.jsonc - statistics
• X.action.php - player actions
• X.css - interface stylesheet
• Game.php - main logic
• Game.js - interface logic
• X.view.php - dynamic game layout
• X_X.tpl - static game layout

---

Useful Components

Official

• ItemManager: a PHP component to manage cards or other game items.
• PlayerCounter and TableCounter: PHP components to manage counters.
• 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).
• 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).
• bga-zoom : a JS component for zoom controls.
• bga-animations : a JS component for animations.
• bga-cards : a JS component for cards.
• bga-dice : a JS component for dice.
• bga-autofit : a JS component to make text fit on a fixed size div.
• bga-score-sheet : a JS component to help you display an animated score sheet at the end of the game.
• bga-jump-to : a JS component to add board shortcuts

Deprecated

• Deck: a PHP component to manage cards (deck, hands, picking cards, moving cards, shuffle deck, ...).
• Stock: a JS component to manage and display a set of game elements displayed at a position.

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
• Using AI for BGA game development

---

Game Development Process

• First steps with BGA Studio
• Create a game in BGA Studio: Complete Walkthrough
• Tutorial reversi
• 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
• 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 please consult this checklist first

• Metadata and graphics
  • Game_meta-information: gameinfos.inc.php has correct and up to date information about the game
  • 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.
  • There is no images in img directory which are not needed anymore
  • Multiple images (i.e. cards) are compressed in "Sprite" (see Game art: img directory)
  • Each image should not exceed 4M
  • Total size should not exceed 10M, image compression should be used otherwise
• Server side
  • Game progression is implemented (getGameProgression() in php)
  • 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.
  • You have defined and implemented some meaningful statistics for your game (i.e. total points, point from source A, B, C...)
  • Game has meaningful notification messages (but don't overkill it, more user logs will slow down the loading)
  • You implemented tiebreaking (using aux score field) and updated tiebreaker description in meta-data
• Special testing
  • Game is tested with spectator (non player observer)
  • Game is tested with in-game replay feature (by clicking on notification log items)
  • Game works in Chrome and Firefox browsers at least. Also very recommended to test in IE 11 and Edge.
  • 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)
  • 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
  • Test your game in 3D mode
• Cleanup
  • Remove all extra console.log from your js code
  • Remove all unnecessary debug logging from your php code
  • Copyright headers in all source files have your name
• User Interface
  • Review BGA UI design Guidelines BGA_Studio_Guidelines
  • Non-self explanatory graphic elements should have tooltips
  • If graphic elements appear in notification log they should have titles (i.e. title attribute of div) so can be read in non rendered form (i.e. as text only)
  • Strings in your source code are ready for translation. See Translations
  • A prefix for example a trigram for your game that you append to all the css classes to avoid namespace conflicts, i.e. vla_selected vs selected
  • 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.
• Finally
  • Create a build for your game from the "manage game" page and check the log to make sure that everything builds fine (very often the js build fails because of this constraint).
  • Send an e-mail to [email protected] asking to move the project forward for review. You cannot deploy yourself from the "manage game" page until a first deploy has been done by the admins.