Should I use Bolt or Pun making a Hearthstone like card game?

SPF

Hi, I need some advice for a beginner. I'm planning to make a Hearthstone like card game.
I'm new to Photon. Still studying the Bolt tutorials, haven't learnt about Pun yet. Bolt is amazing but it gives me the impression that it continuously (every frame) sending many data which are not necessary for a card game. In my project I won't use things like transform/animation replication, only sending events and replicate the data model would be suffice. So should I use Pun or Bolt, and why is that?

Another big issue is that I need to save user's accounts data, and provide opening pack features. Can I do these with Photon? Or I still need some other server or SaaS service from other company to do that?

Any advice or information are welcomed! Thank you!

SPF

I assume that Pun is more light weighted than Bolt. For example if I mainly use 'reliable events' to make my games. Won't use any(almost) states, property replication, or commands. In this case, would using Bolt have much more overhead in terms of bandwidth than using Pun?

ramonmelo

Hello @SPF ,

Bolt is amazing but it gives me the impression that it continuously (every frame) sending many data which are not necessary for a card game

Bolt only synchronizes what has changed on the game state, if there are no changes, there is data sent.
It is really well optimized for this. But, you need to keep in mind that a minor continuous communication occurs between the peers, so they can maintain the connection, update frame, and so on.

So should I use Pun or Bolt, and why is that?

There is not a final solution to this, both solutions will work for your game
Please, here this page with the main differences: https://doc.photonengine.com/en-us/bolt/current/reference/pun-vs-bolt

Another big issue is that I need to save user's accounts data, and provide opening pack features. Can I do these with Photon? Or I still need some other server or SaaS service from other company to do that?

You can use the Custom Auth (link) to retrieve custom info from your DB server with this kind of information for example. Or use another dedicated server for this.

--
Ramon Melo
Photon Bolt Team

SPF

@ramonmelo Thank you. I've gone through that comparison at list 5 times, lol. Your info are very helpful.

I have used some other 3rd party SaaS service, and they provided a feature called "cloud functions" that I could upload my codes to the cloud and call them from the client side.

I just want to confirm that Photon Cloud does not have similar "cloud function" service, nor does it provide database service, right?