Trying to find the correct platform

razul
edited October 2012 in Any Topic & Chat
I've decided to try my hand at making an online collectable card game. I have some programming experience through my work as an electrical engineer, but I have no experience with online game programming. Right now I'm trying to figure out what platforms I want to use for the game. As I'm doing this in my spare time, I am trying to keep costs down until (if) the game takes off.

My questions at this point are very broad in nature, as I'm not exactly sure what I need. I think I'll be needing a host with persistent user information storage and some form of web based front end. Flash, javascript and unity 3d caught my eye. I found an article from Unity 3d linking me to Photon Cloud. It looks like the entire system I'm looking for can be solved with Unity3d and Photon Cloud, but I'm not sure if its the right system to be using. Unity3d seems to be a graphic engine, and I'm planning on only having minimal graphics. Likewise, the real time nature of the Photon Cloud seems like it could be overkill for a turn-based game. My biggest concern though is whether or not Photon Cloud has the ability to store persistent data (players cards, level etc.) in a way that can be easily accessed form in game. I've spent a few hours browsing the documentation and have thus far been unable to figure this out. Is Photon Cloud and to store persistent data? Is Unity 3d /w Photon Could a good fit for a persistent card game? Are there systems out there that would better fir my needs?

Thank you for your time.

-Steve Koopman

Comments

  • Photon has no persistence in any form.

    For your type of game, something like Player.IO seems to be more the 'way to go' as you have a turn based game + need for persistence, at least if the used technology allows you to use it. Otherwise look at Moai for example

    Photon would be a extremely strong solution if your target was realtime action game play in a scaleable environment for example
  • Photon Cloud is a server service we run with a fixed feature set. This does not include persistence or accounts. This makes it easy to integrate with other techniques while focusing on the networking part.

    The foundation for that is our Photon Server with fitting client libraries. With the SDKs you can build any type of game relatively easy, implementing and calling Operations on the server (think: RPC) and passing on information rapidly. While not exactly needed for turn based games, the speed has only positive effects and does not cost you anything.
    The Photon Server SDKs are very powerful and flexible but it seems you could do away with less flexibility for more out of the box features.