HEADS UP COMPETITIONS!
Play identical games against your friends or others around the world!
Game Center allows you to play the identical game against your friends or others around the world.
An identical game is based on each player getting the exact same shuffle of the cards that is called a "game seed".
The cards are randomly shuffled by our game system and when the game begins each player gets dealt out the exact same cards in the the exact same card order.
This allows you to play the exact same game against your opponents.
Each player uses their own skills to play the game in real time from iPhone, iPad or Mac. The person with the best score at the end wins!
HOW TO PLAY MULTIPLAYER GAMES!
One of the most exciting elements of the app, is playing against other people in real time!
The this article will simple give you the steps above one by one for educational and learning purposes!
- Start a Multiplayer Game Center match
- Choose a game
- Invite your friends
- Wait for a push notification invitation to be accepted
- Accept or Refuse Live In Game Voice Chat
- Start the game
- Game ends after both players complete the game
- Collect your bonus if you win!
- Beg for a rematch if you lose!
- Game over!
If you want to see how it works rather than read about it, simply watch the video below!
WATCH A MULTIPLAYER COMPETITION GAME
This 48 second video clip above shows you an entire competition in accelerated mode!
MAKING A FRIEND REQUEST
From your DEVICE → SETTINGS APP → GAME CENTER → TURN ON NEARBY PLAYERS
Before you can play, you need to get your friends invited into your Game Center system!
Once the Friend Request dialog box appears you can type in Game Center nickname of your friend or you can invite them by the email that they used to create their Game Center nickname. Apple will immediately send an alert to their notifications center on their device. They can accept it from within the Notifications pull down menu or they can accept it directly in the Requests section of the Game Center app on the device home screen. Once a Friend request has been accepted, they will show up in your Friends Section in the Game Center app and in the Multi-Player Competitions section for you to directly invite them to a game challenge that you will see in the next section.
The links below are directly from Apple or you can go to YouTube if things aren't working effortlessly. Sometimes Apple's Game Center does not work the first time or you accidentally closed the push notification or it's hiding somewhere in the Main device Settings App waiting for you to accept the user invite. If you have issues, check these links out because we have no control over it and we don't want you to be angry with us when it's really Apple's issue.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/101638
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/connect-with-friends-in-the-apple-games-app-iph6d48d743f/ios
HOW TO START A GAME CENTER COMPETITION
Touch the Game Center icon from the Home screen or Menu of Options at the end of a game to begin!
SHAREPLAY | INVITE PLAYERS | QUICK MATCH → WHICH ONE DO YOU USE?
You can invite players through the SharePlay and Invite Players - DO NOT USE Quick Match
In the beginning of Game Center, you used to be able to invite anyone if you had their Game Center account ID. Now, with privacy controls, inviting friends, really truly requires them to be your friend, unless you are on the same network with them and nearby and you can then invite them as a stranger. (See below for more details).
It's pretty easy to invite someone through Messages or FaceTime through SharePlay, but only if you know their iCloud email address or you have their telephone number. When you open it up, you can invite someone directly.
This functionality is provided by Apple but does not work easily in our app so we have disabled it but we cannot remove Apple's button for Quick Play. This requires identical players with identical games waiting to play each other at the exact same time. This feature will be available when we release Win Real Money Games where global matching will enable you to play randomly against anyone around the world! Stay tuned!
INVITING FRIENDS NEARBY OR ACROSS THE GLOBE
Multiplayer Games are controlled by Apple's Game Center and it has some challenges
We are not gonna lie, Apple's Game Center takes some getting used to and patience. It does not always work on the first click. Here is what we discovered that may help you understand why it make take one or two tries to get it to connect. Apple has like 1.8 billion devices around the world, all talking to iCloud at the same time. That's a pretty heavy load balancing requirement. It is clearly some very sophisticated connection and matching technology going on 240 countries around the world all at the same time trying to synchronize your photos, make phone calls, update your email, delivery a web page, and now connect an identical game between you and you friends!
We have to take Apple's magic and ours and merge it together through Web Real Time Communications ....or WebRTC and that is how devices find each other anywhere in the world to play! That's some of the secret sauce behind how it works! So when it takes a few extra moments to connect, it's trying to find a needle in a haystack! Be patient! Sometimes it's just best if you cancel the request and then try it again! It's pretty quick most of the time but if it isn't, that is why!
If it still does not connect, it's probably because you don't have all your settings correct. That's what this article is for. The settings details are above for the main setup and more are here below that show other nuances. Check all of these before you throw your hands up in the air in frustration! It's easy to miss a button or overlook the fact you are not using the correct version! We want you to have a great experience so make sure you check your settings first!
The image you see above shows TWO ways to connect. BigTallMountain is in not in my friend's list. But they are NEARBY. You can connect to nearby players! Click this link to find the Nearby Button and turn it on!
NOTE: You have to go into DEVICE → SETTINGS APP → GAME CENTER → TURN ON NEARBY PLAYERS
See the first photo above in all black from Apple's Game Center in the Settings App.
Without that button turned on you can't even find anyone nearby. It is an Apple privacy control.
The trick to getting NEARBY to work, is BOTH players have to be on the same WiFi network AND both of you have to have your APP OPEN for Apple to see both devices. Sometimes, you have to close the app, and reopen, or close the window and reopen. It does NOT always work the first time. Be patient, don't get upset with us, we have nothing to do with Apple's secret code and how their black box connects devices together. It's magical and mystical and wonderful when it works! If you have issues, please let us know and we'll do our best to hunt down the issues as we want you to be happy and play against others because it truly is a lot of fun!
The best method is to have someone invited as your friend and then you can play with them no matter where they are in the world. Sometimes it make take 5-10 seconds to connect, but you should text or call your friends and make plans to play because the Apple Push Notification System will time out in about 60 seconds and the game will get canceled. More importantly we don't want you to sit there wondering if someone 5,000 miles or kilometers away from you are even awake waiting for your challenge!
In any event, playing against others, and using real voice chat to talk trash while you're playing, truly fun!
INVITING FRIENDS + SENDING MESSAGES!
You can send a short message in a push notification to your friend!
Although you do not need to send someone a message before you send out the invite to play, if you watch the video above, you can see how you can add a short message to them before they play. The next photo below shows you what it looks like when they receive it!
Scroll down to see exactly what the message looks like in their device in the push notification!
RECEIVING THE INVITE VIA PUSH NOTIFICATIONS
When you invite your friends to play, they will get a push notification! You can play on the same network or halfway around the world!
When you receive your push notification, simply touch it and it will then activate the invite, automatically open our app and begin your competition! Follow the directions on the screen as you see in the very first video at the top of this page! If you accidentally missed the push notification swipe down from the left side of top of your device and you'll find it there! If you accidentally deleted it, send your friend a message and tell them to send you another invite as Apple's system only sends them one at a time!
MANDATORY APP SETTINGS FOR MULTIPLAYER GAMES
Check your App Settings to make sure the games function properly!
There a multitude of requirements in the app settings that must be setup correctly in order for Multiplayer Games to work properly with Apple's Game Center. Please check the following from inside your device Settings or System Preferences.
- You must have Location set to "While Using the App" or "Always" on in order to make game center matching work correctly.
- You must have Local Network turned on to be able to find Nearby Players.
- You must have the Microphone turned on in order to use Voice Chat during a game
- You must have Notifications on or you cannot get any invites and begin a game
- You must be connected to the internet and have cellular data turned on for games to work
- You can change the language from inside the app or have it default from the App Settings
- The Version Number of both devices must be IDENTICAL
- The Build Number of both devices must be IDENTICAL.
In order for Multiplayer Games to work properly with Apple's Game Center you must be on the same Version Number and Build Number to play
Lastly, if you want to play against the inventor, you can invite him via email at anytime! He loves to play against anyone!
David's GameCenter ID is FullColorSolitaire. His email address to invite is solitaire@fullcolorgames.com
Have fun!