Do you own an Amazon Kindle Fire and sometimes wish that you had a Samsung or an Apple tablet to enjoy the gaming experience? If that is so, then you better be ready for some refreshing news. Amazon on Wednesday announced a new social gaming service called GameCircle for its Kindle Fire tablet.
The new app, which features gaming achievements, leaderboards and sync options, is quite similar to Apple’s Game Center on its iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The newly-released GameCircle APIs will help game developers quickly and easily integrate their games with GameCircle, allowing them to grow their business by reaching new customers and keeping them engaged.
The new Achievement mode will allow players to track all earned trophies, treasures, badges, awards and more while they’re playing games on their Kindle Fire. Players won’t have to leave a game to receive messages, get updates or track accolades. They can also pause a game, view an achievements summary, determine what badges are still needed or desired, and then return to gameplay.
The Leaderboards will provide an in-game view of score comparison information and percentile ranking, allowing players to quickly and easily check standings against other players without ever leaving the game.
What’s more, the Sync automatically saves players’ in-game progress to the cloud and allows them to pick up exactly where they left off when restoring a deleted game or switching between their devices. Players will no longer have to worry about losing game progress, scores or achievements between Kindle Fire devices, as all data is securely stored for free in the cloud.
“We have received extremely positive feedback from developers on our recently launched In-App Purchasing API with its easy 1-Click purchasing, and now we’re excited to add yet another reason to be a game developer for Kindle Fire,” said Paul Ryder, Vice President of Apps and Games at Amazon. “The new GameCircle APIs mean that developers don’t have to worry about building leaderboards, achievements or sync in their games – they can focus on the elements of their games that are truly unique while building an immersive, more entertaining experience on Kindle Fire. This will quickly help developers grow their business by reaching more customers and keeping them engaged.”
Amazon’s beta program partners had a lot of praise for the new GameCircle service.
“We are thrilled to be part of Amazon’s GameCircle with Temple Run,” said Keith Shepherd, Co-founder of Imangi Studios. “The new service is a great way to keep our fans engaged by offering them more opportunities to play the game, and an intuitive platform to connect with new players.”
"We’re excited about Amazon’s GameCircle because it brings a new level of engagement for our most popular Android titles such as Doodle Jump and Collapse!,” said Ken Murphy, VP of GameHouse Studios. “The ability to compete for high scores and achievements through the Amazon network means even more fun for GameHouse players.”
Game developers have also been given a chance to sign up for access to the GameCircle APIs. If any of you skilled guys out there are interested, you can sign up here. Game players can find Kindle Fire games that are now using GameCircle services here.
Check out the GameCircle video below
