SDK Features

Debug

The SDK is designed to be as silent as possible and use very few resources. You will therefore not get much information by default in your development console.

We have 2 different debug log types that can be enabled / disabled (at any time):

• info log
• verbose log

Info Log

Short messages will be output when enabled explaining when some action is being performed by the SDK. Sometimes cropping text / values to make it more readable.

tip

Enable info log when implementing the SDK – remember to turn it off in production!

GameAnalytics.setEnabledInfoLog(true);

Sample log output:

Info/GameAnalytics: Add DESIGN event: {eventId:someEvent, value:0}
Info/GameAnalytics: Add DESIGN event: {eventId:someOtherEvent, value:100}
Info/GameAnalytics: Add ERROR event: {severity:info, message:This is some in}

Verbose Log

Console output when each event is added (all fields) in JSON string format. This is the data being submitted to the GA servers for each event.

tip

Enable verbose log when troubleshooting events.

GameAnalytics.setEnabledVerboseLog(true);

This can result in a lot of text. When troubleshooting/debugging events it is therefore recommended to enable/disable when performing the action that need inspection.

Troubleshooting example:

// enable verbose log
GameAnalytics.setEnabledVerboseLog(true);
// add event you need to troubleshoot / inspect
GameAnalytics.addDesignEvent({
  eventId: "Some:Event",
  value: 100,
});
// disable verbose log
GameAnalytics.setEnabledVerboseLog(false);

Verify Implementation

Enable the Info Log to verify that events are being sent from your game project without any issues being reported.

Events submitted should register after a minor delay in our realtime dashboard in the GameAnalytics tool.

tip

Read more about our Realtime Dashboard here.

Session Handling

Sessions are the concept of a user spending focused time in your game – from game launch to the user leaving the game. A new session automatically starts when a the SDK is initialized, but if s new session needs to be started again during the game’s lifetime it needs to be manually handled. See examples for both start and end session below.

Session Start

Adds a session start event (a “user” event). Starts the periodic activation of submitting queued events. Next event submit will fix potential missing session_end event from earlier sessions.

Example:

// start new session
GameAnalytics.startSession();

Session End

Stops the periodic activation of submitting queued events. Queues a session_end event and submits all queued events.

Example:

// end session
GameAnalytics.endSession();

If a session end event hasn’t been sent before the game shuts down, the session end will try to be sent next time the game starts again, as the required information for the session end event (for example session length) is stored in a internal database.

Event Queue

Whenever an event is added (and validated) it will be added to a local database queue.

Submit Interval

Every 8 seconds the SDK will start a task for submitting queued events since last submit. This processing is done in a separate low-priority thread that will have minimum impact on performance. The payload is gzipped and will therefore only consume a small amount of bandwidth.

Offline

When a device is offline the events are still added to the queue. Once the device will come back online the queue will resume sending events to the server.

Thread Handling

Almost every piece of this code is run using a dedicated low-priority serial thread queue to avoid UI lag or sudden performance spikes. The queue will execute each task sequentially. If the SDK add several tasks to the queue then each will be executed in turn. A task could be adding an event or submitting all queued events.

Consider this example with 3 calls.

// Configure build version
GameAnalytics.configureBuild("alpha 0.1.0");
// Initialize
GameAnalytics.initialize({
  gameKey: "[GAME KEY HERE]",
  secretKey: "[SECRET KEY HERE]",
});
// Add Design event
GameAnalytics.addDesignEvent({
  eventId: "Some:Event",
});

info

The configureBuild is required to be called before initialize is completely finished. The design event call is required after initialize is finished. The queuing will make sure that each task is completely finished before proceeding to the next one.