Create game API

The CreateGame API will create multi-player WarLight games programmatically. You can specify the game settings, game name, and what players are invited to the game.

Usage

Using this can allow you to create a program that hosts your own tournaments or ladder-type systems.

To create games via the API, you must POST some JSON to http://warlight.net/API/CreateGame.aspx that contains the details about the game you're creating. Here's an example:

 {
   hostEmail: your@email.com,
   hostAPIToken: yourApiToken,
   templateID: 1234,
   gameName: 'Game name here (max 50 chars)',
   personalMessage: 'Include a description to include with the game. (Max 1024 characters)',
   players:  [
     { token="player1@email.com" team="None" },
     { token="player2@email.com" team="None" },
     { token="123456789" team="None" },
     { token="player4@email.com" team="None" }
   ]
 }

• hostEmail / hostAPIToken: These elements identify you. You can get your APIToken from the Get API Token API. The game will be recorded as created by you.
• templateID: This specifies the ID of a template that you create through the normal game GUI. You can either use a built-in template or you can create your own. It does not matter if you create a single-player or multi-player template.
• gameName: This will show up as the name of the game. Maximum 50 characters.
• personalMessage: This will show up in the Lobby as well as the Settings. Maximum 1024 characters.
• players: This node defines the players that will be invited. It consists of 'player' elements, each of which contains a 'token' attribute and a 'team' attribute:
  • player team: This can be the string 'None' if you're not creating a team game. If you are creating a team game, then supply a number for each player identifying the team that they're on. 0 is team A, 1 is team B, 2 is team C, etc.
  • player token: The token identifies the player you're inviting. You can either pass an e-mail address or a player token. Using tokens is an option provided only because some players may not want to dilvulge their e-mail address to you. These players can instead give you their invite token. To find a player's invite token, they can visit http://warlight.net/InviteToken.aspx. The invite token is the same as the number displayed in the address bar when you view a player's profile page.
  • slot: If you're making a game that uses a custom scenario, you must also provide a "slot" attribute on each player that let's WarLight know what scenario to give this player. This should be an integer, where 0 is slot A, 1 is slot B, 2 is slot C, etc.

Output

The CreateGame API will output the ID of the newly created game if it is successful. If it is unsuccessful, it will output an 'error' node. Here are some examples:

Success:

 {
     gameID: 1234567
 }

Failure:

 {
     error: 'Description of the error'
 }

Member Restriction

Member-only features (such as custom scenarios, luck levels below 75%, etc.) can only be used in games created by the Create Game API if all players being invited to the game are members (or otherwise have access to the feature, such as if they made the map that's in use.)

This restriction exists to prevent players from bypassing WarLight's member restrictions completely. For example, if this restriction did not exist, someone could make a website that allowed any non-member to create a game for themselves using all of the member-only features.

If you create a game that uses a member-only feature, such as a low luck level, and invite non-members, the game will simply revert to using 75% luck. This allows you to freely create games without having to worry about this restriction -- the created games will use low luck when the can, and 75% luck when they can't.

If you want to ensure that everyone you're inviting is a member, call the Validate invite token API and check the isMember flag.

See Also

• Validate invite token API