How-To: Build Leaderboards for Your Mobile Game

A leaderboard is a dynamic ranking system that displays player scores or achievements in a mobile game. But how do they work? An intricate web of in-game events, data collection, and API magic powers. When players complete challenges and achieve high scores, the game’s back-end system records the information and sends it to the main server then the server processes the data and updates the mobile game leaderboard.

Why Do Players Love Leaderboards?

To learn why players love leaderboards, first, we must learn what makes them so appealing:

1. Sense of Achievement: It provides players with a clear goal to strive for, instilling a sense of accomplishment when they see their name rise through the ranks.
2. Recognition & Validation: Seeing one’s name on a leaderboard can prove expertise, reflecting the time and effort invested in the game. This external validation boosts players’ self-esteem and motivates them to continue playing.
3. Social Comparison & Competition: Players often measure their success relative to others. This competitive aspect can fuel the desire to outperform others, leading to increased player engagement and dedication to the game.
4. Community Building: Friendships develop through shared experiences, tips, and encouragement as they climb the ranks.

Most Popular Games with Leaderboards

Here are some big names who built their games’ leaderboards:

• Candy Crush Saga allows players to compete for the highest scores in a race to the top of the leaderboard.

• Fortnite has global leaderboards that pit players against one another for ultimate bragging rights.

• PUBG Mobile challenges players to outlive their opponents and climb the leaderboards to prove their worth.

Designing an Eye-Catching Leaderboard

Successful leaderboards have an appealing and easy-to-use interface. Use a color palette that completes your game’s aesthetic while ensuring readability and visual contrast. Choose clear, legible fonts that complement your game design and resonate with your target audience.

Focus on the most relevant elements, such as player names, scores, and rankings, by creating a visual hierarchy of size, color, and spacing. Include specific icons, badges, or avatars to add personality.

Tips and Tricks

Here are some insider tips for designing a fun and eye-catching leaderboard:

• Set Clear Goals: Define the objectives and criteria for ranking, such as points earned, levels completed, or achievements unlocked.
• Foster Friendly Competition: Encourage competition without toxicity by showcasing top players without demeaning those lower in the rankings.
• Offer Incentives: Reward players for their efforts by offering in-game bonuses, exclusive content, or special recognition for leaderboard achievements.
• Keep It Fresh: Update daily, weekly, or monthly to maintain player interest and encourage continuous improvement.

In-Game Integration

Step one is about making the leaderboard easy to find without interrupting the gameplay. Put it in a menu or special button, or set up notifications for updates.

The second step involves APIs. This keeps the game data updated. Also, include social sharing. Players will love sharing their scores or winnings on social media.

The last step is to make sure they work on all devices. It’s crucial that your leaderboard performs equally well and maintains the same functionality across different mobile phone devices

Data Structures

A well-designed data structure can boost performance and allow for faster retrieval of top-ranked players. Let’s look at some of the most commonly used data structures.

Sorted sets are an excellent choice for leaderboard data structures. They save unique elements in chronological order based on their scores, making it quick and easy to find top-ranked players.

Red iHash tables can also be used to store leaderboard data, as they support constant-time lookups. This makes them ideal for large datasets, as they retrieve scores. The hash table can be used to store extra information about each player, such as game stats, which can be helpful for in-depth analysis.

An in-memory data store provides a sorted set implementation that sorts elements based on their scores, making leaderboards easier to manage.

To keep a sorted leaderboard, binary trees, particularly balanced search trees like AVL or red-black trees, can be used. These data structures allow for quick insertion, deletion, and lookup of players and scores if your leaderboard is always up-to-date and accurate.

Priority queues, such as heaps or Fibonacci heaps, can be used to manage the top N players. This data structure allows quick access to the highest-scoring players while consuming minimal memory, making it an ideal choice for mobile games with limited resources.

API Endpoints

Designing well-structured API endpoints is vital for smooth interactions between your game and the leaderboard. Some essential API endpoints include:

• POST/leaderboard: A URL to submit player scores or achievements. This endpoint should confirm and process the incoming data, update the leaderboard, and respond with a confirmation response.
• GET /leaderboard: An endpoint for retrieving an individual player’s ranking and related data, such as their score, position, and any associated metadata

Ratic’s LiveOps Tool

Ratic is a plug-and-play LiveOps tool for mobile games, boosting revenue and engagement through leaderboards, tournaments, rewards, levels, XP (experience points), and more for independent studios and publishers.

Easy to integrate with any mobile game. The dashboard provides real-time transaction and user statistics for game developers, allowing them to improve player engagement, retention and revenue.

For mobile game developers seeking to integrate leaderboards into their games, Ratic is a great choice. Wide capabilities and simple integration make it an excellent choice expand their reach.

Wrapping Up

In conclusion, they have become essential to mobile games, improving player engagement and retention. They encourage players to invest time and effort in improving their performance by tapping into the psychological drivers of competition, achievement, and social recognition.

As we’ve seen throughout this blog, there are many factors to consider when creating an engaging game leaderboard. It includes understanding the basics and mechanics, as well as examining popular examples and delving deep into the technical side.

You can simplify the process of implementing and managing leaderboards in your mobile game by using tools such as Ratic’s LiveOps platform.

Remember that the key to success on mobile game leaderboards is striking a balance between competition, motivation, and accessibility. This is done by focusing on designing an appealing user interface, implementing efficient data structures and algorithms, and creating a seamless in-game experience.