If you develop apps or games with Unity, you may already be using Amazon’s GameCircle plug-in for Unity to integrate cross-platform leaderboards, achievements, and game data synchronization.  The plug-in works on iOS, Android, and Fire OS, connecting your app to Amazon’s GameCircle service.  Its leaderboards and achievements encourage friendly competition and replay, while its Whispersync for Games component backs up game data to the cloud, improving the customer experience.  With GameCircle, gamers won’t lose their progress if they reset their device or buy a new one.

If you haven’t used the GameCircle plug-in yet, you can now download it from the Scripting/Integration section of the Unity Asset Store.  Accessible directly from within the Unity development environment, the Unity Asset Store makes it fast and convenient to add editor or game functionality through third-party extensions like the GameCircle plug-in.

This official GameCircle plug-in is compatible with iOS and Android phones and tablets, as well as Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire HD, and Kindle Fire HDX devices.  Add the plug-in to your project to access GameCircle leaderboards, achievements, and Whispersync for Games.

In addition, the GameCircle plug-in also works with the Unity Social API, which provides a unified interface to social back-ends such as Game Center and Xbox Live.  Set the active social platform to GameCircle and calls to the Unity Social API will pass through to the GameCircle service in the same way:

#if UNITY_IOS || UNITY_ANDROID
Social.Active = GameCircleSocial.Instance;    
#endif

Since Unity’s Social API is designed to be a generic interface that works across many services, it doesn’t support every feature of every back-end.  GameCircle leaderboards and achievements work seamlessly, for example, but Unity’s Social API provides no hooks for game data synchronization.  To use some advanced features of GameCircle, like Whispersync for Games, simply call the API through the normal GameCircle interface.  It’s easy to use the two APIs side-by-side, and the plug-in includes a sample scene to help you get GameCircle and Unity’s Social API up and running together.

Check out the official GameCircle plug-in in the Unity Asset Store.  It’s easier than ever to get started integrating GameCircle’s leaderboards, achievements, and Whispersync for Games in your Unity-based game for most mobile devices.  You can also visit our developer portal for more detailed information about using GameCircle and Unity together, as well as links to help you call other Amazon services from your Unity projects.