Invite your friends to play on HeyBingo!
February 27, 2021A new referral system is now in place. In the old site, referrals must manually enter a player's name. This isn't ideal anymore, mostly because it's possible to have similar Facebook names. I think the new system is a bit easier because you just need to share your unique links, and new players signing up using that link are automatically tagged to you.
It would have been better if this sharing can be done within the game itself, but there are some technical hurdles so this has to wait. In the meantime, there is a new button in the game that opens up a new page, with details about how it works and how to get your unique referral links.
HeyBingo is best played if you play with your friends, so please invite them! It's also a chance for you to gain some extra game currencies, useful if you are running out of fruits to activate Game Aids and your rewarded ads are still on countdown.
All the game screens have also been reorganized. In the last major update, I was in a hurry to get chat working again as early as possible. I didn't really have much time to organize things better.
For example, most players are more accustomed to chat being located on the right side. This has been corrected now, but this means everything else must also be moved. Overall, I think the new layout is cleaner and looks better.
Some other notable changes that I remember:
Made some setup changes so it is easier for me to backup and organize
all the game and site source codes. I really should have done this sooner!
Instead of reusing the same graphic sources for all the bingo games,
each game now has different sets that are optimized for that specific game only,
since they are really different sizes per game.
This should help avoid some blurriness that sometimes occured in the old versions.
This is also in preparation for adding more dabber options soon.
Fixed an issue in the game window that's causing the
game section to "jump" after the banner gets loaded.
Larger card numbers in the bingo games (yes, even larger than the last version).
Text in some areas of the games are now more legible.
Fixed a minor animation issue in 75 and 90 ball bingo games when player got a bingo.
Increased the number of players shown in the Spin Bingo best players page.
Added a new 90 ball bingo page with the list of bingo calls / nicknames used in the game.
Restructured some database tables, which are needed for the latest code changes.
Minor changes in some game default settings.
Better error logging in the game servers.
Game clients compiled with newest engine update.
This affects the websockets implementation, which they claim should be faster.
Added display banners during intermissions, without being intrusive.
Fixed a probable Facebook linking issue.
Fixed issues with some required Facebook hooks.
Removed some unnecessary Facebook authentication checks.
This should make Facebook logins a bit faster than before.
March 06, 2021
A few days ago, there was an issue in the dedicated server that hosts the games and the website, resulting to some downtime which probably lasted 10-20 minutes. The server was actually online, but for some reason there were some issues with its network connectivity it seems. It's a bit worrisome, so I am still investigating what happened exactly so it can be prevented in the future. In the meantime I am still closely monitoring things for potential issues.
Some minor updates today:
Update referral page so it doesn't open a new page anymore.
Instead, it shows as a pop-up window from inside the game window itself,
which should be faster and it won't disrupt the general game flow.
Some changes in existing game analytics for better tracking.
Game pages are also now registered as separate page views.
Minor changes in donation page.
Minor changes in 75 Ball Bingo and Spin Bingo where counter animation is too large.
Some game server optimizations: group some transactions properly,
and better error handling overall.