Player management

Multiple player identities using aliases

Sometimes you want to give players the option to login with different services like Steam or Epic. Talo lets your players have multiple aliases and all of them are tied back to one central player.

This means that regardless of what service they use to sign in, all of their progress, saves and leaderboard entries will be available to them. Aliases also bring the additional benefit of being able to segment players and leaderboards by platform (e.g. Steam leaderboards vs. Epic leaderboards).

From the Talo dashboard, you can view any player's profile and inspect all of their aliases.

Talo even provides identity merging for when you've discovered two players that are actually only one - for example, if a player wants to link their Username to their Steam account.

Authentication

Talo provides a powerful and secure authentication system out of the box. You can use Talo to authenticate players using their email, username, or any other identifier you choose.

Using Talo you can provide an end-to-end account system for your players without needing to setup your own database. Talo takes care of registration, logins, verification and account administration.

For added security, you can view an audit log of all authentication actions taken by players directly in the Talo dashboard. This includes logins, registrations, email/password changes and verifications.

Persistence with props

Players can have any number of arbitrary properties that will persist between game sessions and all of their identities. You can use these, for example, to store a player's current health or level.

You can add, remove or update properties directly from the Talo dashboard. For example, you could tag all players that you want to be part of a closed beta test with a "hasBetaAvailable" property. When the beta is over, you can then remove this property. This behaviour pairs well with player groups to automatically unlock content without needing a new update.

Debugging with meta props

Events send through metadata about the player (Godot plugin docs here) such as their operating system and version of the game they're running. This allows you to easily debug common problems based on players' configurations.

Meta props are also used to clearly identify players that were created as part of internal builds, i.e. test players owned by developers. See the docs to learn more about how Talo separates development data in the Unity package and in the Godot plugin. These players can be hidden from the dashboard and omitted from data exports easily using the "dev data toggle" on the dashboard.

Create distinct segments

Using groups, you can divide your player-base into clear segments. For example, you could have a group of beta testers or a group for all the players who have completed the game.

Groups can have incredibly complex filters. You can combine requirements with 'AND' and 'OR' conditions and filter by values such as when the player last logged in. You can even filter by player props, leaderboard scores and stat values.

Once you've created your group, it will automatically continue to add players who are eligible and remove players who are not. In-game you can check what groups players are part of and run the relevant logic where needed.

Groups can be pinned directly to your dashboard, giving you quick access to the most impactful segments.

Steamworks syncing and authentication

By enabling our Steamworks integration, your players can authenticate using their Steam account. Talo will keep player data in sync with their Steam profile, allowing you to easily identify players and keep their data up to date.

Talo pulls in useful properties like ownership and ban statuses every time players authenticate meaning you won't need to manually do app ownership checks.