I just finished reading the contest entry rules for the latest PlayJam.
The secondary objective has me a bit lost, I will admit.
It states “We want games that you and your friends can compete in. That could be something simple like a high score table or getting the fastest lap time or something as complicated as network multiplayer (not for the faint-hearted). What we’re looking for is for people to shout “Beat that!” after playing.”
But from what I understood of my quick poking around in the Play Canvas system, there is no high scores or networking database built into play canvas’s system.
So are we supposed to come up with out own entire high scores system, and need a server to ping scores to as well?
Or is there a free high scores system around that the community uses, that plugs into the web based Play Canvas. It would have to be able to be used from the web based development editor, since we cannot use the source code version to develop the contest entry. It would also have to work on mobile. Those are some pretty steep requirements for a contest that small teams or individuals are supposed to be able to compete in.
I haven’t used play canvas for mobile games yet. I also have not looked into mobile high scores solutions. Most cost monthly or yearly fees to keep working, which discouraged me from trying them out. Personally I have no regular monthly/yearly money to put into my game development, only time, due to reasons out of my control.
It just seems odd that the contest is for this target, when the tools(which are limited to the web editing tools only) are aimed at developing single level, single player type of experiences. I guess they are trying to push the engine, but as a new play canvas user I don’t even know where to start for this one.
Ultimately we wanted to keep the theme open but give a bit of guidance to help stimulate your imagination. Constraints inspire creativity!
But you are free to interpret the theme anyway you feel. Your game could have a score at the end of the game, and a share button to encourage players to compete with their friends. You could just use Local Storage to store the score on the current device and encourage pass-and-play. It’s up to you!
Leaderboards
If you do decide you want to do an online leaderboard, because PlayCanvas is a browser based game engine, there are many solutions that you can use. Here are a few I know about:
I can’t really vouch for them as the only one I’ve used is Google Play Services. But they all have some form of free tier you can start with to get your game up and running.
It works really well on desktop but not sure about mobile. And you need a Google account too of course, which is a little bit of a drawback. But as @dave says, there are lots of options - you could even roll your own solution if you were feeling brave enough.
I see now on re-reading the contest description it’s a lot more open about what could be considered “games that you and your friends can compete in”. Yay for early morning inaccurate reading!
The last contest I entered was the IGMC, and they had some pretty strict rules about what was allowed and required for an entry. It was also the first “game design” contest I ever entered in (Yes I was crazy). So it was quite a crash course in both the socializing/rules/guidelines of contests and the contest tools itself, to put it lightly. The guidelines for IGMC eliminated some otherwise really good entries for not following some of the more obscure “requirements”. I wasn’t burned myself but it wasn’t pretty. So I’m a little paranoid coming into this one. I’ll probably have many more questions as I go along.
I’m still brainstorming on what I’ll end up attempting for the entry. I do look forward to finding out how far I can push PlayCanvas and myself on a deadline, and hopefully add another fun tool to my belt of game making tools. Yesterday I had a little cube tumbling around on a plane in about 2 hours of research and learning. This looks like it will be a pretty fun tool!
It doesn’t quite have the functionality of things like Google Play Services, but for a basic leaderboard I use Parse.com. I wrote a blog about integrating it with PlayCanvas here: http://magicsheepgames.co.uk/blog/?p=124
I’ll probably have many more questions as I go along. 
