IGDB API-JVM (V4)

A Kotlin wrapper for the IGDB.com Video Game Database API.

IMPORTANT

This wrapper is compatible with ONLY their newest release V4.

About IGDB

One of the principles behind IGDB.com is accessibility of data. We wish to share the data with anyone who wants to build cool video game oriented websites, apps and services. This means that the information you contribute to IGDB.com can be used by other projects as well.

Thus, you are not only contributing to the value of this site but to thousands of other projects as well. We are looking forward to see what exciting game related projects you come up with. Happy coding!

More info here:

• About the API
• API Documentation

Information about the Querying language APICalypse:

• apicalypse.io

About the wrapper

This wrapper is written in Kotlin which uses the JVM and works with both Kotlin & Java projects. I have not tested it on other JVM languages but it should work for these languages as well. The examples below showcase this wrapper in both Kotlin and Java.

Feel free to test it on other languages yourselves 😀

The Wrapper can handle both the IGDB generated classes and JSON (Strings), I have chosen to make the API's Generated classes (Protocol Buffers) the standard way because it will make it easier to use as you don't have to create your own classes to hold the information.

Installation and setup

Maven

<dependency>
  <groupId>io.github.husnjak</groupId>
  <artifactId>igdb-api-jvm</artifactId>
  <version>1.1.0</version>
</dependency>

Gradle

dependencies {
    implementation 'io.github.husnjak:igdb-api-jvm:1.1.0'
}

Optional for Android (SDK: 19+). Add internet permissions in the manifest.

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />

Using your Twitch Developer Credentials

• Create a new TwitchToken object

// Java Example
TwitchAuthenticator tAuth = TwitchAuthenticator.INSTANCE;
TwitchToken token = tAuth.requestTwitchToken("CLIENT_ID", "CLIENT_SECRET");

// The instance stores the token in the object untill a new one is requested
TwitchToken token = tAuth.getTwitchToken()

// Kotlin example
val token = TwitchAuthenticator.requestTwitchToken("CLIENT_ID", "CLIENT_SECRET")

// The instance stores the token in the object untill a new one is requested
TwitchAuthenticator.twitchToken

The TwitchToken object looks like this

{
  "access_token": "ACCESS_TOKEN",
  "expires_in": 5135439,
  "token_type": "bearer"
}

• Authenticating requests for the IGDB API

// Java Example
IGDBWrapper wrapper = IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE;
wrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")

// Kotlin Example
IGDBWrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")

You can use the access_token from the token object.

Android projects

Do not use the TwitchAuthenticator in your Android applications, you don't want to create multiple access_tokens for each device.
It is recommended to create your token on a server and then use a proxy api to call the IGDB api, where you append the Bearer token for each request.

IGDB provides a free AWS CloudFormation template that you can deploy for this purpose with instructions on how to use it.

• Create a new IGDBWrapper Object connected to the AWS Proxy server.

// Java Example
IGDBWrapper wrapper = IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE;
Map<String, String> proxyHeaders = new HashMap<String, String>() {{
    put("x-api-key", "PROXY_API_KEY");
}};
wrapper.setupProxy("PROXY_URL/v4", proxyHeaders);

// Kotlin Example
IGDBWrapper.setupProxy("PROXY_URL/v4", mapOf("x-api-key" to "PROXY_API_KEY"))

How to use the wrapper

The wrapper has two "wrapping" functions, and a lot of helper functions (one for each endpoint)
The two main functions called apiProtoRequest and apiJsonRequest and they handle all the requests to the api.
The class APICalypse handles the new querying language, so that you don't need to care about structure and syntax as much.

• apiProtoRequest
  This method handles IGDB generated proto classes which returns an ByteArray to be used to fill the appropriate class.

  // Kotlin Example
  val bytes = apiProtoRequest(endpoint: Endpoints.GAMES, apicalypseQuery: "fields *;")
  val listOfGames: List<Games> = GamesResult.parseFrom(bytes).gamesList

  // Java Example
  byte[] bytes = wrapper.apiProtoRequest(endpoint: Endpoints.GAMES, apicalypseQuery: "fields *;");
  List<Game> listOfGames = GameResult.parseFrom(bytes).getGamesList();

  returns a list of Game objects.

• apiJsonRequest
  This method return raw JSON (String) from the API
  Example:

  // Kotlin Example
  val json: String = apiJsonRequest(endpoint: Endpoints.GAMES, APICalypseQuery: "fields *;")

  // Java Example
  String json = wrapper.apiJsonRequest(endpoint: Endpoints.GAMES, "fields *;");

  returns a String.

• APICalypse

  // Kotlin Example
  val apicalypse = APICalypse()
        .fields("*")
        .exclude("*")
        .limit(10)
        .offset(0)
        .search("Halo")
        .sort("release_dates.date", Sort.ASCENDING)
        .where("platforms = 48")

  // Java Example
  APICalypse apicalypse = new APICalypse()
                .fields("*")
                .exclude("*")
                .limit(10)
                .offset(0)
                .search("Halo")
                .sort("release_dates.date", Sort.ASCENDING)
                .where("platforms = 48");

  Here are all the options, this creates a query for you. To get a String query from APICalypse just add .buildQuery().

NOTE
These examples above are only here to show you how to use the "manual" part of the wrapper. This wrapper comes with complete functions for each endpoint in the API, so you don't have to deal with the manual implementation.

There are two functions for each endpoint, one for classes and one for json, for quick access. The difference between them is the name see the examples below:

// Example of functions in Kotlin
IGDBWrapper.games(APICalypse())
IGDBWrapper.platforms(APICalypse())
IGDBWrapper.genres(APICalypse())
...
IGDBWrapper.jsonGames(APICalypse())
IGDBWrapper.jsonPlatforms(APICalypse())
IGDBWrapper.jsonGenres(APICalypse())
...

// Example of functions in Java
ProtoRequestKt.games(IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE, new APICalypse())
ProtoRequestKt.platforms(IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE, new APICalypse())
ProtoRequestKt.genres(IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE, new APICalypse())
...
JsonRequestKt.jsonGames(IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE, new APICalypse())
JsonRequestKt.jsonPlatforms(IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE, new APICalypse())
JsonRequestKt.jsonGenres(IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE, new APICalypse())
...

ImageBuilder

To simplify the process of building the image URLs for IGDBs images there is a function called imageBuilder which is a helping tool in requesting the perfect sized images for your project. The function requires you to get the image_id then set your desired size (resolution), set your desired image format (default is set to PNG).

// Kotlin Example
val image_id = "mnljdjtrh44x4snmierh"
val imageURL = imageBuilder(image_id, ImageSize.SCREENSHOT_HUGE, ImageType.PNG)

/*
* Result: 
* imageURL = https://images.igdb.com/igdb/image/upload/t_screenshot_huge/mnljdjtrh44x4snmierh.png
*/

// Java Example
String image_id = "mnljdjtrh44x4snmierh";
String imageURL = ImageBuilderKt.imageBuilder(image_id, ImageSize.SCREENSHOT_HUGE, ImageType.PNG)

/*
* Result: 
* imageURL = https://images.igdb.com/igdb/image/upload/t_screenshot_huge/mnljdjtrh44x4snmierh.png
*/

More information about images can be found here

Exceptions

The wrapper throws an RequestException on every exception from the API. This exception hold three things:

• HTTP status code
• Request (The complete sent request for debugging)
• Result (The response from the API) Request and Response come directly from the HTTP library Fuel

Code Examples

• Request games from the API:

// Kotlin
IGDBWrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")
val apicalypse = APICalypse().fields("*").sort("release_dates.date", Sort.DESCENDING)
try{
  val games: List<Game> = IGDBWrapper.games(apicalypse) 
} catch(e: RequestException) {
  // Do something or error
}

// Java
IGDBWrapper wrapper = IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE;
wrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")
APICalypse apicalypse = new APICalypse().fields("*").sort("release_dates.date", Sort.DESCENDING);
try{
  List<Game> games = ProtoRequestKt.games(wrapper, apicalypse);
} catch(RequestException e) {
  // Do something or error
}

• Search in the API: NOTE
  Search objects contain the objects from search ex: Characters, Collections, Games, Platforms, and Themes.
  Search does not work with Sorting!

// Kotlin
IGDBWrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")
val apicalypse = APICalypse().search("Halo").fields("*")
try{
  val searchResult: List<Search> = IGDBWrapper.search(apicalypse) 
} catch(e: RequestException) {
  // Do something or error
}

// Java
IGDBWrapper wrapper = IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE;
wrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")
APICalypse apicalypse = new APICalypse().search("Halo").fields("*")
try{
  List<Search> searchResult = ProtoRequestKt.search(wrapper, apicalypse);
} catch(RequestException e) {
  // Do something or error
}

• Request filtered results:

// Kotlin
IGDBWrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")
val apicalypse = APICalypse().fields("*")
    .sort("release_dates.date", Sort.DESCENDING).where("themes != 42")
try{
  val games: List<Game> = IGDBWrapper.games(apicalypse) 
} catch(e: RequestException) {
  // Do something or error
}

// Java
IGDBWrapper wrapper = IGDBWrapper.INSTANCE;
wrapper.setCredentials("CLIENT_ID", "ACCESS_TOKEN")
APICalypse apicalypse = new APICalypse().fields("*")
    .sort("release_dates.date", Sort.DESCENDING).where("themes != 42");
try{
  List<Game> games = ProtoRequestKt.games(wrapper, apicalypse);
} catch(RequestException e) {
  // Do something or error
}