How do I use Google Play Games service to sync progress back and forth between two devices? (Alphabear, Android devices only)

Intent

You should follow these directions if you want two of your Android devices to share a single Alphabear state. E.g., if you play on your Android tablet when at home, but play on your Android phone when away from home, and want progress made on your phone to be reflected on your tablet and vice versa.

If you don't have two devices you need to sync your progress between, follow the directions on this page instead.

Requirements

• You must have a Google+ profile in order to be able to sign into and use Google Play Games Service features. If your Google account doesn't already have a Google+ profile, you can create one by going to https://plus.google.com .
• *Both devices* must be able to sign in to *the same* Google+ profile.

First-time Setup

1. If you've already been playing Alphabear on two unsynced devices, decide which device's Alphabear progress you want to keep and which you will discard. (From now on your devices will share a single game state. We want you to decide now which state that will be. The app is not smart enough to combine your bear collections / coins / etc. into a composite state; you will have to choose one device's state or the other.)
• Note: If you've already connected Alphabear to Google Play Games service on one of your devices, then you probably already have a cloud save and the following steps won't enable you to choose. But there's no harm in trying to get the preferred state.
2. Delete the Alphabear app from the device whose progress you are choosing to discard.
3. On the device whose progress you want to keep, if you've never enabled cloud save before on this device then follow the directions on this page to establish a cloud save. After you've finished, put this device to sleep for now.
4. Install Alphabear onto the device from which you deleted it in Step 2. Then, confirm that all the settings listed in the Requirements section above are correct for this device.
5. Launch the newly installed Alphabear. It should put you onto the tutorial screen.
6. Click the Sign In button.
   
7. Wait while the game connects to Google Play Games service and looks for your cloud save.
   
8. When you see this screen, click the button to load your cloud save.
   
• Note: If this screen doesn't come up after waiting for a few minutes, stop. The cloud save that should have been established by your other device in Step 3 is probably corrupt. Return to that device and play another event to hopefully establish an uncorrupted cloud save. Then repeat Steps 2 and 4-8.
9. Wait while the game loads your cloud save.
   
10. Done! The state from your other device has now been transferred to this device.
    

From this point forward

Simply play the game as normal. When you switch devices after having progressed forward on one device, the game should identify the switch and pop up the following screen:

Click Ok to import the progress from the other device, then keep playing!

• Note: If you know you've switched devices, then you should always wait for this screen before beginning to play. If you don't, you will make parallel progress on this device, as opposed to continuing from where you left off, and one device's parallel progress will eventually be discarded.

Notes

• For some reason that neither we nor Google understand, cloud saves are occasionally being created in a corrupt manner. Thus, some players have unfortunately lost progress by assuming they had a good save in the cloud when in fact they did not. We are working with Google to investigate. Until we can resolve the issue, please *don't* rely on the cloud save as a guaranteed backup of your game data. Instead, please treat the installation on your device as the "gold" copy of your game data, with the cloud save being something you *might* be able to restore from if something bad happens to the data on your device.
• If, after having progressed forward on one device and then switching devices, the screen below doesn't appear after a few minutes, then the cloud save is probably corrupt. Return to the device where you'd progressed forward and play another event (in hopes of establishing an uncorrupted cloud save), then try again to switch devices.
  
• Please keep the Alphabear versions on both devices the same. There has occasionally been loss of progress when, for example, people transferred a save from version 1.6 to version 1.5—version 1.6 contained some new bears that version 1.5 was not aware of, and so version 1.5 deleted these new bears from the save file.