Laravel Eloquent Join - php

Question

I'm fairly new with Laravel. I'm still trying to learn it. My question is:
I have 3 tables named
games
game_options
game_platforms
I have 3 Models for those tables
Game Model
class Game extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'games';
public function platforms()
{
return $this->hasManyThrough('GamePlatform','GameOptions','id','game_id');
}
}
GamePlatform Model
class GamePlatform extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'game_platform';
}
GameOption Model
class GameOptions extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'game_options';
}
So when I do
$game = Game::find(1)->platforms;
It only shows,
{"id":1,"platform_id":20,"game_id":1}
{"id":1,"platform_id":21,"game_id":1}
{"id":1,"platform_id":22,"game_id":1}
{"id":1,"platform_id":23,"game_id":1}
{"id":1,"platform_id":24,"game_id":1}
But I need game name and platform names with those ID's. The thing is, I want to do this with eloquent only. I could go with "DB" or oldschool SQL but I want to learn if this way is possible or not.
Also I'm looking for better documentation/books for laravel. Most of what I read were only introduce laravel or far too advanced for me.

Answer 1

I left a comment earlier about this but now I'm pretty sure it's the answer you're looking for: you should use belongsToMany rather than hasManyThrough. So first, might I suggest you rename your tables and models to follow Laravel's conventions (plural snake_case table names, singular snake_case alphabetical order pivot table names, singular StudlyCaps model names), that way you'll have the following situation:
Tables:
games
id
name
game_option
id
game_id
option_id
options
id
option
name
Now you can rewrite your models to conform to the new structure, and use a belongsToMany relationship too:
class Game extends Eloquent
{
public function platforms()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('Option');
}
}
class Option extends Eloquent
{
public function platforms()
{
return $this->belongsToMany('Game');
}
}
Note: you don't have to model the pivot table (game_option) unless you store extra data on the pivot.
Now you should be good to get all options for a given game:
$options = Game::find(1)->options;
Or if you need to get all platforms (though I am trying to infer meaning of your code here regarding options and platforms):
$platforms = Game::find(1)->options()->whereOption('platform')->get();

Answer 2

you can use the with method with eloquent
$game = Game::where('id',1)->with('platforms')->get();
Should return you the game and platforms
For documentation I would first start with the documentation provided (find it to be about 50% complete) and with the api everything else is covered

Answer 3

You would have to model your tables like:
**games**
id
name
**game_options**
id
game_id
name
**game_platform**
id
game_options_id
platform_id /* which i assume you get from a platform master table */
Then in your Game Class:
class Game extends Eloquent
{
protected $table = 'games';
public function platforms()
{
return $this->hasManyThrough('GamePlatform','GameOptions','game_id','game_options_id');
}
}
Now, this would be assuming that Game Platform belongs to Games through Game Options.