PLAYIR: The Game Developer Dream

Have you ever wanted to develop your very own mobile game, but haven’t done so because you simply can’t handle all the coding that comes with it? Well, a new era on mobile game development is starting, and PLAYIR might provide that push you need to bring your bright ideas to life.

With PLAYIR, anyone can start creating mobile games, which will be cross-platform (meaning that your creations can run on Android, iOS, Windows, BlackBerry, and even Tizen).

Players can get together to play their favorite games with friends, without having to worry about their operating systems–because the PLAYIR team is looking to close this gap. They’ve accomplished this by bringing the feature of cross-platform play, which simply means that you can play in real time with, or against, your friends, no matter what OS you’re running.

So, what exactly is PLAYIR?

PLAYIR is a game development engine that allows users without technical knowledge create and see their work right away. If you have knowledge in software development, you know that there’s a lot of coding behind the masterpieces that we get to play every day. Even the “simplest” mobile games can take a mammoth effort, and not everyone can attempt to create their own mobile titles.

With PLAYIR, there is coding involved, but it is minimal. As the program is object oriented, most stuff can be added to your game by simply dragging and dropping into the scene. Anything and everything you add will be updated in real time on your mobile device–something quite cool, as it will definitely minimize the development time.

Another important point is that the PLAYIR development suite is open source, meaning that users can clone and publish anything they make directly on the app stores. You can use PLAYIR, make your kick-ass game, and publish it; let’s say… on the Google Store. You don’t want to make it free, so you can sell your application.

With this in mind, the PLAYIR team has thought about developing an “In App Purchase” system, which will allow you to monetize when when you publish your very own games for others to use.

How does this work?

If you’ve ever played any of those free-to-play games on your phone or tablet that need something in order to perform a certain action, you run out of that “something.” Often, you need to either wait some time or “purchase” more–that’s the main idea and what developers hope will keep you playing. This “In App Purchase” system will allow players to get that “something” by liking your Facebook page, following you on Twitter, or go old-school and pay real money for it. Let’s check an example:

I didn’t want to stop my research here, so I went ahead and had a short chat with Alex McIl, PLAYIR 3D Modeler and Animator, and Ashraf Samy Hegab, PLAYIR founder. They shared some further information about the project:

What made you guys start with this project? What was your inspiration?

“Many of our artist friends were struggling to get jobs in the gaming industry, as employers were looking for individuals with experience. It is the same old catch 22 situation of, how can any artists gain experience in the gaming industry unless they are working in the gaming industry?
We felt this was a huge flaw in the system and that many artists with amazing talent were loosing out, not to mention employers loosing out due to focusing only on applicants with experience in the field.

So our vision was that if an artist could drag n drop in their 3D models / 3D animations / 2D graphics into a live game being played by others…..then that is my experience Mr. Employer…..Job secured.” -Said Alex McIl.

How hard has it been to develop such a complex system?

“If I was to rewind back to about a year and a half ago today, I honestly wouldn’t have believed what we’ve done is possible. Originally we just wanted to see if we could get a live multiplayer game working between iOS and Android. Then we wanted to see if we could live edit levels. Then we went crazy and came up with a never seen before solution, which actually lets you stream source code across web, iOS, Android, Windows Phones, pretty much any device, all in real-time.

To get to this stage you gotta understand that it was really the culmination of 10 years of experience working on so many different platforms and operation systems. From PlayStation 2, to iOS, to WebGL. Without actually digging inside all these different platforms and building games for each of them, we would of never been able to develop this system. But, hey, now it’s out there, and it’s all open source, we’re really pushing for this to define the era for no more closed platforms.” -Said Ashraf Samy Hegab

If someone has absolutely no programming knowledge, how tough will it be to start using PLAYIR? Is there going to be some tutorial, are you going to be adding documentation to the development suit, or is there a built-in “help” mechanism on the PLAYIR development suit?

“With any system that is new to someone, there will always be some form of learning involved. With that said, it is our duty to make Playir Game Engine as Easy-to-use, user friendly and intuitive as possible.

We are producing Game Packs that contain the bare essentials of what makes up a game, which in turn gives individuals with no programming skills the ability to customize the art, menu, level design etc of these packs with no coding (using drag n drop technology).

We also have a built in JavaScript editor for intermediate users who can make more complex and customizable games, such as changing cameraangles, assigning customized User Interfaces and assigning actions to control buttons. We also anticipate that the beginner with no programming experience will eventually want to step up his/her game (pardon the pun) and start tackling the JavaScript editor which is a far simpler scripting language than the tradition programming language used for building games.

Part of the funding from our Indiegogo campaign will go into creating tutorials / video tutorials on how to use our system, in fact we have already started doing this on our PLAYIR Youtube Channel, but obviously want to improve / increase these videos.
Furthermore, we will be working on creating documentation and user manuals, as well as a built in help mechanism, where during game play, instructions will pop-up on screen providing the user information on how to use the system. (of course this can be disabled if required).”

These are the features that need the Indiegogo funding to come to reality

What is the main game genre that you would think will be developed using PLAYIR?

“Currently I would say games similar to Street Fighter and World of Warcraft. In fact any game containing 3D character animations….there just seems to be a lot more flexibility / variables in making games that contain animated characters.

But quite honestly, Ash is true to his inspiration and likes to include artists in deciding what game is made next, so determining what game genre might be the most popular is a tough call as it depends on the individuals working at PLAYIR”

When it comes to a multiplayer game, how vast is the world that developers can create with PLAYIR? Are there any restrictions?

“On the server side we’ve tested running up to 5000 players on the same server node. On the client side processing around 10 characters walking around a level seems to perform well on an iPhone4S and modern Android 4.0 phone. This is the current performance metrics for our current system.

So, as you can see, when it comes to a multiplayer game, your imagination is the limit, according to Ashraf’s explanation.

Right now, this project is undergoing an Indiegogo campaign trying to raise $25,000 USD in order to enhance the project by hiring more designers. This additional content is delivered to users for free through game packs to use on their creations, as well as add international nodes for multiplayer games.

Additionally, PLAYIR must finish the development suit that would work directly on mobile devices, as it currently only works from web browsers. This would be another addition that can only happen with this funding campaign.