Social video platform Twitch is encouraging players to jointly play games together via livestreams, such as the now-famous Twitch Plays Pokémon.
To do that, the San Francisco company has created a new “Twitch Plays” directory to make it easier for viewers to discover such games. In Twitch Plays Pokémon, viewers watch a live game and issue their own commands in the chat window of the video. That turns the game into a live, crowdsourced experience where every player can interact and influence the outcome.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1863156,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"C"}']Twitch says that the Twitch Plays games are defined in a few ways. They are autonomously running games that use Twitch live broadcasts as the primary mode of content delivery. These interactive experiences also give the audience control over “player” actions by entering command inputs into the chat box or via second-screen interfaces. Lastly, they have an uncapped number of simultaneous participants, resulting in a democratic structure where everyone plays a part.
“The Twitch community has consistently rallied behind organically created Twitch Plays games, with the trend growing rather than subsiding,” said Kathy Astromoff, the vice president of developer success at Twitch, in a statement. “Making it easier for prospective players to find Twitch Plays games drives [game] developer success and encourages new developers to begin experimenting. Twitch Plays are just one of the myriad ways developers can discover new users and build stronger engagement with the Twitch community.”
The newest games in the genre include:
- City Stream: Where you team up to build and defend a massive geometric city.
- Twitch Plays Zombidle: This PC title is adapted from Berzerk Studio’s mobile game, where you level up a character and fight the good guys.
- Kid Mech: Kid Mech is a live-action Twitch robot arena battle game consisting of two teams and an unlimited number of users controlling each bot.
- Twitch Versus Zombies: Players have to communicate strategies with peers in order to eradicate the zombies.
- Twitch Plays Robot: Players control real-life robots who fight for their mechanical lives.
- Twitch Plays Dark Souls: One of the more popular Twitch Plays games, Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2 have already been beaten, with the current focus on Demon’s Souls.
- Twitch Plays ClawMachine: Players control a carnival claw machine.
- Twitch Plays PunchClub: Follow a boxer’s journey.
- Twitch Plays Pokémon: This progenitor of the Twitch Plays movement is planning its first run of 2016 on February 14.