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Female-led mobile gaming startup Robin Games has raised funds around the idea of carving out a new niche in the “lifestyle gaming” market. The company As he explained at the official launch in 2020, the idea was to create a more sophisticated and elegant gaming experience – something more in line with the kind of content you’d normally find in a lifestyle magazine or an Instagram influencer’s profile. . Today, the startup is releasing its first title to address this concept, mobile gaming startup PLAYHOUSE, combining both gameplay and shopping into one experience.
Available on iOS and Android, PLAYHOUSE is a DIY design game that lets players drag and drop furniture and decorations to create original looks for rooms, such as wall art, sofas, chairs, tables, plants, and more. That alone doesn’t make the app unique — the interior design genre is a popular sub-genre in the simulation games category in today’s app stores, with contenders such as Playtica’s Redecor, CyGames’ Decor Life — a home design game, and Crowdstar’s Design Home: Dream. Adjustments are available in the top charts.
Instead, PLAYHOUSE sets itself apart from others in both its technology and its partnerships.
The company allows users to drag and drop the elements, but also allows them to move, rotate, change and stack the space more freely than other games allow. In addition, the company is working with real furniture brands to buy the items in the game in real life.
At launch, PLAYHOUSE will feature shopping experiences connecting players with brands such as Aarhaus, Article, 1stDibs, Chairish, One Kings Lane, ABC Carpet & Home, Jenni Kayne, Society6, Bloomscape, Room & Board, and Lulu & Georgia, among others. In other words, the game’s goal is not only to provide a creative outlet for art and interior design enthusiasts, but also to drive new furniture and decor discoveries.
Image Credits: Robin games
Robin Games, at launch, has over 6,000 real furniture and decorations from over 100 home design brands available in the app. Players can visit the retailer’s website and purchase the exact items they use to create their designs.
The concept is somewhat similar to Pinterest’s new collage maker app Shuffles, which allows players to create custom art experiences using their own photos and Pinterest Pins. While the Shuffles app is being used primarily as a creative tool before being published to TikTok or Instagram, the items displayed in the collages are linked to their pin page on Pinterest – they are linked to the retailer’s website and can be purchased, similar to PLAYHOUSE.
“One of the main reasons we wanted to make PLAYHOUSE, and ‘lifestyle games’ in general, was because we saw a gap in the market for truly expressive and creative games,” Jill Wilson, co-founder and CEO of Robin Games, told TechCrunch. It’s but we do – it’s a different kind of fantasy than what’s typically explored in games. As an interior designer, designing spaces with beautiful rooms is a real-world dream for many people, and our company is committed to providing players with that experience,” she added.
In addition, PLAYHOUSE users can rank their projects with other players to earn tickets, coins and gems as well as other decorations to help them level up. In addition, the company has partnered with content creators, including design enthusiasts, artists, Airbnb hosts and others, to create “hosted projects” aimed at inspiring players’ designs.
And it’s working with editorial publishers Condé Nast, Hearst (House Beautiful), Leaf Group (Hunker) and Design Milk to create design challenges and a host of other inspiring content, the company said. House Beautiful, for example, hosts a series of design challenges based on articles it publishes on its website.
Image Credits: Robin games
During the soft launch, the team improved the game mechanics, gameplay controls, riding experience and in-game economy, which is free to play with in-app purchases. While they can progress without playing, players can choose to pay to unlock them with the gems they buy instead of waiting to earn them through in-game achievements. Limited packages around a specific theme are sometimes available for purchase – such as special plants and botanical-themed items that are only available in the package.
To date, more than 1 million design challenges have been submitted, with the most dedicated players participating in each project released daily, Wilson says.
Following its $7 million seed round, Robin Games closed on a $14 million Series A in 2020 and continues to develop PLAYHOUSE in the coming months. Being a female-led startup has given them a huge advantage in a game that’s primarily marketed to women, but Wilson believes it’s the team’s differentiator.
Image Credits: Robin games
“I like to make games that I want to play myself and I believe that I surround myself with a diverse group of talented people who want to play the games that we make,” Wilson explained. “At Robin Games, we have more than 50% women on our board, management team and team as a whole – and the majority of our team members are passionate about design. Putting creative decision-making in the hands of players is key to our authenticity and why we believe true design enthusiasts will love what we’ve done. Even though we expect our audience to be primarily women.” , we’ve tried to make it as inclusive as possible and we hope everyone who loves design will enjoy it,” she says.
PLAYHOUSE is available today as a free download on both iOS and Android.
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