The Playroom is a free online gaming platform, especially made to be accessible to visually impaired people.
Anyone can connect ! 21 181 players around the world are already waiting to play with you, in 6 languages, and at anytime of the day and night. Join us now ! At the moment, there are 685 connected players and 339 open tables.
I have released this evening a new program to play card games online in an accessible way. I have called this program the playroom. Yes, that's a room where you can play games, hance this very simplistic name.
Ten years ago, smart was the one who could predict that the above innocuous lines would launch a small revolution in the world of accessible gaming. In any case, if you told me so at that time, I would have found you completely crazy. Think a little, just a tiny card game! I belief I would draw interest of no more than a couple casual players. I was far from imaginating that it would go to that huge extent, and even less that it would go so fast!
I think I shouldn't go red about the term revolution: beyond a simple game, the playroom has become a true city. A city with people coming in and going away. A city with those who live there, and those who only pass or stay for a while. A city with its good stories, its less good as well. But a city who live, day and night.
Today, the playroom is ten years old!
If this big city has been able to flourish, that's because of everyone. Wheter you have contributed to this great adventure in a way or another, be it as an administrator, helper, translator, quiz validator or writer, we would like to say you a great thank you for your support, or simply for your faithfulness presence. Without you, the playroom wouldn't be anything. WE also need to warmly thank all players, yes, you! You have carried on games one after the other. You have shared good times and fun laughs. You have created or participated to tournaments. You made us be known, to your near friends as well as everywhere around the world, without ever the need for us to praise or advertise. You have all built up this platform together and keep making it live. Really, you deserve a great thank you king size!
This message is perhaps an occasion to express yourself about what you liked, what you liked less, what you imagine for the future of this universe, or maybe to share a few small funny anecdotes.
We will of course have the occasion to share this soon around a virtual table. Given that our respective personal lives are much more full than in 2010, no date hasn't yet been fixed for a special event. Be sure that there will soon be one, though. We must celebrate it!
What's the future is going to be on our beloved platform? At short term, a small surprise. At the moment, I can only tell you that ducks are implied (No no, don't call ASPCA, I only talk about ducks for bath, obviously!) At middle term, a 3.0 client entirely made from scratch, and the concretisation, I hope, of what I started five years ago. No, I haven't forgotten, I only took bad directions and I lose my way. It can happen to anyone! And at long term, I don't know. Maybe one day there will be a client for Mac, for iOS, a nicer interface for sighted people, or maybe none of all these. Nobody knows. Maybe we will need to wear a mask to come in the playroom, who knows? Smart is the one who know where we are going to be in 2030, especially with the general uncertainty and the deep questionnings we are all living right now. What is sure, though, is that we will continue to do our maximum to preserve what have made the playroom a success until now. The best shouldn't change! Let's talk about it again in ten years?
Thank you very much everybody, and long live the playroom! Happy birthday!
Nowadays more than never in these troubled times, a place like the Playroom appears to us as being essential. We are always present to provide you entertainment and pleasure, and we will always be. That's why we aren't only very proud to have reached historical frequentation records, but additionally, we are extremely happy to present you a new game of our own creation: the duck's race!
As its name says, the principle is very simple: you are playing one of our so lovely birds and your objective is to be the first to reach the finish line. However, don't be misstaken: your way is full of traps and your concurrents won't mind making your life hard. Who's going to be the quickest? who's going to be smarter than his concurrents?
This new game has been entirely designed during this generalized confining. A great thank you to those who worked hard during the last two weeks.
Like any new game, there may be some malfunctionning, especially given that it has been designed in almost no time. Don't hesitate to report them in this topic. As well if you have suggestions, or just some impressions to share, this topic is open.
Today is a great day, since I'm celebrating my 30th anniversary. However, I, am going to give you a present; a present for the whole community.
I have the great pleasure to tell you that, not only one, but two, new games will be released during this month of October 2018 !
Get ready for the effective release day. Clues about the exact date and time of the event, as well as, of course, about the nature of the upcoming games are going to be discretely spread on the next days. There my even be exclusive previews to win for the most schrewd of you.
As I'm writing to you all, I would like to say thank you; thank you everybody.
Thank you to helpers, who are always there to help people, as well as watch the platform day after day so that it stays alive and comfortable.
Thank you to translators, who make essential work behind the sun, and which the playroom would be inconceivable without it for entire communities.
Thank you to quiz validators and correctors, who feed that game continuously beside those who send questions.
Thank you to those who made donations, either they were more or less frequent, or more or less generous. Thank to them, servers can keep running.
Thank you to my colleegues administrators, who are also there when things are getting hard or in case of technical outages, as well as for coordinating the other teams.
And finally, of course, thank you all, the community of the playroom in its entirety Since 8 years, thank to you, thank to all these moments of emotion, these moments of joy or cry all shared together around a table, that made the playroom what it became today and what keeps it becoming even stronger and stronger day after day. Without you all, there would have probably been already a long time that your well beloved unique developer would have lost all motivation.
However, yes, everything isn't perfect; some bugs are still resisting to our analysis; there are so many requests that we can't realise them all as we wish; and the vagaries of life make certain things to arrive so late. Despite everything, we still are all there; all together we are giving our best so that the better stays for ever.
So, once again, thank you all; thank you everybody.
Today, the web client is modernizing, as well as the whole website. This is the first part of a bigger and more ambitious update, which, we hope, will follow before 2018.
Main changes to the web client:
Equally as in windows client, a real history as well as channels and views are now also available on the web client
3 volume levels are now settable: music/streams, normal sounds and notification soudns; last ones will make sense later
Improved stability of speech with VoiceOver, on Safari iOS, Safari MacOS and Firefox iOS
Improvements for Firefox and Crhome PC (windows and linux)
For sighted people, a few disposition/display options are available
Definitely stopping support of Internet Explorer 6 to 10, which was anyway quite compromized
Removed reading mode with browser speech synthesis, which was anyway quite limitet, and now low interest since speech is better managed width VoiceOver
General changes on the website:
You can now choose your timezone, date and number format, under options>display options. This also affects dates displayed in windows client, most notably on forum and permanent messages
Improved input help and nickname autocompletion in web forms
Various CSS updates
Our team worked well for this update, but we don't have all possible configurations that you can have as users. There are certainly still bugs. WE invite you to post them here in case.
Thank you for your collaboration on bug reporting, and have fun on the playroom!
7 years ago, your favorite gaming platform was started for the firs time on a small and modest server. At the time, there was only a single game and one could count the number of players on the hands of the administrator team. It was the beginning of our great adventure; the one which, since that time, fill us with wonder as much as you.
There was quite a lot of adventure: thousends of bugs, capricious and even phantom connections, only half-working new games, and a version 1 quite limited.
Then the small and unruly baby grew and progressively became a child and a teenager: version 2 came up, solid teams of administrators, translators, helpers and quiz validator-corrector have been formed, connections statilized, many new games have appeared, we became an international and multilingual phenomenon; and then also came the forum, private messages and the tournaments.
It makes 7 years today that everything began. Is the playroom now an adult? One could easily think so: if the activity of the players never stopped and even still grows day after day, the central core of the nest seem on its side to have fallen quite asleep these last two years.
Asleep? Really? In fact, no, not at all!
If there are no breaking news today, it's not because we felt asleep on our laurels; really not! No, no, the central core of the nest doesn't sleep. Even if they stay quite discreet, a few precursory signs shouldn't fool you. In truth, since several weeks now, we are bubbling in excitement!
However, instead of proposing you something that isn't totally finished, full of bugs and that may leave you on your hunger, as we already could have done it more or less cluncily in the past, this time we have decided to wait. When the time come, when we are ready to present you true news, will then come the great event of all delights. At the moment though, it appears to us that it's far too early.
Seven years, age of reason? Wouldn't be that age at which we accept finally to wait for the right moment, instead of falling childishly under the day of all whimes?
With a slight delay, the easter rabbit visited us on the Playroom.
Beside eggs in black chocolate we particularely like in the team, just like some others prefer white ducks, two news of great importance appeared:
Rummy got an important lifting, and proposes now several new options to give you more various games: three game modes (traditional, normal and challenge); manipulation of combinations already on the table similarly as the plastic tiles version of the game is like; a new combination type, identities; artificial intelligence of bots which improved a lot; and of course the usual old bug-fixing session. For more information, you can look at the update summary page and the rules, which have been updated as needed.
The Playroom is enriching with the addition of a new language, German ! From now on, you will indeed be able to play your favourite game in Goete's, William Tell's and Einstein's language. At the moment, the website, the windows client, and six games are translated, rest will progressively arrive. Applauses and a great thank to Mario, who is already working a lot since some time to allow us this release.
Enjoy these news, and don't eat too much chocolate !
A new game appeared on the list this afternoon, Ninety nine. Its goal is to reach a total of 33, 66 or 99 but without never going beyond. Rules are already available in all four languages by clicking on the link above, so read them carefully before playing, you have no excuse.
We hope you enjoy playing this new game, and see you next time for more news !
