Familiars.io is a simple, Pokémon-style multiplayer game that you can play right inside Twitter
Familiars.io is a minimalist monster-catching game that went online last year, and right now, you can play it inside Twitter. As developer Nigel Nelson tweeted this afternoon, he ported (or in his words, “smuggled”) the entire game to an embedded Twitter card. That means that you can play it directly through Twitter’s web interface or mobile app.
The game is built around Pokémon-style exploration and combat in a shared, lo-fi setting. You can wander around capturing enemies to expand your team of familiars, then use them to fight other players (or simply walk around saying “howdy,” if you prefer.)
“Me and my brother used to do this thing where we would start new games on Pokémon Red and Blue, progress through the game as fast as we could in a 3-hour period, and then fight each other with our pokémon teams,” Nelson says. “A year ago I was looking for a new project, and my brother suggested that a multiplayer Pokémon-like PVP experience might be fun, and I thought it was a great idea.”
The game’s Twitter version won’t necessarily be online for long. Familiars.io is using the Player Cards that Twitter offers for linear media, and Twitter admonishes users to not “circumvent the intended use of the Card” with interactive experiences. In 2015, Twitter disabled embedding classic MS-DOS games in tweets. But the game has nonetheless taken off on the platform. Nelson tells The Verge that he’s seen about 3,000 logins and 250 players online at a time, compared to a standard user base of one or two people. “I’ve had a few ideas for new fun things to add, but I think I might need to take a step back to figure out how to make my servers accommodate the increased player base,” he says.
Familiars.io is a hobby and a work in progress; some users have tweeted reports of bugs, particularly on Firefox. But I’ve enjoyed the illicit thrill of Twitter gaming on desktop Chrome and Android’s Twitter app just fine — and Familiars.io itself isn’t going anywhere. If the game gets taken off Twitter, its virtual world is still available on the web.
Familiars.io is a minimalist monster-catching game that went online last year, and right now, you can play it inside Twitter. As developer Nigel Nelson tweeted this afternoon, he ported (or in his words, “smuggled”) the entire game to an embedded Twitter card. That means that you can play it directly…
Recent Posts
- Google Chat will now play nice with all your other work messaging platforms
- Tesla recalls all 3,878 Cybertrucks over faulty accelerator pedal
- Kuhn Rikon Black Star Review: Perfectly Smooth Cast-Iron
- Copilot is everywhere in Windows 11 and it’s about to get harder to ignore – but is Microsoft in danger of wearing out the AI assistant’s welcome?
- The Morning After: The bill to ban TikTok is barreling ahead.
Archives
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023
- May 2023
- April 2023
- March 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- December 2011