Downpour is a new app that allows users to turn their photos on their smartphone into games. According to a report by The Verge, Downpour is a new app that lets users stitch together photos to create simple interactive games — with no programming or game design experience required whatsoever. ‘It’s time to go home’ game made on the Downpour app The smartphone app, which launches on March 6th, will be free on iOS and Android with a $4.99 per month paid subscription tier for extra features. The premium subscription tier unlocks the ability to link to webpages outside of Downpour, and removes limits on how many photos and images users can upload per month. The Verge reports that the games available on the Downpour app are “bare-bones” — with users only able to stitch photos and not video clips or GIFs. However, the games are reportedly “delightfully quick to put together.”
With a few taps on their phone, users can easily collage together photos, other images, and text, and then easily connect them together into a branching story. Once a user has made a game with the Downpour app, they can share it within the app, allowing other people to follow them and play their games online. Users can even download the games created on the Downpour app to host elsewhere, like Neocities or itch.io. The Downpour app does not require users to already know how to code. The app doesn’t try to teach them how to code, or involve changing settings that are as complex as coding. “Downpour is a tool for making games quickly and approachably,” Buckenham, the founder of Downpour Limited, tells Polgyon in an interview about the new app. “The idea is that you can be waiting at a bus stop, download [Downpour], and then by the time you get off your bus, at the other end, you’ll have made a game and released it. “That’s the kind of thing I want to be possible.” In a press release, Downpour offers examples of games that users have made on the app. These include “Find Madeleine” a game about looking for a cat and a game entitled “It’s time to go home.”
Image credits: All photos by Downpour.
