» Creating an online multiplayer video strip poker game: work in progress!

This first post tries to introduce the project we trying to set up and host at Strip-Poker.xxx. I will talk about strip poker games and I will explain why we decided to make a new one. At the moment of this writing, the game is still under heavy development and anyone will be able to suggest new ideas by leaving a comment. As I will shortly explain, this is one of the key of this project: involving the community of players.

5 years ago, we release the very first version of our desktop strip poker game on a website we specially designed for the occasion: Uplay-Istrip.com. At the time, our goal was to make a new game which would fill a huge gap in the strip and adult games entertainment industry: no one had ever tried to make a real strip Texas Hold'em game with the ability of challenging several opponents at the same time. Of course, you could find several other games, most of them only featuring low quality pictures and boring gameplay. A few one though were more interesting and had implemented the idea of a video virtual opponent. We decided that it was time for a new shot and we created not only a a strip poker game featuring high quality video with the Texas hold'em rules but also a lot more of different strip video games that had never been thought of before like strip belote, strip 4, sexy sudoku. These last one are still waiting for new players on Uplay-Istrip.com and are actively maintained, even if not very often updated with new opponents. On the other hand, the strip poker on Uplay-Istrip gets at least one new girl a month.

Uplay-Istrip Strip Poker game has been very successful and is far from being abandoned but it is also 5 years old. 5 years old is a lot in a world where computers grows more and more powerful at an atonishing speed: cf Moore's law. 5 years ago, neither the iPhone nor any tablet did exist yet. Moreover, 5 years ago, the Internet was not the same: it was not as social as today and we hardly talked about web applications. Because we enjoy to make strip games and because we think that we must innovate while using the brand new technologies of today, we decided to take a new step further. In the end of 2011, when domains with the famous "xxx" extension were made available to webmasters, we decided to buy Strip-Poker.xxx and to make an online game.

The main idea behind all our strip games can be very easily summed up: we create games with interactive video so that players get the feeling they're actually playing against a real and sexy opponent. The video are displayed in a way that the computer-driven opponents seem to react to the player's action. This approach allows the user to play a fun video game in which his victory will be rewarded by a hot and sexy strip-tease. Of course, this idea will be kept in our next game: the player will challenge sexy female opponents through interactive videos.

As I already said, the very first idea was to make an online game. Why? For several reasons:

• We wanted users to be able to play directly in a web browser, without having the hassle of downloading and installing a program on their personal computer. People would find themselves more confortable to be able to play online and wouldn't have to install everything again to play on a different computer.
• We wanted to reach any kind of OS. Today, people not only use a PC with windows but can be found playing on a smartphone or a tablet with Android or iOS, and can also have a MacBook or a computer running on Linux. Having a game users can play in their web browser is the easiest way to reach the most of them.
• We wanted a game where players can give feedback and ask for new features easily: the web is the best way to do that, updating a web application is really much easier than updating a desktop program.

Of course, any choice has drawbacks. I said we wanted to create an online strip poker game to be platform independant. It will eventually be platform independant but it will require an up-to-date web browser. Creating a video strip poker is not an easy task and to make that possible, a very good support of HTML 5 will be mandatory to play. That being said, updating a web browser is very easy to do and anyone should be able to do it on his computer, without losing anything personal like bookmarks. Of course, that would be an other story for your computer at work but you don't play strip games at work, don't you ;) ?

Here comes may-be the most important improvement: being able to go multiplayer. One could say that Uplay-Istrip Texas Hold'em is already multiplayer because the player can challenge up to 4 girls at the same time. It's true but wouldn't the game be more fun if you were playing not only against girls but also against real player? So you could try to cut deals with your buddies to get the girls naked or on the contrary betray other players? Gameplay would become richer and more subtil than just playing against computer-driven opponent. Of course, many of you would prefer to play against real girls but think about it just one moment: would you really be confortable playing naked in front of your webcam plugged to the internet at home ^^ ?

I said that the internet has become more social over the years. This is a huge trend and it will probably goes on like this for many years. So, why not trying to create a community aroung strip poker players? First is the fact that players could talk and discuss new features. There is a lot of ideas to be found and players are of course the best help games developpers can think of. We will want this game to evolve and grow with time and its users will have the ability to help building it up by suggesting new improvements. Then, if a game is to be multiplayer, it means that players will want to know who they are playing with and to be able to interact with others. In any group, there are some people who don't behave well, so you may want to filter some players for example. Or you may want to have a look on a player statistic to have an idea of his poker skills before trying to challenge him.

Stay tuned! The game is far from being ready and it will take a few months more to make him public. But we will release an alpha version to test it against your feedback in the summer. I hope I gave you a clear overview of what you might expect from this new game: it will be a strip texas hold'em game you can play online with other players. Your opponents will then both be real players and computer-driven sexy female players interacting through interactive video. You will be able to require an invitation from the home page very soon. Be patient, in my next post, I will show you a screenshot of the prototype.