Unveiled at the 2019 Game Developer’s Conference, Google Stadia’s ‘State Share’ feature promises to let gamers create a link or ‘save point’ that can be shared anywhere on the internet and takes their friends directly to a location or a specific pre-created scenario in their game. Some examples of this could be the ability to re-create a highly specific challenge you faced in game or to give your friends the same loot. In Crayta’s case – to share entire creations with others. Unit 2 Games who is developing the upcoming Stadia exclusive title wrote a Medium post which details how the feature will work and how it will be vital to the core of what Crayta seeks to deliver – a game that is reliant entirely on the speed and ease of sharing player created content with others. Publishing Director for Unit 2 Games, Chris Swan says that the Stadia Enhanced Features (SEF) or features that only Stadia’s powerful cloud platform can provide over the likes of modern hardware consoles were the deciding factor when creating Crayta.
When we started working with Stadia we were able to take a closer look at their SEFs, all of which appeal and could be applied to Crayta in various ways, but State Share in particular caught our attention. The ability to click a button and leap into any ‘save point’ that the developers had set up was the missing link that we had been looking for.
Some use cases for State Share in Crayta include the following:
A player who has made a game can share a link on social media. This link launches Stadia and takes them directly into a session of that game on Crayta.
Someone making a game over a number of sessions just wants to launch directly into create mode each time they launch Crayta, so they create a link to save as a Chrome bookmark.
A streamer is having fun creating a game and wants to get more people involved. They generate and share a temporary link that takes people directly into their edit session. When the streamer finishes the link expires.
A YouTuber wants their viewers to come and join in their play session, so they generate and share a link in chat. People clicking on the link will be taken to the exact session that the streamer is in (note: if the server is full they will be taken to a new instance of the same game).
As far as the player is concerned the process for all of the above scenario is:
Generate Link->Share Link->Another player joins the game
The development team hopes that State Share’s instant access links will provide gamers and developers with high quality experiences and the accessibility that cloud gaming delivers. Crayta will be available as a ‘First on Stadia’ exclusive for Stadia Pro subscribers when it finally launches this summer, so we don’t have much time at all left to wait!
The first thing I’m going to try when State Share comes out is creating a very specific game mode or scenario in Crayta and then turning that into a Chromebook shortcut on my shelf. That way, I can launch it as a program every time I want to play.
Google has received some flak for waiting so long to implement features like State Share to the platform, but Stadia head “Superhero” John Justice said in an interview with Stadiacast that many of the features are already available and just waiting for developers to take advantage of them. A feature like State Share may not have been integrated into any Stadia games so far because it probably didn’t make as much sense as it would with a game like Crayta.
Initial hopes for the game are very high and everyone is excited to see what comes of the tools Crayta will provide to gamers and developers once they are released into the wild.
Fernando Melo, founder of Crayta Indie Fund developer Double Blit Games and former Bioware producer, has been impressed by Crayta’s offering: “It’s like a giant game development toybox! It’s so powerful, and it’s an amazing feeling to be able to jump straight in and get your ideas on screen without any of the usual barriers.”
Unit 2 Games Crayta Reveal Article
As a game developer, I’m very much drawn to the concept of Crayta. The ability to create something, share it with friends via a web url and then to have them play those creations sounds like a blast. What are your thoughts on the State Share Beta for Stadia and its implementation into Crayta? Leave a comment in the section below and stay tuned to Gaming Unboxed for future updates on Crayta and State Share!
