Jam.gg lets you play couch co-op retro games with your friends right through the browser

We’ve recently covered web-based retro gaming services like Afterplay and WebRcade, and thanks to our friend Mr. Sujano on YouTube (seriously, subscribe, it’s all stuff and no fluff!), we’ve just become privy to yet another. Jam.gg – previously rebranded from the funny name “PiePacker” believes that gaming is fundamentally social, and has built its platform on this idea. Essentially, it wants to create a space where you can hang out and play games with your friends using voice and video chat

Boasting more than 2 million users worldwide, this online cloud emulator just received a massive redesign along with its brand new brand name, and a slew of new features. Think of it in the same way as the group watch feature on Disney+ or services like Scener which allow you to watch Netflix with your friends or family simultaneously while using voice and video chat to laugh together, analyze the content live, and more. The only difference is that you’re playing instead of watching!

While Jam only offers like nine games with more to be added over time, its real strength lies in the fact that you can load up your own retro ROMs from local storage and play them right through your web browser. Taking that yet a step further, all of the online play with your friends can be utilized for your own personal ROMs too!

Jam.GG currently has 9 titles with more coming in the future

• Windjammers
• AlterEgo Dreamwalker
• Earthworm Jim
• Micro Mages
• Metal Slug X
• Pong
• The King of Fighters ’98
• Arsene Bomber
• Worms World Party

As you can see from the image above, you can “BYOG”, or “Bring Your Own Game” and load in your Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Master System, Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis, and original Playstation games (Which you of course own legally, right?) To do so, you just click on one of the colored tiles for BYOG and click “Start a new room”.

Please do keep in mind that while this feature is currently free during Jam’s early access, it may be a paid addition after its official launch later this year, as indicated by the notice on the game upload section seen above. Once you’ve created your room and loaded up your game, you can apply a few different video overlay filters to your camera (I chose a goat, because the pirate would have given the wrong impression).

I noticed a variety of control schemes to choose from as well like QWERTY, AZERTY, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo. I highly recommend that you try out Jam.GG, if even just for fun. It’s yet another testament to the fact that cloud gaming is becoming more interesting, and although these games take like nothing to run them, it’s exciting to see someone attempting to make them social and feed my nostalgia on my Chromebook!