Playing mini-games within instant messaging (IM) Android apps isn’t the most popular way to use this type of mobile software but it definitely isn’t a novelty, either. The most well-known company which started offering this feature is Facebook whose Messenger app has several built-in casual games such as basketball, chess, and soccer. Today, another popular IM solution announced that it’s joining the IM gaming train as the developers behind Telegram introduced a solution simply called the Gaming Platform.
The Gaming Platform is an evolution of the Bot Platform which Telegram launched last year. Back then, Telegram received support for bots, i.e. third-party applications which run inside the popular IM app. Since then, Telegram users were able to talk with bots and issue them commands, as well as control them using HTTPS requests and the app’s very own bot application programming interface (API). The Gaming Platform 1.0 which the people behind Telegram just introduced is basically powered by these same bots, except that it now allows these third-party solutions to open additional windows within the messenger so that users can play actual games in chats.
In order to do that, simply open any Telegram chat window, type “@gamee” without the quotations and select which game you want to play alone or with your chatting buddies. In order to challenge friends to a game, you have to share it with them by using the “Share” option located in their main menus. All of the games are score-based and the app keeps track of each and every record so you can choose to be notified whenever someone beats your high score or simply browse through leaderboards whenever you feel like it. Telegram currently features around 30 titles though developers promised that hundreds more will be available in the near future. Of course, most of these games won’t be built by the Durov brothers or anyone else working on the actual Telegram app. Instead, the studio is hoping third-party developers will jump at the opportunity to create simple games that anyone can enjoy using their newly released API which is available for download from telegram.org.
All of this gaming goodness is powered by HTML5 which means that games load as needed and you won’t have to install any additional files on your device. In addition to that, the requirements for gaming within the Telegram app are rather lax as the Gaming Platform 1.0 is supported on all devices running Android 4.4 KitKat and newer. Just make sure you have Telegram version 3.13 or later installed on your Android device of choice. You can check out some of the cool currently available games in the gallery below.
