Developer Beta: Sign Up to Build Party Games for Gaming Couch

July 2, 2026 · Gaming Couch

We're opening Gaming Couch to outside developers, and the beta for our third-party development tools is now taking signups. Around 40 developers have already put their names down, and we'd love for you to join them.

If you've ever had an idea for a quick, chaotic party game but didn't want to build menus, netcode, phone controllers, and an audience from scratch, this is for you.

What You Get to Skip

For most party games, the game itself is the easy part. Everything around it is the grind. Gaming Couch handles that layer so you can focus on the fun:

• Phone controllers, solved. Up to 8 players connect from their phones via QR code. You don't build any of it.
• Menus, HUD, music, lobbies. The shell around your game is already there.
• A built-in audience. Your game appears in playlists alongside the rest of the library, so players discover it without you running a marketing campaign.
• No storefront gauntlet. No Steam fees, no app store review. When you publish a build, it goes live the same day.

How the Tools Work

The beta includes three pieces that fit together:

1. A Unity SDK and a JavaScript SDK for building your game against the Gaming Couch platform with the tools you already know.
2. A companion app that connects up to 8 phone controllers directly to the Unity editor, so you can playtest with real inputs while you build.
3. A browser-based devspace for uploading your build and pushing it live.

The sweet spot is short-round (around a minute), 2 to 8 player action games with lots of player interaction. The kind of thing that makes a room laugh. If that sounds like the games you'd want to make, you'll feel at home.

Sign Up

Head to the developer preview page and drop your details to join the beta. You can also flag that you want early access to the tools specifically, and hop into our Discord to talk party game ideas with us directly. We read everything and we're happy to help.

The library is growing, June was our biggest month yet, and the players are already here. Come build something for them.