Five months ago, Rooms, a revolutionary 3D design platform created by former Google employees, debuted its beta version on the App Store. Now, this innovative iOS app is receiving a major update that will introduce an array of exciting new features, including an activity feed, an explore page, the ability to browse by category, and more.
“When we launched last November, it was in some ways an experiment to see if this idea we had would resonate with people.” – Jason Toff, co-founder of Rooms
Rooms is an incredible interior decorating app that falls under the cozy game category. With over 7,500 digital items available in its library, players can unleash their creativity and design intricate 3D rooms and mini-games. What’s even more impressive is that users can customize these items by editing code with Lua, the same programming language used in popular app Roblox Studio.
Since its launch, Rooms has experienced a significant surge in registered users, with a current count of a quarter of a million – a noteworthy achievement for the scrappy, three-person team behind the app, considering they only released the web platform less than a year ago.
“We were pleasantly surprised that people not only used it, but that they also made rooms a lot, [and] a lot better rooms than we expected.” – Jason Toff
Toff, who previously worked in Google’s AR/VR division, teamed up with his former colleague Bruno Oliveira and experienced app developer Nick Kruge to bring Rooms to life. And in the short span of five months, the app has already surpassed their expectations.
At the initial release, the mobile app offered three TikTok-style vertical feeds: a “For You” feed, Editor’s Picks, and a Recent feed. However, as Rooms continues to grow, the founders aim to provide users with a seamless way to discover other user-generated rooms and recognize creators for their imaginative designs.
With the launch of “Rooms 2.0” today, the company has introduced a Trending feed on the home screen, featuring popular creators and their most-liked contributions in order to boost visibility. Additionally, users can now scroll through over a dozen new categories, including “Games,” “Art,” “Fantasy,” “Nature,” and “Weird.” There is also a “Tribute” section that showcases rooms inspired by popular IPs like Minecraft, The Legend of Zelda, and Hello Kitty, among others. These feeds were previously curated, but now the team has implemented algorithms to control the order of rooms appearing in them.
But that’s not all – Rooms 2.0 also introduces an Explore page with even more ways to discover, such as exploring user profiles, top games, and all-time favorites. And for a brand new browsing experience, there’s “Honeycomb View,” a hexagonal grid that allows users to view multiple rooms at once and zoom in or out to see fewer or more designs.
“Our lack of discovery became a hindrance…Everyone wants their work to be seen. We also heard from creators that they like [discovering] other people’s rooms…I think it will help a lot to have not just one surface, but dozens of new [feeds] for content to be discovered.” – Jason Toff
The Activity tab is another new addition, enabling creators to track likes and comments on their rooms, and even see when their room is “remixed” or shared. Each room now also has an icon at the bottom to indicate its total number of remixes.
Moreover, the Remix feature – where users can use someone’s design as a template for their own room – has been updated to detect copycat rooms, preventing creators from imitating another’s design that may have taken hours to create. (Fun fact: according to the company, 1 in 8 users have spent over two hours editing their rooms).
Beneath the surface, the team has implemented a mesh optimization method to make rendering large rooms up to 20 times faster.
“Our lack of discovery became a hindrance…Everyone wants their work to be seen. We also heard from creators that they like [discovering] other people’s rooms…I think it will help a lot to have not just one surface, but dozens of new [feeds] for content to be discovered.” – Jason Toff
The bulk of these updates are for the iOS app, but the new categories and speed improvements will soon be implemented on the web version as well.
In the future, Rooms is considering adding an AI-powered tool to make coding easier on the app. This feature would “look at your code and tell you where there are obvious mistakes,” according to Toff.
Previously, the company had also explored a generative AI feature to assist with designing rooms, including the capability to generate images for walls and floors. However, due to high costs, this feature is not currently in development. The team is also considering offering a premium subscription in the future, but they want to wait until the app gains more traction first.
In a few months, Rooms will also be launching a desktop app on Steam. And while the company is open to the idea of an Android app, it is not currently a top priority.
