Cozy game, interior decorating app, learn-to-code primer, or something in between, the interactive, 3D spaces builder known as Rooms<\/a> has made its way to the App Store.<\/a> The startup, which earlier raised $10 million<\/a> in seed funding led by a16z, offers a way to design 3D spaces \u2014 its \u201crooms\u201d \u2014 that are filled with furniture, d\u00e9cor, pets, and tiny avatars. You can turn those rooms into mini-games, if you prefer.<\/p>\n The purpose of Rooms is merely to create and explore design, which is something many people find relaxing. However this \u201cdigital equivalent of LEGO,\u201d as the company has described it, also has an educational aspect to it.<\/p>\n First launched on the web earlier this year,<\/a> the project was inspired by co-founder Jason Toff\u2019s work in Google\u2019s AR\/VR division, including its now-shuttered<\/a>\u00a0VR and AR app-building service Poly<\/a> and the\u00a03D modeling tool for VR, Blocks<\/a>. His co-founder Bruno Oliveira<\/a> also worked with him at Google, while co-founder Nick Kruge\u2019s\u00a0<\/a>background includes time at Smule, Umber, and Google\u2019s YouTube.<\/p>\n The idea with Rooms is to offer open-ended play where people use their designs as a form of self-expression. But you don\u2019t only have to interact with the objects in a visual format \u2013you can also click to reveal the code to further customize the times using Lua, the coding language also used in Roblox. That has helped introduce coding concepts to younger users. In fact, Toff tells TechCrunch, a number of schools have been picking up Rooms as a means of introducing kids to coding, as an alternative to something like code.org.<\/p>\n Other users simply enjoy decorating their 3D spaces for fun.<\/p>\n \u201c[Rooms users] want to decorate a room for the calming effects of just placing things and editing it. There\u2019s this whole movement that I\u2019ve learned about..cozy games,\u201d Toff explains. Cozy games are those that people play without an end goal, they\u2019re just for relaxing and unwinding. \u201cPeople are making the rooms for the sake of making the rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n To that end, there are quite a few rooms that are Taylor Swift tributes or those built by K-pop fans, for example. Some people interconnect their rooms and a few turn them into tiny, interactive games. Some people spend a lot of time on their rooms, designing what almost appear to be professionally thought-out spaces that could serve as templates for real-world interior designs.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Rooms<\/p>\n<\/div>\n With the iOS app, launching today, Rooms offers a TikTok-style vertically scrolling feed where you can check out the different rooms made by the community. There are multiple feeds to choose from including a \u201cFor You\u201d feed \u2014 which will later be algorithmic but is currently more curated \u2014 as well as an Editor\u2019s Picks feed and a Recent feed. As you scroll the feed, you can like and share favorite rooms, or you can enter a camera mode to take a snapshot of the room \u2014 which then alerts the creator. That picture can then be added to your own room, as d\u00e9cor.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Rooms<\/p>\n<\/div>\n You can also design your rooms from scratch using the over 6,000 items in Rooms\u2019 catalog, up from 1,000 when it launched on the web. The company first seeded its community with 1,000 Voxel 3D objects it commissioned from creators, which can be customized in your space.<\/p>\n Other people\u2019s rooms can be remixed, too \u2014 that is, used as a template for your own designs. (Attribution to the original creator automatically follows when you remix, Toff notes.)<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Rooms<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As you decorate your space, you can enter an editing mode where you can customize anything \u2014 like the size, shape, color, glow, opacity, pattern and behavior of the items. You can even add media to an object, like putting a photo of your cat on the TV screen or a painting, for example. Or you can use an OpenAI-powered tool to generate an image that is displayed on the object.<\/p>\n The new iOS app works both on iPhone and iPad, but Toff says the iPhone is better for browsing than creation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt works even better on iPad. You can code, but I wouldn\u2019t recommend coding on iPhone because it\u2019s just like a tiny screen. There\u2019s not enough room,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Rooms<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Since Rooms\u2019 beta launch on the web, the company has registered over 40,000 users who have since created over 50,000 rooms. Its daily active users range in the thousands, as well.<\/p>\n In the future, Rooms may look to AI to aid in room design, but the company is trodding carefully here. After adding the generative AI feature to the product, some members of the community weren\u2019t happy.<\/p>\n \u201cSurprisingly\u2026there was an interesting pushback,\u201d Toff says. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the audience or age or what, but more than I expected, were repulsed by the existence of AI\u2026but I think, practically, it should be easier to make rooms and it would be silly to not use AI to help you create rooms,\u201d he adds. A timeframe for adding AI, however, is still unknown. For now, the company is focused on launching its mobile app and growing its user base.<\/p>\n Toff says the app is really more of a beta and it will continue to iterate on the experience over time, based on user feedback.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to learn from and with users. We put it out a little earlier than it being perfect,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n The iOS app for Rooms is available now on the App Store<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/4.png?w=314\")
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