A Video About Building a Video Game in Shiny

Did you know you can use R and Shiny to build video games? Well, don’t expect to create the next GTA in R, but you can still develop simple, enjoyable, and easy to play games. Our engineer Pedro Silva used Shiny to create a game called Shiny Decisions, which was a Grand Prize Winner in the RStudio’s 2nd Annual Shiny Contest. As part of Appsilon’s Shiny Masterclass at rstudio::global, Pedro created a video tutorial walkthrough about how he built the game.

Want to test drive Shiny Decisions? You can do so here.

We want to thank everyone who joined Appsilon’s Shiny Masterclass at rstudio::global last week. We had over 1200 participants and modules taught by Shiny experts at Appsilon and RStudio. Don’t worry if you missed the live session – the recorded session will be available next week on Appsilon’s YouTube channel. Make sure to subscribe to the channel so that you don’t miss it!

Shiny Decisions

The idea behind the game is simple – it’s a card swiping game you can play on both desktop and mobile. Swiping in different directions affects the game in different ways, and multiple metrics are updated based on your decisions. The goal is to keep each metric at optimal levels. You can learn more about the game and how to build video games with Shiny in the video at the top of this article. 

Here’s a testimonial about the game given by the folks over at RStudio:

“A game about making the best of terrible choices. In Shiny Decisions, your goal is to last as long as possible while making decisions that affect the wealth, population, and environmental quality in the world. The app is quite complex, and hard to describe with words. We strongly recommend giving the game a try to get a sense of it! The code for the app is equally complex, but very well organized.”

–Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, RStudio

If you want to test or tweak Shiny Decisions, you can reference the following links:

• Test the game: https://sparktuga.shinyapps.io/ShinyDecisions/
• Get the source code: https://github.com/pedrocoutinhosilva/shiny.decisions

Learn More

• How to Build a Video Game in R Shiny with CSS, JavaScript, and R6 Classes
• Python Dash vs. R Shiny – Which to Choose in 2021 and Beyond
• How to Make Impressive Shiny Dashboards in Under 10 minutes with semantic.dashboard
• Introducing shiny.semantic::grid() – Build Your Shiny Dashboard Layout in Seconds
• 5 Signs It’s Time to Refactor Your Shiny Dashboard

Appsilon is hiring for remote roles! See our Careers page for all open positions, including R Shiny Developers, Fullstack Engineers, Frontend Engineers, a Senior Infrastructure Engineer, and a Community Manager. Join Appsilon and work on groundbreaking projects with the world’s most influential Fortune 500 companies.

Article Video Tutorial: Build a Video Game in R Shiny with Appsilon’s Pedro Silva comes from Appsilon | End­ to­ End Data Science Solutions.