Being an active gamer himself, software engineer graduate Chris Gregori wanted a handy site that could function as a calendar for him and his friends to view upcoming games. Since he was unable to find such a site online, he decided to create one by himself!
Play Date, an interactive calendar which shows various games on their respective release dates, allows you to search for your favourite game and filter the games according to their gaming platforms. The website has a simple and easy-to-use interface, with each gaming platform in different colours for quick reference.
A graduate from City University in London, Gregori is no stranger to gaming; he’s a fan of the Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid series, and also recently enjoyed The Last of Us, Transistor, and Bravely Default. He has even created a real-time video games news aggregator for gamers to keep up-to-date with the latest news in gaming, called Hot Cloud.
The recipe for Play Date was 5 to 6 hours of productivity on a Sunday.
Play Date was made by Gregori on a Sunday afternoon as he was feeling productive and the default functionality of the site was up and running in about 5 to 6 hours. The hard part, Gregori said in an interview with Vulcan Post, was finding a good data source for the games and finding out how to use it for the site.
Since there are new and upcoming games that are constantly being made and released, one would imagine that it would be quite troublesome to update the calendar all the time. “That’s the beauty of the site!” Gregori told Vulcan Post, “It continues to be updated with games without me doing anything more.”
Powered by a plugin called FullCalendar, the games and their release dates are all pulled in automatically from a source of data, which is a community gaming site Giant Bomb. Through this automatic method, Gregori does not have to worry about the difficulty of finding out the exact date of release for every single game.
That’s not all! You can sync it to iCloud and Google Calendar.
“During a fairly big influx of visitors yesterday (19th of August), I decided to program the iCalendar and Google Calendar subscription and export, meaning you can now sync up your iCloud or Google calendars to the site to have a constant 6 month release date calendar on your phone for free!” Gregori said.
“I’m hoping more people realise the new Export link is there so people don’t miss out!” he added excitedly.
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What’s in store for the future of Play Date?
Gregori actually did consider making the Play Date into an app but he later figured that the site is more accessible and the export functionality turns it into a real-time updating calendar which people can just sync to their phones. “(That’s) good enough right? :)” He asked in the email interview with Vulcan Post.
However, Gregori did add that he made this site as a graduate fresh out of university because he had a huge amount of time, but as he will be starting a full-time job in 2 weeks, updates to the site may slow down a little.
Gregori is eagerly looking forward to the release of Destiny, Evolve, The Evil Within, The Witcher 3, and Metal Gear Solid: Phantom Pain. And I don’t blame him because thanks to Play Date, I now know exactly when Sims 4 and Assassin’s Creed: Rogue will be released and that makes me more excited than ever.
Want to know when your favourite game is coming out? Head on over to the Play Date now! It’s absolutely free to use but if you’re feeling generous, you can also give him a donation via PayPal.
Also read: Top 5 Reasons You Secretly Wish You Were A Character in The Sims Game
