Forge, a new, free app designed to simplify the process of capturing and sharing gameplay videos, went into open beta today. And even though it's still technically in a pre-release state, I've played with it a bit, and it really works quite well.
The best thing about Forge is that it's easy. It runs in the background, and automatically kicks into gear when a game starts. A popup reminding you of its existence will appear at startup, and after a few seconds it goes away and you get on with your business. Gameplay clips of five to 30 seconds be cut and saved with a simple slider bar, either while you're playing or after you've quit, and then shared through the Forge website, Facebook, Twitter, and/or blogs and websites as embedded HTML.
It's clearly not intended to compete with full-blown video creation and editing tools, but as a way to show off highlight moments—like my smooth Race the Sun moves—I honestly can't imagine a simpler system that doesn't involve controlling your PC via telepathy. Both Nvidia and Microsoft offer similar services in the form of the GeForce Experience beta's Share and Xbox app's DVR (neither of these alternatives support telepathy, either).
The only downside to Forge's automation is that games must be on the Forge master list in order to work with it, something I ran up against the first time I tried to show off my mad Race the Sun skills. But a quick note to the development team had it (and Dungelot) added and working within a couple of hours.
"Forge is currently compatible with more than 2,000 games, with more added daily,” the studio said. “We want to ensure a high quality experience across all of our supported games. If a user runs into a game that is not supported they can contact the team at help@forge.gg."
Forge is available now at forge.gg, where you may also peruse a pile of gameplay clips—including at least one of mine in which I don't vaporize myself against a wall ten seconds out of the gate.
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