Now that you’ve gotten acquainted with Mixer and how to set up an account, let’s talk about one of the monumental features that made the website what it is today: Mixplay.

What exactly is Mixplay? Imagine having the creative freedom to provide interactive features for your audience members. These can be simple like social media features and funny sounds, or can be complex by providing a button to change how someone plays or giving complete control to the audience!

Excited yet? Let’s get started. First thing you will want to do is log into Mixer. In the top right corner after you log in will be your profile picture. Click that to bring up a menu where you will see Dev Lab at the bottom, and proceed from there.

You’ll need a program that can run the MixPlay and allow you to control it through a bot. Both FireBot and MixItUp Bot handle this very well and both are also very user friendly. For the purpose of this article I will be using Mix It Up. In these bots, there will be a tab called MixPlay.

Back in the Dev Lab, the first screen that will come up will be the Client ID page. This is the ID that you’ll put into your new bot so that it can communicate with the Dev Lab. Just copy that Client ID and go ahead to the bot settings where you will paste the ID. Just like that, your Bot and Dev Lab are linked!

Head on over to the tab in your Dev Lab labeled “MixPlay Projects.” Here, we can set up multiple boards for special situations. Head right into the board titled “Current board” by clicking Editor right next to the name. Now you’re greeted with all the info that you can rename, add what game it is specific to, or add a description to the board for ease of use. For now, click Build on the top.

You’re going to be greeted with the general MixPlay board! In my photo, I already have some buttons set up to use. To set up a new button, you’ll need to click the + sign. The options for the button are listed below:

Button – Simple button that reacts to clicks
Joystick – Allow the users to manipulate your controller
Label – Make a label to organize buttons
Mouse – Allow the users to control how your mouse moves
Textbox – Have a manual entry box that the user can enter what is prompted

For learning purposes, let’s choose the ‘Button’ option. Name the Button and drag it onto your board to size it. Once you have your button on the board, let’s talk about the properties that come with it:

Text – The Text that will appear to the viewers
Spark Cost – How many Sparks it will cost to activate
Keyboard Control – If you want a specific key to be pressed for the button
Tooltip – What text will appear when the viewer hovers over the button
Text Size / Color / Image – Customizing your button
Meta Properties – Custom properties for developers.

That’s your first button! Welcome to the MixPlay club! There are a lot of tutorials out there for advanced commands and features that you can do with MixPlay. A simple search can help you understand the extreme depths that can be reached with it. The purpose of this article was to keep it simple to introduce you to the Dev Lap & MixPlay environment. I suggest playing around with it to really see what you want. MixPlay can bring a TON to your stream and make it the place to be.