I always have a hard time picking where to meet friends for a quick hangout, coffee shops can be crowded or have no wifi, other community centres close way too early, and the weather is not always keen on the evening walk concept. The expression "third space" refers to those crucial social environments between home and work. These have become increasingly rare. Yet, game developers can recreate these spaces through video games as a social experience. I'm about to seriously carbon date myself, but here it goes. 

The Death of the Arcade, the Birth of the Digital Hub

The arcade was perhaps gaming's greatest third space. A place where strangers became rivals, where you could watch someone play for hours, where the best player on the Street Fighter II cabinet became a local legend. (i still watch DDR and MaiMai players in awe today when Ii visit arcades in London or Tokyo, even though i suck at those games).  When arcades vanished, something irreplaceable was lost, not just the games, but the social fabric around them. 

Modern game lobbies attempt to recreate this energy. But often fall short, they are menus disguised as 3D spaces, functional but sterile. The truly memorable lobbies understand that they're not just waiting rooms. They're destinations. The 90s and early 2000s represented a golden age of hub world design. Super Mario 64's castle wasn't just a level select screen; it was a playground filled with secrets, a space that felt lived-in and mysterious. The same was true for multiple games of the time.

These spaces understood something crucial: the journey between activities is as important as the activities themselves. They invited exploration, rewarded curiosity, and created a sense of place that transcended their function.

 

A Safe Harbour:

From Karina, our team member:

"As the younger sister, I was always too afraid or uncoordinated to play the actual game, so the lobby was always fantastic for me. Not surprisingly, games like Diddy Kong Racing, Super Mario 64, and Crash Bandicoot are deeply ingrained in my memory; they all had a “no fail” area for me to play around in for a while. Now I can play the whole game (and even make them). But still, the lobby feels like a cosy, special place where you will never lose. There's no tension, no frustration, just pure interaction with that game's world and other players. You can take your time to unfold its secrets, and you can prepare for battle. It is your home. Creating a lobby for Splash & Dash was almost a duty. Even though it means more work, it's valuable work to provide gamers with a home and a safe place to be."

Her perspective captures an essential part of what makes lobbies special, they’re sanctuaries within games, safe harbours where stakes are low and failure does not apply.

The Social Architecture of Digital Spaces

Modern games like Deep Rock Galactic's space rig demonstrate how 3D lobbies can foster community. These spaces provide what urban planners call "social affordances" opportunities for interaction that feel natural rather than forced. Even those on the functional side found this achievable, Helldivers 2 ship (mine was named “Fist of Family Values”) was small but allowed for incredible memable moments. The key is creating reasons for players to congregate, linger, and interact. 

A well-designed lobby doesn't just connect you to matches; it connects you to other people.

The Challenge of Creating a "Third Space" for a Small Team

For Splash & Dash, our lobby represents one of our biggest design challenges. We want it to feel spacious and full while serving as an efficient hub for arena selection and customisation. Drawing inspiration from the N64 era, we're treating our lobby as "the underworlds" the place where most of our storytelling happens. For a small team, this approach feels like extra work. It would be easier to create a sleek menu system. But we believe the investment is crucial because this is where players will spend time between matches, where they'll customise their characters, cars, and ability decks, and where they'll form the social connections that keep them coming back. We even have an Apartment system where you can buy a flat in this world, so you can fill it with trophies and unlockables.

The Future of Digital Gathering 

Some of gaming's most powerful social moments happen (to me) not in competition, but in collaboration. The joy of 4-player split-screen Goldeneye, the satisfaction of clearing a difficult level in Golden Axe with a friend, and the emergent storytelling that happens in co-op games like It Takes Two. These experiences foster parallel play, where people engage in shared activities together. It's the same dynamic that makes a good lobby work: you're sharing a space, but it's up to you how much you want to interact..

As remote work reshapes our relationship with physical spaces, the importance of well-designed digital spaces grows. A great lobby doesn't just serve the game. It serves the human need for casual social interaction, for spaces where you can be alone together. Spaces can foster community. They're places where you might make a friend, discover something new, or simply exist alongside other people without the pressure of constant interaction. In a world where third spaces are vanishing, we saw an opportunity to create new ones. 

The game lobby isn't just where you wait for the next match. It's where you remember why you wanted to play in the first place.

We're still considering how players will interact in our game. So far, we have emoji reactions and a horn, but full voice chat isn't out of the question. Please share your preferences and come try it out on Discord.

in this post, you also got to see a bunch of our lobbies and how they evolved over time, We had 5 lobbies so far, testing what worked, and we finally landed on this circular valley design.