Gaming start up Goko has launched an SDK for what it claims is "the world's first everywhere HTML5 platform."

To demonstrate the platform's potential, the company has drawn on its pool of 150 board and card game licenses to release Dominion and Catan World for Facebook, Google+ and Goko.com. iOS and Android versions of both games are also on the way.

"Only the biggest games companies have had tools for creating and launching social games across all the big platforms. Now we're bringing that massive advantage within reach of all developers," said Goko CEO Ted Griggs.

The sucking

Features of the freshly-launched platform include player authentication, leaderboards, achievements, game hosting and testing, virtual goods, virtual stores and payments.

Interested developers can either build their own games for the Goko platform, or partner with the company to build a game based on one of the many licenses it holds. Either way, Goko's promise is that it will help developers build, distribute and monetise HTML5 games everywhere.

For iOS and Android launches, Goko games will make use of Ludei's CocoonJS and CAAT to wrap the game in a package that's distributable on the App Store and Google Play.

Ludei's products also accelerate performance, which is important, since "game performance sucks with HTML5, unless it's accelerated," according to Ludei CEO Eneko Knorr.

Dev empowerment

Studios can find out more about the Goko platform and sign up for the SDK on the company's developer website, which includes a full feature-list and links to Goko's own titles.

"Today we're starting to release new games across Facebook, Google+, and Goko.com, Windows Store, Android and iOS," explained Griggs.

"And we're also turning all of the tools and services that we've created over to developers so that they are empowered to do the same thing."

[source: Goko]