This paper introduces a design and simulation of a locally optimized network coding protocol, called PlayNCool, for wireless mesh networks. PlayN-Cool is easy to implement and compatible with existing routing protocols and devices. This allows the system to gain from network coding capabilities implemented in software without the need for new hardware. PlayNCool enhances performance by (i) choosing a local helper between nodes in the path to strengthen the quality of each link, (ii) using local information to decide when and how many transmissions to allow from the helper, and (iii) using random linear network coding to increase the usefulness of each transmission from the helpers. This paper focuses on the design details needed to make the system operate in reality and evaluating performance using ns-3 in multi-hop topologies. Our results show that the PlayNCool protocol increases the end-to-end throughput by more than two-fold and up to four-fold in our settings.