Just got my assignments. Some really interesting stuff.
I thought my design was kind of out-there but no way, there’s some really interesting thinking happening a good ways out of the box. Stuff that jumped out at me from my four assigned games:
* A QR code that launched me into a game document. It’s a very short document! But the interaction of code, phone and then engaging with the game got me thinking.
* Some interesting guided improv — freeform larp is all up in Game Chef’s grill. I really wish I had better grounding in that creative space. A topic to revisit down the road.
* A pure boardgame but with a narrative ending. Interesting. I wonder what my boardgame friends would think of that?
Anyway, interesting stuff. Really varied.
EDIT: And out of morbid curiosity, I looked up who’s reading Dragon, Fly. Aaaaaallll freeform larps. Welp.
Pure boardgame with narrative ending sounds super interesting. I wonder how that’d work out in play.
With the theme this year, it seems rather likely to see some really different ideas. I’ve got a bit of time tonight, so I’ll be reading over my assignments.
I’m interested in that Boardgame too
If you wanna talk about freeform at some point, I’m down.
Well, yeah, after the contest I think.
For now the uh…extreme preponderance of freeform has made me realize maybe I wandered into the wrong neighborhood.
That’s so weird! I wanted to talk about freeform, like, more than a decade ago and it was so difficult to get anyone interested.
Speculation: freeform is all over Game Chef because it’s pretty easy to pull something together under the deadline.
They’ve also plugged into a different crowd than before, partially due to the new folks in charge. 75+ first-time designers means people are bringing whatever scene they’re already apart of and whatever stuff they’re already playing.
My game would have been a game poem presented as sheet music… I don’t know how that would rate on the out-there scale.
Probably I’d rate its out-thereness on the subject matter, not the presentation. Now if you could make the melody or rhythm or whatever relevant, that’d be interesting.
Shawn McCarthy one of the games I have been designated to critique was a game poem.
That’s exactly where I was going to go. It started as a sarcastic comment about making “4’33 by John Cage, The Game” but turned into a playful thing where people punctuate silence with exclamations and motion, and the GM paces and raises/lowers the tone like a conductor.