WordPlay 2021

Loading…

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/01/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance''</div> Rocket Adrift Toronto, ON, Canada Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance is a dating sim about a teen girl who moves to a small secret community of cryptids. Romance a magical Fairy, a sensitive Sasquatch and a bold Velociraptor. A satirical 90's teen drama about trying to find love in your last year of high school. /*Artist Links*/ <div class="links"> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1273080/Raptor_Boyfriend_A_High_School_Romance/" target="_blank">Steam</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/RocketAdrift" target="_blank">@RocketAdrift</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> We are a Toronto-based indie team made up of creatives Pat Smith, Lindsay Rollins and Titus McNally. We develop narrative-driven games that make players laugh while also engaging them on an emotional level and offer personal experiences. Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance is a dating sim about a teen girl who moves to a small secret community of cryptids. Romance a magical Fairy, a sensitive Sasquatch and a bold Velociraptor. Live this '90s teen drama as Stella, who moves to a small town only to discover it's populated with hot Cryptid teens. In her last year of high school she's determined to try to fit in, make new friends and find romance. <i>''Tell me about your team and what makes them special!''</i> LINDSAY ROLLINS (she/her) Writer, Programmer, Character Artist @LinRocketAdrift Writer, programmer, and primary character artist with background in animation. Worked on several projects with Rocket Adrift including Order A Pizza: A Visual Novel and Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance. Coming from an illustration/animation background, she is mostly self-taught in coding and marketing. PAT SMITH (they/them) Writer, Composer, Background Artist @PatRocketAdrift Writer, composer and lead background artist. An accomplished musician who's worked on several projects as background designer, audio engineer, writer and composer for Order A Pizza: A visual Novel and Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance. A person of many hats, Pat was also able to steer the ship of production since Raptor Boyfriend's development to its release of this year. TITUS McNALLY (he/him) Writer, Lead Programmer, UI/UX Designer @RocketTitus Lead programmer, writer and UI designer on Order A Pizza: A Visual Novel and Raptor Boyfriend: A High School Romance. The fearless innovator of the team that is most comfortable diving head-first into new territory and taking it on, from game engines to complex coding languages. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> 3 years <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> The way we directed the music to swell at emotionally heavy moments. We're also proud of the animation and presentation style of Raptor Boyfriend. We feel it helps it stand out visually from other visual novels like it. <i>''What games inspire you?''</i> The Life Is Strange series, Arcade Spirits, Night In the Woods and Gone Home. <i>''What led you to choosing the story for your game?''</i> Funnily enough, our game idea started as an inside joke and exercise where we imagined a Twilight parody that actually featured monsters as romantic interests instead of sparkling, ripped hot guys. We thought about how funny it would be if the monstrous interests were a raptor and a sasquatch and then it became an idea for an animated short we would produce on YouTube. Eventually other extenuating circumstances caused us to pivot to making games instead, and we wanted to make this idea our debut game. Three years later we got Raptor Boyfriend. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/10/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''The Fall and Rise of Sadcock-upon-Avon''</div> Orbis Tertius Games Lincoln, UK + Berlin, DE In the fiefdom of Sadcock-upon-Avon, strange things are happening. There are rumours of penises not looking or acting as they should...<br> Follow the witch Agnes Nutt as she magic-spells cursed phalluses back to health, saves or destroys marriages, shapeshifts, and more in this point & click visual novel! /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://www.orbistertiusgames.com" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/OrbisTertiusGms" target="_blank">@OrbisTertiusGms</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> This was our first game under the studio name Orbis Tertius Games, though some of us had been lurking in the indie game scene for quite a while before it. We've also released another game, ""Imaginaria"", a pixel-art visual documentary about living in Antarctica, which was part of the Leftfield Collection at EGX 2021. This December we'll be releasing ""Personal Rocket"", a retro adventure game about paranoia and the occult. ""The Fall and Rise of Sadcock-upon-Avon"" is a humorous visual novel set in a medieval village where penises are not looking or acting as they should. You play as the witch Agnes Nutt as she magic-spells cursed phalluses back to health, saves or destroys marriages, shapeshifts, and more! <i>''Tell me about your team and what makes them special!''</i> We made this game as a 4-person team: Luna Nemo, Rumpel, Camila Litz and Mariano Falzone. We're all from Argentina, but half of us are living now in the UK and the other half in Germany. With our experiences combined, we've lived in three continents, including Antarctica! <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> We're particularly proud of the Penis Tree. Also, we love the climax and the character revealed there for the first time. <i>''What games inspire you?''</i> We take inspiration from indie games that focus on narrative and experimentation, without being made by studios of dozens of people. Games like what Dave Gilbert publishes through Wadjet Eye, and the work by game designers like Lucas Pope, Cosmo D. and Christine Love. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> It was made in RenJS, a free visual novel engine that was created by Luna themself. Also, this was our first game as the current team, and, though the game was originally made for the AdventureX game jam and in a span of only two weeks, the art and writing turned out to be much better than we had expected. <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> Being an entry for a game jam, it actually went pretty fast from concept to development, having nothing changed from the original idea. The original concept maybe was more ambitious, for a bigger game, but that always happens to us when we brainstorm ideas. In this case we managed to focus on the core concept and story and make a small game that we're very proud of. <i>''Are there any design principles that you use to make your games?''</i> We try to put narrative and experimentation at the forefront of what we do. <i>''What is the biggest success of the development of your game?''</i> It was our first finished game as the current team, and it wasn't bad, so that was success enough for us! Also, by being part of the AdventureX Jam, it gave us some visibility within the indie game community. <i>''What systems do you use to create game concepts and story characters?''</i> We brainstorm A LOT. And, while we love video games, we also try to take inspiration from many other things we love, like literature, comic books, cinema, history, and art. Our experiences as Latin Americans and as immigrants also weigh heavily on us when we're coming up with new game concepts. <i>''What led you to choosing the story for your game?''</i> We were all racking our brains about what to do with the theme of the AdventureX game jam, which we were all hating, frankly: "A good time." But then Rumpel shared with us a history article she'd found called "The Distinguished Medieval Penis Investigators" by Carissa Harris. We loved its absurdity, and it was all true! So we took it as our main source of inspiration, added some fantasy to the mix and came up with a story we were all happy with. <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> Our game contains nudity, some offensive language and discussions about sex. It has both NSFW and SFW modes, where the SFW version has some pixelated body parts and some words censored with asterisks, but nothing else is changed. We hope you play responsibly and have as much fun as we had making it. Thanks for playing! <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/11/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Union Drive''</div> Matajuegos Buenos Aires, Argentina Union Drive is a Latin-American visual novel about workplace unionization. You'll step into the shoes of a young supermarket worker trying to strengthen the union at their place of work and fight against unjust working conditions. Throughout the game you’ll build strong relationships with your coworkers and get to know their stories, all while learning organization skills used by real-world union organizers. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://mata.juegos" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="https://uniondrive.itch.io/union-drive" target="_blank">Itch.io</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/matajueguitos" target="_blank">@matajueguitos</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/lunafromthem00n" target="_blank">@lunafromthem00n</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LenoGalaxies" target="_blank">@LenoGalaxies</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/pfquarta" target="_blank">@pfquarta </a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> Matajuegos is a small Argentine independent game co-op and dev studio. We make games that focus on social, political, and cultural issues and themes from a Latin-American perspective. Besides developing games, we also work in the field of Spanish-language game criticism, writing articles, recording podcasts, giving talks, producing videos, and translating other developers’ words into Spanish. Union Drive is a game developed in collaboration with Global Labor Justice and UNI Americas, two organizations dedicated to fighting for workers’ rights around the world. The game is a short visual novel about workplace unionization. You'll step into the shoes of a young supermarket worker trying to strengthen the union at their place of work and fight against unjust working conditions. Throughout the game you’ll get to know your coworkers and their stories, and you’ll learn organization skills used by real-world union organizers. The game was developed in RenJS, a free and open-source engine for visual novels created by Union Drive’s programmer, Luna Nemo. <i>''Tell me about your team and what makes them special!''</i> We’re from Argentina! We’re a co-op! We’re immensely concerned with the state of the world and how social issues affect both the industry we work in, the communities we’re a part of, and the art we make! Oh, and like most devs at Wordplay, we have a thing for narrative games. <i>''Is there a guiding principle for your studio? Why is it important to you?''</i> You might have gotten this from the fact that we made a game about union organization and workers’ rights or that we’re a co-op, but we’re a fairly left-leaning studio. Fair, horizontal, and just working conditions are incredibly important to us within the studio, as are issues of diversity and inclusion. We’re a fairly queer co-op, and the team that worked on this game in particular was largely non-binary. These aren’t guiding principles per se, but they inform a great deal of the identity of the games we make and choose to work on as well as the ways in which we handle our productions and working conditions during development. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> We’re excited that we got to work closely with actual, real-life union organizers with experience leading campaigns, organizing collective actions, and fighting for workers’ rights. The situations and the dialogue in the game are strongly inspired by real-life conversations they’ve had with workers. We’re also happy that we could provide the game in three different languages at launch. This might not be a massive accomplishment for a game with a larger production cycle, but given that Union Drive was made in about 4 months by a very small team working part-time, it was a big undertaking that we’re very proud of. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> This perhaps wasn’t our biggest challenge, but it was one to which we dedicated a lot of time and thought to. Since we hoped that Union Drive would be played by people from different countries with very diverse cultural and social contexts, we wanted to make the characters and their situations broadly relatable. At the same time, however, we didn’t want to lose the Latin-American touches and perspectives that are important to us at Matajuegos. This meant that we had to work hard to suggest the Latin-American identity of the game while also not tying the script and the characters’ conflicts to any particular city, country, or socio-political context. It was difficult, but the universality of capitalism’s yoke and the commonality of labour issues across the world helped us develop characters and stories that are broadly appealing. <i>''What surprised you during development?''</i> We were immensely taken aback to discover how little time there actually is in a week, much less a day. There was so much we wanted to do and so little time to do it in. As a consequence, we’re strongly petitioning for time to run at a much slower pace than it does right now. Would you please sign our change.org page? <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> The game was developed in RenJS, a free and open-source engine for visual novels created by Union Drive’s programmer, Luna Nemo. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/12/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Internet Court''</div> Oh, a Rock! Studios Ithaca, NY, USA A live-action courtroom comedy, where YOU are the prosecution, defense and the judge!<br> It's the year 20XX, and crime can happen anywhere—even in cyberspace. If someone gets caught writing bad fanfiction or unfriending without due cause, they get hyperlinked directly to... The Internet Court.<br> Where the courtroom is virtual, and trials are livestreamed for the whole world to watch. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://oharock.com" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_c0GTiO3AkETsvtu7tbL5efPREM_MmeK/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank">Video</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/oharockstudios" target="_blank">@oharockstudios</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/paulmfranzen" target="_blank">@paulmfranzen</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/arglefumph" target="_blank">@arglefumph</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> We're Oh, a Rock! Studios, a two-person team that makes funny, weird, and sincere adventure games, visual novels—and FMV games, like Internet Court. We'd been wanting to do our own take on the Ace Attorney series for some time, and once we realized the engine we were using (Ren'Py) had video capabilities, our beautiful baby Internet Court was inevitable. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> Since ~2014. Our first game was a tiny visual novel (or "visual novelette") called My Nigerian Prince, which explores what happens if you actually make the mistake of answering your spam e-mails. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> The acting! Since we're on an indie budget (read: 0 budget), we cast ourselves, our friends, our kids, and even our moms in all the principle roles. The game's supposed to have sort of an amateur feel to it—they're using a government network, everyone's just calling in from their phones or laptops... I even included outtakes as some of the actual scenes in the game, because yeah, it would totally make sense that the prosecutor would accidentally knock over a napkin holder when he's making a dramatic point. <i>''What makes a game fun to you?''</i> I like story in games. I get bored when the writing feels like it was added as an after-thought, or as a begrudging necessity to be scooped out of some poor writer's brain and drizzled into a existent framework. I'm much happier when the story is the point, and the game is built around it, not the other way around. <i>''How did you first get involved with game design?''</i> I wanted to make games ever since I was a kid—I actually have this 2nd-grade homework assignment framed and hanging up in my office. It asks for my favorite hobby: "Playing Super Nintendo Games." Then it asks for my dream job: "MAKING Super Nintendo Games." I got tripped up for a while after taking a coding class in high school, and realizing that coding was...hard... But then after college I got together with someone who actually knew how to do the thing—a programmer named Ted Hung—and I wrote and designed my first game, an adventure game called Life in the Dorms. <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> The most important thing (to me, anyway) is finding the right people to work with. It's not just raw talent that makes someone a good fit—they can be the best artist DeviantArt has to offer, but if they lose interest, never actually do the thing, never respond to your emails...it's not going to be a beautiful friendship. Reliability is more important than talent, IMO; it's the only way games ever actually get made. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> The cursor is a gavel and you can smack it on the screen, making a loud noise and causing the screen to shake. I love it <3 <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> At one point we wanted to have a scrolling, Twitch-like chat on the side of the screen that ran alongside the courtroom videos, as though it was a "real" stream that was really happening. That idea got cut pretty early in development though, because editing the video footage and making the subtitles took much longer than expected, and we wanted the game to be finished before the actual judicial system went online-only and Internet Court became our reality. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> Seriously, it was making the subtitles. I made each one individually in Photoshop, and hand-coded them to each line of dialogue in the videos to make sure they lined up as close-to-perfectly as I could get them. I don't know if this is how real developers do it, but if it is, I am so sorry. <i>''What systems do you use to create game concepts and story characters?''</i> This is going to sound like I'm making things up, but—Twitter. Michael and I tweet dumb ideas at each other throughout the week, and sometimes those ideas become specs, and sometimes those specs become full-blown design docs. Our most successful game so far, Cat President, literally came from me tweeting at Michael about making a political sim starring cats. <i>''Tell me about the thing you fought most to keep in your game.''</i> I can't speak to this, but Michael tricked me into including Babysitters Club references in the game, and he didn't tell me about it until well after the game had been released. (I'm planning to get back at him by hiding Friends in-jokes in our upcoming Santa Claus dating sim.) <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/13/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Insomniac: The Movie: The Game''</div> Insomniac Film Festival, Insomniac: The Movie filmmakers, and Lina Wu Toronto, ON, Canada Insomniac: The Movie: The Game was developed as an interactive choose-your-own adventure experience in accompaniment with Insomniac: The Movie, a collaborative quarantine community cinema project. In addition to watching the film, it's also a way to explore the cinema, chat with filmmakers, and explore the fantastical horizons of the youth film community even during lockdown. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://insomniacfestival.com" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="https://www.linawu.com" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/insomniacfest" target="_blank">@insomniacfest</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/linaw_u" target="_blank">@linaw_u</a> </div> /* <div class="info_container" style="font-size: 13px; justify-content: left;"></div> */ <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/14/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Quick Fix''</div> Lawrence Le Richmond Hill, ON, Canada A short visual novel with point-and-click elements. What starts off as a simple errand quickly (d)evolves into a tale of fake currencies, goose sleuths, and caffeine abuse. Rub elbows with the oddball inhabitants of Yorkel and outsmart its cruel, coffee-drinking despot to finally secure some decent internet service. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://twitter.com/lvl_won" target="_blank">@lvl_won</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> A Vietnamese-Canadian boy with a long history of dodging Kumon workbooks and piano practice in favour of consuming copious amounts of media. I’ve always had an easier time communicating and learning through art. Literature was my first love; then came painting, animation, cinema—whatever storytelling mediums a kid with internet access could get their hands on. Eventually, I found a home developing video games. Years later, still here. Quick Fix is a short visual novel with point-and-click elements. What starts off as a simple errand quickly (d)evolves into a tale of fake currencies, goose sleuths, and caffeine abuse. Rub elbows with the oddball inhabitants of Yorkel and outsmart its cruel, coffee-drinking despot to finally secure some decent internet service. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> When I was 12, I watched my first ever ActionScript tutorial and it’s been downhill ever since. 2017 was the year I swapped out my overpriced biology textbooks for a game design education. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> That would have to be the final meeting with the boss. Everything surrounding that safe-cracking bit is the culmination of several running gags with some extra spice thrown in for good measure. It all came together rather spontaneously, and at the very last minute, which is how most great ideas come about, I'd imagine. <i>''How did you first get involved with game design?''</i> I played games until just playing was no longer enough. What started as pure escapism became a cozy, fun way to engage with new perspectives and explore the human condition. Games were the agents of some of my fondest memories, so I wanted to do for others what my favourite games did for me. Plus, I didn’t see the point in picking up all these neat interactive storytelling tricks if I couldn’t employ them myself one day. <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> <i>''Are there any design principles that you use to make your games?''</i> Less is more—especially if you’re a broke college student with limited, well, everything. You’re at your most creative when you’re working within limits anyway. Just a single mechanic can go a long way towards building a great narrative, what with all the different applications, contexts, and transformations to explore in tandem with characters/themes. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> Only after you finish the script does it finally dawn on you that you’re still responsible for everything else. The 2D art was the biggest hurdle for me. My drawing tablet was out of commission, so all of it had to be done with the mouse (shoutout to the shape tools). Ultimately, every art pass, audio pass, and whatever other passes gave me opportunities to view the script through a new lens and iterate on it. <i>''What you believe could have made it better if you were to make your game again?''</i> Finding more time for sound design. Originally, there were plans to write my own music and capture ambient sounds for that extra splash of colour and personality. I was also toying with additional Foley to stave off the eerie silence that might be dragging down certain scenes. <i>''What led you to choosing the story for your game?''</i> I had just finished school, a year and some change after the pandemic flipped everyone’s lives upside down. My fellow graduates would agree that it was not a good way to cap off our college years. So, I decided to make a game, just as a way to unwind and poke fun at the things responsible for our various anxieties. I chose something that people complain about all the time—ISPs. The narrative centers on a character that goes out of their way to do something that most people would consider futile. That isn’t to say things go smoothly or even end well for them, but hopefully there’s catharsis to be found in watching the absurdity unfold. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/15/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Glom''</div> Nice Games Club Minneapolis, MN, USA You have three minutes to come up with a Glom: Re-write the Phrase, while following the Rule, to best meet the Goal... that's it! A romp of rewording regular remarks, for wordsmiths of all ages and skill levels.<br> A tabletop party game from the hosts of the gamedev podcast "Nice Games Club." /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://nicegames.club" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/NiceGamesClub" target="_blank">@NiceGamesClub</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/EllenBJohnson" target="_blank">@EllenBJohnson</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Mark_LaCroix" target="_blank">@Mark_LaCroix</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/leonyx03" target="_blank">@leonyx03</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DaleLynnLacroix" target="_blank">@DaleLynnLacroix</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> We're Nice Games Club, a weekly indiedev podcast hosted by Twin Cities game developers Ellen Burns-Johnson (Pondering Play), Mark LaCroix (Noble Robot, Tendershoot), and Stephen McGregor (Future Club) produced from the office of Noble Robot. On the show, we occasionally do ""Nice Games Jam"" episodes where we develop and prototype a game from scratch over the course of an hour, based on a prompt revealed to us at the start of the episode. Glom, the ""romp of rewarding regular remarks,"" was originally created for one of these episodes, and was developed further with assistance from prompt-giver Dale Lynn LaCroix. Glom is a creative word game where players have three minutes to re-write a Phrase (""All's well that ends well."") while following a specific Rule (""No two-syllable words."") to best meet a Goal (""Most words with exactly 6 letters.""). That's it! It's a unique party game in that is has both subjective interpretation and objective scoring, making it suitable for multiple play styles and skill levels. Being good at Glom isn't easy, but being bad at Glom is pretty fun, too! <i>''Tell me about your team and what makes them special!''</i> The members or our team have worked together on multiple projects, including the 2019 Switch/PC game Widget Satchel from Noble Robot, but with Glom, we're representing our podcast Nice Games Club, where the game was born. That's pretty special for a start, but one of the things that makes us a great team on-mic applies to Glom as well: we're cut from different cloths! We each have different approaches to game design, different priorities when making games, and different tastes in the games we play. We agree on a lot, but our differing backgrounds and philosophies helps us constantly grow and learn from each other. That's what makes our show worth a listen, and it's what makes the projects we work on together unique. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> We are about to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Nice Games Club! While each of us have been professional game designers and developers in those years, we all have backgrounds in other fields. Ellen is an accomplished learning experience designer with past experience as a classroom teacher. Mark has shipped a game in each of the last three years but mostly spent the prior decade as a filmmaker and animator, with credits on multiple Emmy-winning productions. And despite being the youngest, Stephen has more game credits than his co-hosts, but he originally went to school for mechanical engineering. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> We wanted a game that rewarded creativity and cleverness, but didn't rely in any way on "which answer is funniest" like most games in this genre, which is reductive and can encourage harmful or exclusionary expression. Comedy in Glom is unavoidable, but it's a side-effect of the process of play, not a result of "playing to the room," which means the game is both more interesting mechanically, and allows players using differing play styles to succeed. We feel Glom is a deeper, more inclusive, and ultimately more satisfying party game experience, all while being trivially easy to learn and to play. <i>''What makes a good game designer?''</i> A great game designer knows that iteration and playtesting are vital to a successful game, but they also know what they want their design to say, and how to hold true to it throughout their process. Designers who simply "find the fun" will make fun games, but let's be honest, there's no shortage of fun in the world. A really good game designer is an artist with a point of view, and uses their work to express it. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> We're extremely proud of how stupendously easy Glom is to pick up and play, while remaining engaging and providing near-endless replayability. It's not just easy to learn, it's easy to teach, which means anyone can jump right in. And with 30,000+ unique card combinations, each representing a wholly unique challenge, Glom will never get boring. Most party games are easy to learn, but many sacrifice mechanical depth to do it. That's often a worthy sacrifice, but Glom is able to preserves its complexity in the varying challenges it presents to players, not in its rules. <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> If you listen to the episode of our show where we came up with the original concept for Glom (https://nicegames.club/episode/210), you can can judge for yourself what's changed! In our view, though, we felt we spent too much time developing the game's scoring system. In the moment, we were very concerned about things that we didn't realize were irrelevant to core gameplay, and because we hadn't yet played enough of the game ourselves, we didn't realize how much depth existed in it already, and how additional elements could distract from the experience. <i>''What is the biggest success of the development of your game?''</i> Some rounds of Glom are ""easy"" in that the Rule and the Goal are well-aligned, making it easy to come up with a qualifying and high-scoring phrase, while other rounds of Glom are ""hard"" in that the Rule and Goal are deeply at odds, making coming up with a phrase very difficult. What's been exciting is that when a round is ""easy,"" players often find it a greater challenge to best reach the Goal, because only one player can win. Meanwhile, if a round provides a particularly difficult combination, even though it's a struggle just to meet the Goal at all, it's sometimes easier to play for the minimum requirements. In providing both situations, players are always on their toes, and each round becomes unique in more than one way, while the game always plays the same. Building a system that self-balances like this allows us to come up with a huge variety of content, and it's been a huge success for us as designers. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> Glom is a tabletop card game, and we're principally video game developers! And now that we're pitching Glom to tabletop publishers, we've had some difficulty navigating that world because it is quite different from the one we know. Thankfully, we've had help from our friend Peter Yang, who knows the industry far better than we do and has helped other tabletop games get signed. We've always been eager to learn new things, but sometimes (and here's the lesson) you need put trust in the expertise of partners and friends. <i>''Tell me about the thing you fought most to keep in your game.''</i> Something specific in Glom is that the phrases which players are tasked to re-write are for the most part simple aphorisms and idioms, not jokes. Unlike other "silly phrase" word and story games, we wanted the comedy in the game to be situational, generated by the constraints provided by the combination of the Phrase, Rule, and Goal cards for each round, and ultimately, by the *players'* sensibilities, not ours as designers. It's something that informs the visual design of the game's components as well. It's been tricky for us to stick true to, and we have resisted suggestions to move in other directions for the sake of marketability or theming. <i>''When you think of your ideal studio what do you dream of achieving?''</i> Glom is not made by a "studio," but by the co-hosts of our podcast Nice Games Club. However, we record and manage the show from the office of Noble Robot, a studio and gamedev co-working space in Minneapolis founded by me (co-host Mark LaCroix). Noble Robot hopes to facilitate multiple projects from multiple voices, but the main challenge of any successful indie game operation is sustainability, and that is extremely difficult. We're not there yet, but my ideal studio is a space where multiple voices can express their vision, working on games with small teams who have something to say, all while sharing their knowledge with each other, the larger gamedev community, and would-be developers looking to learn by example. <i>''How do you support yourself and your team through development?''</i> Our podcast Nice Games Club is funded though the generosity of listeners on Patreon (PLUG! https://patreon.com/nicegamesclub), as well as through advertising. However, our revenue only funds the direct expenses of producing the show. One of the reasons we are looking to publish Glom is to make Nice Games Club less of a labor of love and something that we, as our game development careers progress elsewhere, can continue to do at a high level, and even expand its reach though additional content made by additional voices. <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> "Please check out Nice Games Club via your favorite podcast app, or at our website (https://nicegames.club). We're closing in on 250 episodes, so there's a lot to discover, including other games we've made for our ""Nice Games Jam"" episodes. If you are interested in playtesting Glom, or if you represent a tabletop publisher who likes what you see, please get in touch: contact@nicegames.club More information about Noble Robot is at https://noblerobot.com" <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

/*Video Embed - Start*/ <iframe width="100%" height="506" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/L9VK3R2gm5k" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> /*Video Embed - End */ /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Loopy Lore''</div> Guilherme Bandini + Thi My Nguyen São Paulo, BR + Toronto, ON Loopy Lore is a co-op storytelling game where friends collaborate in telling a story they know nothing about. Using the cards and their imagination, players take turns as the narrator, giving shape to their tale. To win, they must work together to reach the ending created during setup. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://twitter.com/loopyloregame" target="_blank">@loopyloregame</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> The team is Guilherme Bandini (designer and producer) and Thi My Nguyen (art direction), and our game is Loopy Lore, a game about telling a story with your friends that you know nothing about. It's a co-op storytelling game that shows anyone can weave a tale with just a little bit of structure and the right creative spark. Be it a veteran or casual storyteller, by the end of the game players will have told a wild story that they can share and talk about fondly with other friends. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> Independently, I've been making games for over 10 years, throwing cards and boards on a table and seeing what mechanics I can come up with. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> Every story created by players is unique, both in an objective and personal sense. Loopy Lore is designed in a way that is virtually impossible to have the exact same story prompts. So I can statistically guarantee that you will never draw the same cards. But on top of that, each group will instill a personal touch to the story they tell. Each person puts in a bit of themselves into their narration, and it creates something that simply can't be replicated. That personal element creates memorable, wild stories that you'll remember fondly. <i>''What makes a good game designer?''</i> Empathy and testing. Lots and lots of testing. Hundreds of testing nights. Every solution, every design choice has to be tested. <i>''How did you first get involved with game design?''</i> I wanted to write scripts for games, then I discovered there was no way I'd make a living doing that in Brazil. So when that dream fell apart, a new one was born: what if I told stories through gameplay instead? <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> To be kind to yourself. It's easy, especially as a starting developer, to get into a never-ending race to perfection. "Every decision HAS to be right, every idea HAS to be groundbreaking, no flaws are allowed". But we're human, and we need to learn how to be patient with ourselves in the miraculous endeavor that is creating games. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> Solving the biggest design challenge the storytelling genre faces: how do you make a game about telling stories guide players with ease while still giving them creative freedom? Too much structure and players are guided through a story, not telling it. Too much freedom and casual players will feel left out of the fun by more eloquent players. So we had to find the right balance for that, and I'm extremely proud of the solutions we've found. <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> Quite a bit. The original concept was "gamifying the act of writing fanfiction", but once we started looking at other tabletop storytelling games, our goal changed to making a storytelling game that anyone could play and weave a tale from start to finish, no matter what experience they had with the genre. <i>''What is the biggest success of the development of your game?''</i> I was given a handmade comic book by a young player at a convention once, as thanks for teaching him how to play the game. Few things will top that. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> Finding a publisher who will believe in our vision to improve the storytelling genre in tabletop games. <i>''Tell me about the thing you fought most to keep in your game.''</i> The lack of theming. Many extremely successful tabletop games have specific settings, which helps in pitching them to players and publishers. Specificity is easier to grasp. To make Loopy Lore work as a system, however, I wanted it to be thematically open to allow for more room in creating cards. If the game was a sci-fi storytelling game, for instance, I wouldn't be able to create fantasy or western related cards. <i>''When you think of your ideal studio what do you dream of achieving?''</i> Full-time salary with benefits for every member, a guiding career path of growth for developers, authentic representation in leadership and 4-day work weeks. <i>''How are your design choices informed by you, your experiences, or your team’s experiences?''</i> I love to tell stories, but am terrible at being concise and focused. So I made a game about telling nonsensical stories without any preparation, but added a time limit to turns so players like myself would be incentivized to get to the point. It's important to know that developers often make games they want to see in the world, games they would enjoy and design solutions for what they dislike. At the same time, it's important to understand your own bias and how what you enjoy (free form unlimited space to improvise stories, for instance) may not be the best for your audience and your game. <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> We're very proud of the work we've done with Loopy Lore and we're confident of its quality as a game that achieves what it sets out to do. We truly belief it's something that tabletop games could use more of, so if you're interested in helping us get this game to a large audience, we'd love to hear from you. Even just words of support mean a lot to us. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<iframe width="100%" height="506" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8AL0rblsHLE" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs''</div> Strange Scaffold El Paso, Texas, USA An Airport for Aliens Currently Run by Dogs is a first-person open-world comedy adventure game with a very long name. You and your fiancée are the last two human beings left in the universe. Dogs run airports, along with the rest of society. Deal with alien logic, travel issues, and strange stock photo dogs as you attempt to stay in touch with the person you love, when you both live your lives on the go! /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1246250/An_Airport_for_Aliens_Currently_Run_by_Dogs/" target="_blank">Steam</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/WritNelson" target="_blank">@WritNelson</a> </div> /* <div class="info_container" style="font-size: 13px; justify-content: left;"></div> */ <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/02/1.jpg" width="350"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Milton Summons the Devil''</div> Gus Sainwood of Gus Fuss Games Brooklyn, NY, USA You are Milton, a nine year old boy. You must search your house for the ritual items scattered everywhere throughout the house so you can summon the devil and kill your gym teacher. Just don't wake up your parents or anger the devil! /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://gus-fuss.itch.io/milton-summons-the-devil" target="_blank">itch.io</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/GusonHorror" target="_blank">@GusonHorror</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> I'm a solo dev making games in my spare time. The game focuses on Milton, a nine-year-old boy who must summon the devil to get revenge on his gym teacher. He has to sneak around his house, gather ritual items, and avoid his dog Birthday. <i>''Tell me about your team and what makes them special!''</i> As a hobbyist, most of my life is spent looking at medical data and dealing with very specific, technical language. During the pandemic, I decided to take my game dev hobby a little more seriously. Finally I have an outlet for my creativity, my love of R.L. Stine, and my passion for horror storytelling. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> I have been making games since 2019. More specifcially October of 2019. <i>''Is there a guiding principle for your studio? Why is it important to you?''</i> If I'm driven by anything, it's the acceptance that there are no appropriate emotional reactions. In my own life, the most upsetting traumatic events I've experienced have also been the ones I joke about the most. We are all laughing and crying at the same time, and I have had more good times watching horror movies than at birthday parties. It's okay to feel more than one thing. It's okay to be complicated. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> I am very fond of the dog, Birthday, as well as the ritual riddles. <i>''What games inspire you?''</i> The Give Yourself Goosebumps series of Choose Your Own Adventure novels <i>''What makes a game fun to you?''</i> The game has to establish a conversation with the player. That conversation has to allow for surprise for both the architect and the resident. Surprise is at the heart of fun, and a healthy trust and open communication throughout a game experience helps that surprise grow and develop. <i>''What makes a good game designer?''</i> A willingness to see where their will must be exerted, and where the will of the player must exert itself. <i>''How did you first get involved with game design?''</i> I've been a fan of video games all my life, and, outside of a summer computer camp where we made games in Stagecast Creator, I'd never tried to make any. In 2019 I was looking for something creative to do having moved on from standup comedy and spoken word poetry. Game design reared its head. I wrote a little game about a Changeling, and immediately fell in love with the show on the other side of the curtain: the immediate dynamism, the shared authored experience of a good time, it's intoxicating. <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> There is absolutely nothing wrong with having no idea what to do. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> The series of conditional loops that, while they seem simple, were incredibly hard to do in bitsy. <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> Not all that much. When you have a good idea, you stick to it. <i>''Are there any design principles that you use to make your games?''</i> I tried to trust in the writing to make an other wise gopher game pretty entertaining. <i>''What is the biggest success of the development of your game?''</i> Honestly? This might be it. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> I think have absolutely no coding experience was the biggest challenge. Bitsy, the engine I used to create Milton, is a no-code engine, but an understanding of javascript allows for more flexibility and control. Learning it on the fly was...not that. <i>''What systems do you use to create game concepts and story characters?''</i> I build everything in Adam Ledoux's incredibly robust and accessible game engine for the browser, Bitsy. It's amazing. <i>''What you believe could have made it better if you were to make your game again?''</i> I think finding more novel ways to accomplish the rituals could've helped it along a little more. <i>''What surprised you during development?''</i> I think what surprised me the most was the way it resonated with my own life and childhood. I might not've been summoning the devil, but I did sneak around my house to read ghost stories, to grab snacks, and to watch movies I was far too young to watch. <i>''What led you to choosing the story for your game?''</i> I've always been fascinated by the assumptions parents make about their children. The story of a little boy who is doing everything parents are afraid their children are doing, going so far as to summon the Devil to do it...it seemed like a fun, interesting hook. <i>''Tell me about the thing you fought most to keep in your game.''</i> For a while it really didn't feel like I could get some of the more finnicky parts of the game, such as the creaky floors, to work. I'm glad I toughed it out though. <i>''Where do you think the industry is headed and where does your game fit in?''</i> I'm proud to be part of a robust community of hobbyists. <i>''How do you support yourself and your team through development?''</i> My main thing is letting this hobby stay a hobby. I pay very close attention to the balance between working on games as a way to unwind and letting my game dev aspirations eat me alive. <i>''How are your design choices informed by you, your experiences, or your team’s experiences?''</i> There can't be choices, at all, without the subconscious inclusion of our own experiences. Milton could only come from my brain, my past, my problems and achievements. <i>''What is something you wish the public knew about game design?''</i> There's no one saying you have to make a career doing the things you love. It's okay to have a boring job and see game design or game dev like something similar to painting or karaoke. It can be a fun, low stakes way to stoke your creativity and have fun. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/03/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Clam Man 2: Headliner''</div> Marafrass/Team Clam Canada A combatless stand-up comedy RPG where jokes are loot and the boss fights are comedy shows. Under the sea. With fish people. /*Artist Links*/ <div class="links"> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1278360/Clam_Man_2_Open_Mic/" target="_blank">Steam</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/clam_team" target="_blank">@clam_team</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/marafrass target="_blank"">@marafrass</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> I'm Martin, or Mara. I write and design games for both myself and as a contractor, and I'm currently writing and directing at Eggnut! Clam Man 2 is the result of mixing two things I love - weird jokes and video games, and in combining them, I have permanently ruined both for myself. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> About 6 years. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> The variations, I suppose, and hidden checks and dialogues. Sometimes I'm playtesting and I find dialogue I had completely forgotten about. That makes me happy. <i>''What games inspire you?''</i> Any games that surprise me or catch me off-guard. Isometric perspectives, too. And immersive sims. They're just so immersive. <i>''What makes a game fun to you?''</i> Fast, visceral action. Interesting puzzle mechanics. Good shotguns. All the things my games don't have. <i>''What makes a good game designer?''</i> Someone who understands that it's an ongoing process, and doesn't stick to their ideas. No ego, all collaboration. <i>''How did you first get involved with game design?''</i> I used to make tiny tabletop games and board games. Later, I taught myself how to code and started making small indie titles. They were really crappy until they weren't. <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> Making games is hard, but you're always learning and always getting better at it. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> Actually doing it. I was in a rough spot when working on the original Clam Man, and stepping away from that to do the thing I loved was a hard thing to do. <i>''Are there any design principles that you use to make your games?''</i> Reuse, scope down, and be smart about extra features, because you're going to have a ton of work to do anyway. <i>''What is the biggest success of the development of your game?''</i> I think the biggest success I've had was recognition from peers, as well as personal comments and emails about how people have enjoyed my games or been touched by them. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> Making the damn thing. <i>''What systems do you use to create game concepts and story characters?''</i> I write down ideas, quest names, and three-word scenarios. <i>''What you believe could have made it better if you were to make your game again?''</i> Being smarter about time and scope. Making better graphics. Faster gameplay. More guns, probably. <i>''What led you to choosing the story for your game?''</i> Writing something that came easily and was fun for me personally to write. <i>''Tell me about the thing you fought most to keep in your game.''</i> I didn't have to fight anything or anyone. One time the entire build was lost and I had to rebuild it from assets, but in the end I redid a lot of stuff better than how it was originally, so it wasn't so bad. <i>''Where do you think the industry is headed and where does your game fit in?''</i> All over the damn place. I like finding and playing smaller titles that I don't necessarily love, but that I'm incredibly happy exist. I hope people look at my games and say the same thing. <i>''When you think of your ideal studio what do you dream of achieving?''</i> Clam Man 2 is a very personal project that I'm doing for fun. If I were to found a studio later on, I'd love to do isometric RPGs. <i>''How has your studio worked to be a more inclusive work environment?''</i> Again, it's just me - but when it comes to hiring voice actors, I've done my best to make sure that any and all accents and ethnicities are represented by people who actually have that accent, speak that language, or are part of that ethnicity. <i>''How do you support yourself and your team through development?''</i> By working on other games. <i>''What is something you wish the public knew about game design?''</i> It's hard. So much of it is compromise and scoping down. And most of those great ideas you have fall apart as soon as they're implemented. <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> Thanks for playing it. It means a lot to me! <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/04/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Frantic Fanfic''</div> Zeekayart and Michael Toronto, ON, Canada A hilarious free-to-play creative writing party game where friends furiously write each other’s fanfiction. A round-robin style story game that is played like exquisite corpse but with words instead of pictures! /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://franticfanfic.com/" target="_blank">Play The Game</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/franticfanfic" target="_blank">@franticfanfic</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/zeekayart" target="_blank">@zeekayart</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> We're Michael and Zee, a two person team from Toronto! Our game is about crafting hilarious stories in a creative chaotic round-robin and then reading them! It's like that drawing game exquisite corpse but for fanfiction. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> Zee: My favourite part of our game is listening to the reactions of players as they hit that first swap and it's revealed who they need to write about next. People are hit with fear, excitement, joy... all those emotions all at once haha. ""Oh no! I have to continue THIS? With THIS MUCH time left?! Who did this?! Why would they do this?! JEEZE!!"" It's a very, very silly time. Michael: When it WORKS! Haha, developer talk there. Seeing people crying with laughter is very rewarding. Seeing people share the stories they made on Twitter. It shows that people like the game enough to share it with the world. It makes me feel like we made something impactful. <i>''What games inspire you?''</i> Zee: Games that are easy to pick up and make people laugh within the first 5 minutes of playing. In today's game-scape, party games are almost a hard sell? If the group has to spend more than a minute on the rules, it's probably not going to get played unless it's a hardcore group. Game makers who can really tap into games that have a simple premise but are fun relatively instantly and have replay for hours... they really hit a nerve with me. Graphically I'm really into the type of games with cute icons and characters like Katamari or Spyro. Michael: I'm a fan of multiplayer games that involve something that lets you express yourself creatively or make people laugh. Either through wacky combos in Smash Bros., a funny team comp in Overwatch, or just silly drawings in Drawful! Frantic Fanfic is more heavily influenced by party games than other genres but those other genres still have some cool ideas to contribute! <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> Zee: This is my first time I've tried marketing something that wasn't just my art (outside my day job) haha. On the marketing end, if it's a great concept, it kinda sells itself. You need advertising, sure, but in order to really get someone to take a leap and invite all their friends to play it with them, you need to distill your game's essence down to what people get from playing. That's where the crying tears of laughter, players stomachs hurting from laughing so hard, the next day their voice was sore because they literally couldn't stop laughing... all of those things are cool to tell people because they're all true! (But don't lie about your game, people WILL find out!) People who tell us that's the most they've ever laughed in the last ten years of their life. That's what's the most powerful. Not the stories themselves. Just the sheer joy this game generates!! Michael: Making a game is hard. It's super important for games to be stable as if they're not, there is no fun! I learned many things over the last year (mostly what not to do!), after breaking things more than once. Taking user feedback is something I learned as invaluable. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> Zee: I think all the design elements click together nicely. I'm not a designer by trade (more of a studio artist) but I knew I wanted something that harkened back to the MS DOS era of gaming crossed with passing notes back and forth to your friends in class. I still have a big collection of notes from my friends in high school! It was one of my favourite things to see what they would write next. So when we wanted to make a simple multiplayer text game that evoked those feelings, those were the two greatest inspirations there. The character select screen and the buttons, all of those are pretty fun looking! Michael: That it works! People can have fun while playing our game that works! <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> Zee: This game was originally a party night for our friends just on shared writing documents and spreadsheets telling which person to write on which document next. But we laughed so hard that night we thought, oh my goodness, has anyone ever done this before? Could we make this into an actual thing? The concept was always centered around swapping stories and reading them aloud, so that never changed! But the amount of modes, settings, options (single player mode coming soon!), the concepts of reacting and voting (the original night was ended with okay... you're all winners! bye!) and all the fun design things.. those definitely were added along the way! <i>''Are there any design principles that you use to make your games?''</i> Zee: Keeping it simple. Try to say things in the least amount of words possible. It's incredibly difficult for me because I am a rambler. But if there's an extra step to doing something, I don't like it. There should be as few clicks as possible and if there is an extra click somewhere... it better be for a darn good reason. Michael: Customizable. I tried my best to make the game in a way so that when we want to add new features/settings that its not a hassle. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> Zee: All the backend stuff that no one sees! But we see it!! Hahahaha. When we test things, we usually have to test everything because we're a two person team doing this in our spare time. We opened up testing to our Discord for our latest update and that's helped a lot! It's easy to miss things now that we have so many different settings, but having our community want to play our test site, that's something really special! Michael: Time constraints and testing our changes. We want to be confident that when we release a change, things will work but that requires testing and it can be difficult finding the time to do that sometimes! <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/05/1.jpg" width="700"> </span>/*Name*/ <div class="Title">''The Hayseed Knight''</div> Maxi Molina (SandraMJdev) Novelda, Alicante, Spain Join a ragtag band of misfits as they piece together how Ader, a one-eyed farmboy with seemingly impossible dreams, becomes the most celebrated knight the kingdom of Acazhor has ever known. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332990/The_Hayseed_Knight" target="_blank">Steam</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/SandraMJdev" target="_blank">@SandraMJdev</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> I'm a solo dev, so I guess I'll just go on a little about myself in the third person to make it Professional™: Sandra ""Maxi"" Molina Juan, better known as SandraMJ or SandraMJdev on the internet, is a Spanish 25 year old trans masc Art Director, Voice Director, 2D artist and currently retired comic book colorist with over 8 years of experience working across different artistic industries. Previous clients include major companies such as Blizzard, DC Comics and Dark Horse, as well as a wealth of indie games, but they're better known these days as the creator and sole developer of The Hayseed Knight! The Hayseed Knight is a visual novel where you'll join a ragtag band of misfits as they piece together how Ader, a one-eyed farmboy with seemingly impossible dreams, becomes the most celebrated knight the kingdom of Acazhor has ever known! You'll find mystery! Comedy! Romance! Bet you 5 imaginary dollars you can't get past the 15 minutes mark without laughing out loud at least once. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> I've been attempting to make games since I was 13 years old and playing with an obscure adventure game engine I found on a shareware site! But I've been developing them professionally since 2017. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> The humor, I'd say! My whole life, I'd been told I wasn't funny, that I couldn't tell a single joke — I learned to keep my humor to myself. Letting myself just write whatever I wanted in this game, any odd joke or dumb scene, or poorly disguised innuendo that makes players actually do a belly laugh? It blows my mind every time I see it. My own game taught me that I don't need to be good at telling a joke to be hilarious. And that I was even worse at telling jokes than I thought I was by comparison. <i>''What games inspire you?''</i> Though it's hard to tell at a glance (or at a 2-hour-long conversation) how or why, most of my inspirations in terms of games are platformers from the PS1-PS2 era and huge sandbox single player campaigns like Mount and Blade. If I had to name one game that has remained a constant in my life aspirations throughout the years, that would have to be Digimon World (2000). The non-linear narrative, the unique low-poly designs, the extremely clunky gameplay, bugs and all — it left an indelible mark in child me. I wish to make games that will cause someone that same ""WOW, you can do this???"" <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> I've learned that scope, scope, scope, scope. And scope, too. That making games is hard but not impossible on your own, and some choices can only be made that way. And that many people refuse to call your game a game if you don't get to bash enough buttons in any given period of time. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> The voice acting! I had never directed voice actors before, but through a lot of patience, stubbornness and faith in folks who were as new as I was, The Hayseed Knight is regarded as having some of the best voice acting across games, indie or otherwise! <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> Technically, this story started in 2013, my last year of high school, as a turn-based dungeon crawler. It became a novel-novel in 2016, which was then briefly meant to become a 2D sidescroller in 2017, before ending up as a visual novel. To really illustrate the point — back when it was meant to be a book I told a friend I had rewritten the story several times, but that every time I'd get stuck around the 500 page mark. My friend looked at me and said ""you're not rewriting. You've gone and written a bunch of different novels with the same character names."" All of those stories will have the time to be told, too! Thinking that way, I never feel like I'm wasting time straying from the concept. <i>''What you believe could have made it better if you were to make your game again?''</i> Not gonna lie, I could have used less words and more money. <i>''How do you support yourself and your team through development?''</i> I develop games during the day to afford developing games during the night. <i>''How are your design choices informed by you, your experiences, or your team’s experiences?''</i> I wrote this story in therapy so definitely nothing personal in it. <i>''What is something you wish the public knew about game design?''</i> I really wish the public knew to which degree a game designer's job consists of sobbing while gently taking the player's hand to lead them where the game needs them to be physically and emotionally, despite the player's best efforts. <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> You should play it and tell me if you had fun. If you didn't feel like playing that's fine — you can lie about it, I'll pretend I didn't notice. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/06/1.jpg" width="350"> </span>/*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Divide Et Impera''</div> Mauro Vanetti + Open Lab Pavia + Florence, Italy You: A disingenuous political leader keen on using some good old hate speech to further your aims. Your Goal: Splitting your community in half, by detaching at least 12 people from the interconnected grid of 5×5 people. Your Weapon: You have to choose hateful contents to post online and a specific target of 3×3 people for each post. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://maurovanetti.itch.io/dei" target="_blank">Play The Game</a> <a href="https://maurovanetti.itch.io/" target="_blank">Mauro's itch.io</a> <a href="https://open-lab.com/" target="_blank">Open Lab</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/maurovanetti" target="_blank"> @maurovanetti</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/pugusel" target="_blank">@pugusel</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ppolsinelli" target="_blank"> @ppolsinelli</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> We are Pino Panzarella, Piero Polsinelli and Mauro Vanetti. Pino and Pietro are part of a small company based in Florence called Open Lab, while Mauro is an independent developer. We came together to answer a call for educational games against online hate speech launched by a European project called Play Your Role. We were supported by the PYR team in our endeavour to create a little game that takes a stance against hate speech in a kind of dark, humourous way. <i>''Tell me about your team and what makes them special!''</i> Pino and Pietro have been making games with the rest of Open Lab for the last 25 years. They made a lot of custom games, mostly educational games, serious games and narrative games. In 2019 they released the commercial game Football Drama for mobile and desktop devices, released on Nintendo Switch too in 2021. They are now working on another narrative game based on a sport, Roller Drama, due 2023. They joined forces with Mauro who's been experimenting with political games, interactive storytelling and games developed by/with kids since 2015. His main achievement in this field is Two Interviewees, a short visual novel about the gender gap, selected for WordPlay London in 2016. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> When you click on a character's portrait, you can read why they approved or disapproved your last hateful posts. We put some effort in trying to make the algorithm model individual reactions in a meaningful yet simple way, and explain it to the player using properly formed sentences in English or Italian. We quite like the result, and the fact that only those players who read the explanations carefully can attain the best scores. <i>''What games inspire you?''</i> There's plenty of political games out there and it would be unfair to point out one or two. We tend to favour those games that deliver a radical message while managing to avoid being preachy; also, we believe that the most effective serious games can cleverly combine mechanical gameplay with storytelling. <i>''What makes a game fun to you?''</i> An interconnected system that defines an interesting world that tells a compelling story that conveys an enlighting message. Exploring it to untangle its intricacies = fun. <i>''What makes a good game designer?''</i> Sticking to one's own principles and see where it leads. <i>''What have you learned since making your first game?''</i> Very little. <i>''What are you most proud of developing for your game?''</i> Pino put the other two in the 5x5 characters' grid. Unfortunately, they tend to become very racist. <i>''How much did your game change from the original concept?''</i> Relatively little. We made it simpler, of course. Originally, we expected the character to become secondary spreaders of online hatred, while in the final version they are just translating the hatred they passively receive online into offline conflicts with their neighbours. We also imagined that the player's feed should contain generated news about the context in which the story unfolds, so that the hateful politician could exploit the political and social climate to his advantage. <i>''Are there any design principles that you use to make your games?''</i> "A lot! Basically, we are always thinking and talking about design principles and then we forget to make the actual thing. For example, «Exaggerate the consequences». One well-placed racist tweet should be enough to turn a previously meek character in a Ku Klux Klan's Grand Wizard. That's not how it works in real life, fortunately, but it makes your point clearer." <i>''What is the biggest success of the development of your game?''</i> WordPlay 2021. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> Making the algorithm subtle enough to be interesting but simple enough to be understandable. <i>''What systems do you use to create game concepts and story characters?''</i> We talked a lot and shared spreadsheets. But it's much more complex than this when we make larger games. <i>''What you believe could have made it better if you were to make your game again?''</i> We could have started from the contents of the hateful posts and worked our way up from there. The content pool is the core of the game but most of it was written down after we had the whole model and UI completed and working. <i>''What surprised you during development?''</i> We didn't expect so much feedback to be needed to make the game model understandable by the player. <i>''What led you to choosing the story for your game?''</i> It's debatable if this game has an actual story, but what goes on looks a lot like a combination of the online behaviour of former US president Donald Trump and Italian right-wing populist Matteo Salvini. <i>''Tell me about the thing you fought most to keep in your game.''</i> Typos and ANNOYING UPPER-CASE WORDS in the posts' content. We felt the urge to correct them but they have to be there, even though we're not sure that everyone in the future will get the references because Twitter has deleted all "his" tweets. <i>''Where do you think the industry is headed and where does your game fit in?''</i> It does not fit in the industry. It's mostly for schools, digital activism and hardcore indies. <i>''How do you support yourself and your team through development?''</i> Football Drama is being sold on the market. Other game projects of ours are funded by schools and universities, cultural institutions, the public sector. We also make some money with teaching and non-game software jobs (aka boringware). <i>''How are your design choices informed by you, your experiences, or your team’s experiences?''</i> Some of us have had some experiences in struggling against racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism and fascism, and/or some family history connected with that. Punching nazis in the 21st century, shooting nazis in the 20th, you know what I mean. <i>''What is something you wish the public knew about game design?''</i> «We need your feedback, otherwise our games will always be too hard and with no tutorial.» <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> Translating it into Italian was awesome, fun, and super-hard. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/07/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Over Easy: A Diner Heist''</div> Julian K. Jarboe Salem, Massachusetts, USA You and your crew are regulars at the local diner. This evening, the driver of a certain scrapyard truck will make a final pit stop at the diner before hauling away the remains of your neighborhood’s beloved, unique, and weird old landmark. Unless, of course, you and your crew can snatch it back. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://motestories.com/resources/games/2021/over-easy/" target="_blank">Play The Game</a> <a href="https://juliankjarboe.com" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href=" https://sissyfist.itch.io" target="_blank">itch.io</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JulianKJarboe" target="_blank">@JulianKJarboe</a> </div> ---- <h2>Interview</h2> <i>''Who are you and your team? What is your game about?''</i> I'm a solo creator with a background in studio art. I'm also the author of a short story collection, <a href ="https://bookshop.org/books/everyone-on-the-moon-is-essential-personnel/9781590216927">"Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel"</a>, but I originally started writing in the context of conceptual art and performance art that make heavy use of text and speech. As a result, my game designs are strongly informed by the perspective that a written game's instructions, for example, should function independently as a work of art, whether the player chooses to actually enact them, only read them, or even just look at them. "Over Easy: A Diner Heist" is a relatively short, flexible, and replayable one-shot for a small to medium group where players can indulge in two of my favorite pulp tropes: novelty roadside attractions, and heist ensembles as found or chosen family. <i>''How long have you been making games?''</i> I've been contributing to games for about five years or so, as a sound designer or in some other behind-the-scenes production role, but a few years ago I wrote a short script for hire for an app-based game and found that I enjoyed it. I've only been focusing on writing my own games and making larger contributions to other people's projects in the last year or so, but right now at least, I feel good about limiting myself to game work that feels interesting to me as an artist and enjoyable to me as a social animal when it's a collaboration. I'm married to Seth Alter, AKA Subaltern Games, and I learned a lot from him about some of the realities of the games industry and the differences between certain disciplines and what the role and job titles-- and working conditions!-- might actually entail. So I don't feel like it's at odds for me to say that I'm both quite serious about game design on a professional level, and also "only" in it for the fun and friends. <i>''What’s your favourite part of your game?''</i> I went absolutely off the rails with the character creation part of "Over Easy" and made a <a href="https://sissyfist.itch.io/townie">"Townie Name Generator"</a> that honestly stands on its own as a mini game. I know "townie" has some real negative connotations for a lot of people, some of which are based in truth, but I do live in a small New England town and wanted to bring some playful good fun to those archetypes instead of the usual narrow-minded and claustrophobic baggage. <i>''What was the biggest challenge of the development of your game?''</i> "Over Easy" was originally commissioned by Mote Stories, who gave me almost complete creative control in exchange for tailoring the work for their unique online platform. It's like a chat-based system, but their software automatically turns everyone's fragmented input into a standard prose fiction format, and it's beautiful to look at, too. I do think "Over Easy" works great as a print-and-play tabletop RPG as well, but ensuring that it really had enough structure to keep many people consistently involved (rather than leaning heavily on facilitator exposition, for example) took more than a few passes of constructive feedback and iteration. <i>''What led you to choosing the story for your game?''</i> I have a soft spot for Interwar and Atomic age industrial nonsense and was feeling bummed about one of the very last old school Sterling Streamliner cars near me closing up shop as an operational diner. I also love heists. You know that thing where the whole heist takes place as a montage within the framing device of someone explaining how they're going to pull it off? I will literally never get tired of that. But it's not the kind of genre that I felt really drawn to for the purposes of a short story or a novel; a lot of the time, when I'm really just in love with a story's elements rather than compelled to tell one specific story, that's my first clue that an idea would work better as a game, because the kind of games I enjoy are about the pleasure of story elements for their own sake. <i>''Is there is anything you would like to add about your game?''</i> I actually solicited Twitter for title suggestions, because I was struggling to find a good pun that I sensed had to be in there somewhere. The working title was just "Diner Heist" with "Dine and Dash???" in parenthesis. Dave Grossman-- yes, that Dave Grossman, of Telltale Games and LucasArts-- replied ever-so casually with "Over Easy," and that was it. It was such a gift. <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/08/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Read The Room''</div> Blah Books Studio Chicago, IL, USA Doors are locked and Grandma is missing! People are confused and you can read their minds somehow! What's going on!? /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://twitter.com/DevinClara" target="_blank">@DevinClara</a> <a href="https://instagram.com/devinclara_f" target="_blank">@devinclara_f</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/jex_ewizabee" target="_blank">@jex_ewizabee</a> </div> ---- <h2 style="text-align: left;">[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

<span class="gameContent"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/09/1.jpg" width="700"> </span> /*Name*/ <div class="Title">''Karen: An Outrage Simulator''</div> Vagabond Dog Toronto, ON, Canada You are Karen - Argue your way through ridiculous scenarios, and get everything you rightfully deserve in this short comedic game about entitlement. /*Artist Links*/<div class="links"> <a href="https://vagabonddog.com/" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/VagabondDog" target="_blank">@VagabondDog</a> </div> /* <div class="info_container" style="font-size: 13px; justify-content: left;"></div> */ <h2>[[Back to Games|Games]]</h2> /*-----------------*/ /*EXTRA CODE*/ <<set $Location to "Games">> <<set $Sidebar to 1>> /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () {$("body").css({ "background-color": "#000", color: "white"});}); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>> <script> function iFrameLoad() { const div = document.createElement('div'); div.innerHTML = ` <div data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src="https://aggie.io/ulbk_39_4m" href="javascript:;" class="art_button"></div> `; } </script>

Greetings literary adventureres. Enter at your own peril into this fantastical world of games where the words play you as you play them. Wrap yourselves in the narrative delights of our Wordplay 2021 exhibitors. Learn more about their games and learn more about them in the links provided. /*Vendors*/ <div class="vendor_container"> <a data-passage="game01" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/01/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Rocket Adrift</p></a> <a data-passage="game05" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/05/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Maxi Molina (SandraMJdev)</p></a> <a data-passage="game03" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/03/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Marafrass/Team Clam</p></a> </div> /* <div class="vendor_container"> </div> */ <div class="vendor_container"> <a data-passage="game04" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/04/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Zeekayart and Michael</p></a> <a data-passage="game07" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/07/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Julian K. Jarboe</p></a> <a data-passage="game08" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/08/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Blah Books Studio</p></a> </div> <div class="vendor_container"> <a data-passage="game09" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/09/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Vagabond Dog</p></a> <a data-passage="game10" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/10/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Orbis Tertius Games</p></a> <a data-passage="game11" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/11/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Matajuegos</p></a> </div> /* <div class="vendor_container"> </div> */ <div class="vendor_container"> <a data-passage="game12" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/12/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Oh, a Rock! Studios</p></a> <a data-passage="game13" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/13/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Insomniac Film Festival</p></a> <a data-passage="game14" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/14/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Lawrence Le</p></a> </div> <div class="vendor_container"> <a data-passage="game15" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/15/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Nice Games Club</p></a> <a data-passage="game17" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/17/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Guilherme Bandini & Thi My Nguyen</p></a> <a data-passage="game19" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/19/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Strange Scaffold</p></a> </div> /* <div class="vendor_container"> </div> */ <div class="vendor_container"> <a data-passage="game02" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/02/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Gus Sainwood</p></a> <a data-passage="game06" class="land_info_container">/*Profile Image*/<div class="land_profile"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/games/06/1.jpg" width="300"></div>/*Name*/<p class="land_name">Mauro Vanetti + Open Lab</p></a> </div> <h2>[[To Speakers|Speakers]]</h2><h2>[[Back to Main|Intro]]</h2>

WordPlay is our free festival celebrating the most interesting uses of writing and words in contemporary games. Each year there will be a curated game showcase, talks by creators about the craft, and ways for the public to learn about making games. <div class="credits_container"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/other/WordPlay2.png" width="180px"> <h2 style="text-align:center;margin-bottom: auto;">WordPlay 2021</h2> <h3 style="text-align:center;margin-bottom: auto;">Created by the Hand Eye Society</h3> <p><strong>Festival Director</strong> Rokashi Edwards <strong>Executive Director</strong> Len Predko <strong>Online Platform Development</strong> Jordan Sparks Brendan Lehman <strong>Technical/Production Director</strong> Jordan Sparks <strong>Production Editor</strong> Aaron Demeter </p> <div class="acknowledgement"> ''WordPlay would not possible without our Supporters and Sponsors'' <a href="https://ontariocreates.ca/" target="_blank"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/other/ontario.png" width="350px"></a> <a href="https://www.cleverendeavourgames.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/other/clever.png" width="200px"></a> </div> </div>

A Template for pages displaying PDF content. <a data-fancybox data-type="iframe" data-src=" " href="javascript:;"> Read Blind Date - Colombia Here <img src=" " style="width:500px"> </a>

/*Twitch Code, needs testing on a host server to work.*/ <div class="twitch-container"> <div id="twitch-embed"></div> <<timed 0s>> <<script>> importScripts("https://embed.twitch.tv/embed/v1.js") .then(function() { new Twitch.Embed("twitch-embed", { width: 1280, height: 720, channel: "HandEyeSociety", }); }); <</script>> <</timed>> </div> <a href="https://twitch.tv/handeyesociety" target="_blank">Hand Eye Society Twitch Link</a> <div class="twitch-container"> /*Schedule*/<h1>Full Schedule</h1> <br> <p><u>''Saturday, Nov 13''</u> ''1:00pm'' Stream starts ''1:05pm'' - Wordplay Exhibitors ''1:15pm'' - Oops, All Characters: How To Write A Hundred Different Humans (Talk) ''2:25pm'' - Wordplay Exhibitors ''2:35pm'' - Cute, Funny, and Sad - Writing on Button City (Talk) ''3:15pm'' - Break ''3:30pm'' - Live Wordplay Game Showcase</p> <p><u>''Sunday, Nov 13''</u> ''1:00pm'' - Stream Starts ''1:05pm'' - Wordplay Exhibitors ''1:15pm'' - Roleplaying Comedy: Letting the player have the last laugh (Talk) ''2:10pm'' - Wordplay Exhibitors ''2:20pm'' - Break ''2:30pm'' - Live Wordplay Game Showcase</p> </div> (All times are approximate in EDT) /*Reset back to default background and font colors*/ /* <<script>> $(document).one(":passageend", function () { $("body").css({ "background-color": "#111111", color: "white"}); }); <</script>> */ <<audio ":all" stop>>

<video width="90%" height="90%" controls> <source src=" " type="video/mp4"> Your browser doesn't support HTML5 video tag. </video> A template passage for video content.

Welcome to the Multi Page. This is an example of how to compartmentalize passages. This could be one of the side-branch narratives that a commissioned author writes. [[Sub-passage 1|sub_1]] [[Sub-passage 2|sub_2]] [[Sub-passage 3|sub_3]] [[Sub-passage 4|sub_4]] Sub-passages are named in the lower case to indicate in searches that they are sub-passages.

Sub passage 1 [[Here's a link.|https://handeyesociety.com/]] Here's an example of adding an iframe with HTML: <html> <div class="container"><iframe class="responsive-iframe" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/9M0JhHiJY5E" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="clipboard-write; encrypted-media;" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

Sub-passage 2

Sub-passage 3

Sub-passage 4

This is an example of a file with a single passage. This is an example of [[a link|https://handeyesociety.com/]].

<span class="main-logo"> <a data-passage="Intro"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/other/WordPlay2.png" width="180px"><br>2021</a></span>

Presented by<span class="SBIcons"> /*NOT WORKING WHEN SPAN CLASS ACTIVE */ <a href="https://handeyesociety.com" target="_blank"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/other/HandEyeLogo_Transparent.png" width="80px"></a> Join us on Discord! <a href="https://discord.gg/urAUjk5" target="_blank"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/other/Discord_logo_web_rounded.png" width="70px"></a></span> /* :: StoryCaption */

/* <div class="icons"> */ <a data-passage="About"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/icons/about.png" width="50px"></a>/*About*/ <a data-passage="Twitch"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/icons/twitch.png" width="50px"></a>/*Twitch*/ /*Random*/<<set _passageList = Story.lookupWith(function (p) { return p.tags.includesAny(["game"]); }).map(function (p) { return p.title; })>> <<link '<img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/icons/random.png" width="60px">' `_passageList.random()`>><</link>> <a data-passage="Games" style="padding-top: 7px;"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/icons/games.png" width="50px"></a>/*Games*/ <a data-passage="Speakers" style="padding-top: 12px;"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/icons/speakers.png" width="65px"></a>/*Games*/ <a href="https://paypal.me/handeyesociety" style="padding-top: 5px;" target="_blank"><img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/icons/donate.png" width="55px"></a> /*Pre-Release Errors<a href="https://forms.gle/NcK6vimkUhpMg1u68" style="font-size: 11px;">Report a Problem</a>*/ /*Post-Release Errors*/<a href="https://forms.gle/A1oq1KVUmtp7KUDQ8" style="font-size: 11px;" target="_blank">Report a Problem</a> /* </div> */<br> /*Feedback Form*/<a href="https://forms.gle/vwYkJw1A8EBSxhTn8" style="font-size: 11px;" target="_blank">Feedback Form</a>

/* Initialise the array being used to story the list of random Passages. */ <<set $randoms to []>> /* Add the name of each of the random Passages to the array by searching for all Passages in the story tagged as 'Artist'. */ <<set _list to Story.lookup("tags", "game")>> <<for _i to 0, _len to _list.length; _i lt _len; _i++>> <<run $randoms.push(_list[_i]['title'])>> <</for>>

<div class="big-logo"> <img src="https://handeyesociety.com/wordplay2021/assets/other/wordplay-logo.png" width="700px"> </div> <div class="Title">''Welcome to WordPlay!''</div> ''WordPlay'' is the Hand Eye Society's free festival celebrating the most interesting uses of writing and words in contemporary games. Each year, we hold this festival featuring a curated game showcase, talks by creators about the craft, interviews with game developers, and ways for the public to learn about making games. For our 9th Annual Wordplay Festival, we are once again bringing the event to you online so you can enjoy the games and talks from the comfort of your own home from this website and our Twitch. This year, our theme is ''Comedy'', so you'll find many Games and Talks that are sure to tickle your funny bone! If you had a good laugh, feel free to let us know in our <a href="https://forms.gle/vwYkJw1A8EBSxhTn8" target="_blank">Feedback Form</a>! Feel free to explore this site to discover wonderful wordy games and enjoy the Wordplay Festival! [[Game Directory|Games]] [[Speaker Directory|Speakers]]

/*Reference for Random Code */ /*Note you do have to change the terms being searched for via tags in the Story.lookup function and the p.tags.includesAny([]) section */ /*Put the following blocks of code in a StoryInit Passage */ /* Initialise the array being used to story the list of random Passages. */ <<set $randoms to []>> /* Add the name of each of the random Passages to the array by searching for all Passages in the story tagged as 'Artist'. */ <<set _list to Story.lookup("tags", "game")>> <<for _i to 0, _len to _list.length; _i lt _len; _i++>> <<run $randoms.push(_list[_i]['title'])>> <</for>> /*StoryInit Code ends */ /*Put the following block of code on the sidebar where you want the Random Button to be. */ /*Random*//*<<set _passageList = Story.lookupWith(function (p) { return p.tags.includesAny(["game"]); }).map(function (p) { return p.title; })>>\ <<link '<img src="https://brokenpencil.com/testing/assets/_buttons/Zine-button.png">' `_passageList.random()`>><</link>>*/

This is an example of a file with a single passage. This is an example of [[a link|https://handeyesociety.com/]].

<h1><<print passage()>></h1> Below, you'll find details on the selected speakers for Wordplay 2021. All Talks by our guests will be broadcast on our ''<a data-passage="Twitch">Twitch Page</a>'' throughout the festival. After the broadcast, you'll be able to watch the Talks at anytime as a VOD on our ''<a href="https://twitch.tv/handeyesociety" target="_blank"> Hand Eye Society Twitch Channel</a>''. Enjoy! <h2><a data-passage="Twitch">Watch the Talks on Twitch</a></h2> ---- <div class="Title">Saturday, Nov 13, 2021</div> <h2>''Oops, All Characters: How To Write A Hundred Different Humans*'' ''A Character Writing Panel''</h2> Video games have characters; oftentimes, many characters. From RPG towns full of one-liner randoms, to visual novels with 30 person main casts, game writers constantly need to fill space with unique and memorable voices. Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, oftentimes pointless - this panel seeks to share practical ways game writers can harness their brain to produce characters that stick with players. Many, many characters. The panel will have a light-hearted, conversational bent to it. Attention will be given to writing funny characters, in keeping with the comedy theme of Wordplay, while also delving into pulling deeper emotions from players - basically: how to leverage a large cast to make the player feel Many Things. ''<i>Host & Panel Organizer</i>'' ''Colton David'' (He/Him) Writer at Lo-Fi Games Colton is a writer and narrative designer based out of beautiful Toronto, Canada. For his day job, he writes with Lo-Fi Games on the sequel to the hit sandbox RPG Kenshi. In his off-time he develops games with Bad Pet, notably releasing Devil Express in March of 2020. Devil Express has gone on to be one of the top 10 highest rated adventure games on itch.io! Currently Colton is working on Anti, a narrative platformer, with his friends at Bad Pet. <a href="http://twitter.com/mrboyfriend666" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/bkq24FgOxNs?t=6170" target="_blank">Video</a> ''<i>Confirmed Panelists</i>'' ''Carrie Patel'' (She/Her) Game Director at Obsidian Entertainment Carrie has been writing with Obsidian since 2013, writing and co-leading the Pillars of Eternity franchise, narrative designing The Outer Worlds, and directing an exciting unannounced project. Aside from her game writing, Carrie is a published author, having released acclaimed speculative fiction novels: The Buried Life (2015), Cities and Thrones (2015), and more! <a href="http://twitter.com/carrie_patel" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/mjBWnOOEMDw" target="_blank">Video</a> ''Giselle Francis'' (She/Her) Writer at Red Thread Games Giselle is a writer and game designer, currently working on Dustborn, an upcoming title being developed by Red Thread Games. Previous to that, Giselle has worked on Project Alina, a puzzle-action RPG for Microfun Inc. As well, Giselle has also done advocacy work and panels with Latinx in Gaming. <a href="http://twitter.com/bewarethesiren" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/L_r2GsqsNt8" target="_blank">Video</a> ''Cobysoft Joe'' (He/Him, They/Them) Writer, Artist, and Composer of Dome-King Cabbage Cobysoft Joe is the one-man band behind Cobysoft Co. a real (but also fictional) gaming company that makes the award winning Dome-King Cabbage. Dome-King Cabbage is a visual novel that takes place within the world of a monster collecting RPG. Joe currently lives in the Midwest of the United States after having spent three years in Japan teaching English. Joe spends his spare time making 3D images on his computer and playing with his hamster Thimble. <a href="http://twitter.com/cobysoftco" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/41KMZ5Lae9U" target="_blank">Video</a> ''Jaclyn Seto'' (She/Her) Writer at Respawn Entertainment Starting her career in the medical field, Jaclyn transitioned from physician’s assistant, to writing on Apex Legends, carrying with her a unique insight into both fields. An avid fan-fiction writer in her youth, Jaclyn persisted with her passion, graduating from Vancouver Film School’s screenwriting program in 2019, then working on Project Alina, a puzzle-action RPG for Microfun Inc. <a href="http://twitter.com/jaccplays" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/uQBKoZIYNrs" target="_blank">Video</a> ''Marina Kittaka'' (She/Her) Co-Director at Analgesic Productions Currently working on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1248840/Sephonie/">Sephonie</a>. <a href="http://twitter.com/even_kei" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <a href="http://marinakittaka.com" target="_blank">Website</a> ''Melos Han-Tani'' (He/Him) Co-Director at Analgesic Productions Currently working on <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1248840/Sephonie/">Sephonie</a>. <a href="http://twitter.com/han_tani" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@meloshantani" target="_blank">TikTok</a> ---- <div class="Title">Saturday, Nov 13, 2021</div> /*Name*/ <h2>''Cute, Funny, and Sad - Writing on Button City''</h2> ''Ryan Woodward / Subliminal'' (He/Him) Albuquerque NM, USA In this talk Ryan Woodward goes over the creation of Button City and how sincerity emerged from having an emotive base in writing. <a href="https://subliminalgaming.com/" target="_blank">Website</a> <a href="http://www.buttoncitygame.com" target="_blank">Button City Game Website</a> <a href="https://subliminalgaming.itch.io/button-city" target="_blank">Game Itch Page</a> <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/1273750/Button_City/" target="_blank">Game Steam Page</a> ---- <div class="Title">Sunday, Nov 14, 2021</div> /*Name*/ <h2>''Roleplaying Comedy: How To Make The Player Tell The Joke''</h2> ''Martin Hanses / marafrass'' (He/Him) Montreal, PQ (originally Vasa, Finland) In summary, the talk will focus on an approach to RPG game design and writing that makes the player the comedian, rather than having them interact with joke-spouting NPCs. For the standup RPG Clam Man 2, I did tons of research into not only comedy, but into ways of allowing the player become the active part of a comedic interaction. Most comedy games have the player take the role of the "straight man" in a strange and bizarre world, with most of the comedy coming from their relatively reasonable replies to whatever the NPCs they meet have to say. In Clam Man 2, the focus was always to let the player be the funny person - not just in the literal sense of telling jokes on stage, which functions as boss fights in Clam 2, but in every interaction with every NPC. The talk would touch on that process, the writing philosophy behind it, and how Clam Man 2 is designed to at every point let the player feel like the funny character, reversing the traditional roles. I've previously been interviewed about this subject for articles and Youtube channels, and it's something I'm incredibly passionate about. Hopefully this sound like an interesting topic - I know I'd love to do a talk on it! <a href="https://marafrass.itch.io/" target="_blank">Itch Page</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/marafrass" target="_blank">Twitter</a> <h2>[[To Games|Games]]</h2><h2>[[Back to Main|Intro]]</h2>

Welcome to WordPlay!

WordPlay is the Hand Eye Society's free festival celebrating the most interesting uses of writing and words in contemporary games. Each year, we hold this festival featuring a curated game showcase, talks by creators about the craft, interviews with game developers, and ways for the public to learn about making games. For our 9th Annual Wordplay Festival, we are once again bringing the event to you online so you can enjoy the games and talks from the comfort of your own home from this website and our Twitch.

This year, our theme is Comedy, so you'll find many Games and Talks that are sure to tickle your funny bone! If you had a good laugh, feel free to let us know in our Feedback Form!

Feel free to explore this site to discover wonderful wordy games and enjoy the Wordplay Festival!

Game Directory
Speaker Directory