05 May 2021
Games in the Library and Games in the Woods
Congratulations to the winner, runners up and everyone who made a game last month for Leeds Libraries Games Jam on Novels That Shaped Our World, which invited jammers to create playful interactive adaptations of books in the BBC’s Novels that Shaped Our World list. To accompany this jam, they programmed a fantastic series of events, which if you missed seeing live, or want to re-watch, can be found in this YouTube playlist.
I absolutely love the premise of the winning submission Frankenstein's Double Wedding, Or, The Modern P…romeo…ethius by WretchedBees (Will Binns). You need a deck of cards to play this solo or cooperative game. Playing as Dr. Frankenstein, with the help of both your monster and betrothed, the game’s aim is to organise a double wedding, arranging catering, a florist, a venue and inviting wedding guests. Not forgetting, that you also need to create a spouse for your monster, before you can both get wed.
Well deserved recognition also goes to the two runners up, these are The Open Wizarding Challenge by Suzini56, where to win, players navigate rooms and corridors of their wizarding school, dodging moving staircases and obstacles, aiming to be the first to reach the exit with their bag of collected items, picked up on the way. Also, Fortune of War: A game of Napoleonic era Naval Life by webcowgirl, which is based on Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander books. Writing about her submission she says “this game tries to capture the flavor of the books, with its humor and humanity. Winning isn't just about money, it is ultimately also about pride, honor, and dignity.” Something we would all do well to remember.
Other #NTSOWgamesjam submissions re-worked Pride and Prejudice, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener. You can check these out on the jam’s itch.io entries page. Being a Sandman graphic novels fan, I enjoyed looking at Of You by DarrenLEdwards, which has been structured so this tabletop roleplaying game could also be based on many other fantastical worlds such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Neverending Story, The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, The Chronicles of Narnia, His Dark Materials etc.
Well I have posted my game for #NTSOWGamesJam it hasn't been tested, I hope that it is at least vaguely playable https://t.co/LGSGtS6bXF
— Darren Edwards (@DarrenLEdwards) April 25, 2021
This is the first #TTRPG that I have actually "finished", so it is good to get something out there even if it needs playtesting
If exploring fantasy worlds and playing games has inspired you to want to make a game, or if you are a seasoned game maker, then you may want to take part in our Games In the Woods jam this month, which I am running with Ash Green, Marion Tessier from Story Circles and Kingston Upon Thames Libraries, and Cheryl Tipp. This is an online tree themed game jam for all ages, which will run throughout the duration of the Urban Tree Festival. There will be an online launch event on Saturday 15th May with inspiring examples of interactive digital experiences featuring trees and a virtual “show & tell” event on Sunday 23rd May for jammers to celebrate their creations.
Before and during the Urban Tree Festival, game jammers can meet and chat with organisers and each other on our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/qWXH8NcjHE, so please join and say hello on there and use #gamesinthewoods on social media to share images and details of your work in progress.
You are welcome to join alone or in a team to create digital and analogue games, interactive fiction, web comics, board games, escape games, card games – anything you want! The only constraints are time, the theme and your imagination. We especially encourage creative re-use of images from the British Library’s Flickr collection of digitised 19th century books, do check out these online Flora and Fauna galleries. There is also a fantastic curated selection of wildlife and environmental sound recordings picked by my colleague Cheryl Tipp, which you can use in your creations. These are available via this SoundCloud playlist.
Cheryl is also speaking at a free Digital Nature online event next Monday, 10th May, 19:30 - 20:30. Chaired by Irini Papadimitriou, Creative Director at Future Everything, this event also features Ben Eaton from Invisible Flock (read more about their woodland work Faint Signals here), and author of books on nature and technology Sue Thomas. This is part of the British Library’s springtime season of events The Natural Word, which explores nature writing and reflects on our need to reimagine our relationship with the environment. Hope to see you there.
This post is by Digital Curator Stella Wisdom (@miss_wisdom)