It is that time of the year again, it's time for small games!
What is the micro fiction games jam?
Well, each year I run a small games jam where I post up a theme and people try and create a game with in in 280 characters or less. This year MFGJ started on the 18th and will be running until the 25th. This years theme is:
Item, Alcove and Haunt
Which I think is a super cool theme that allows people to really play with locations and things in the real world, maps, books, recessed areas in churches, etc...
How?
It is quite simple really.
- Read the theme
- Write a game in 280 characters or less.
Once you have your game you can write it on a scrap of paper and let it be free in the wind, or scream it into a cave mouth if that is what you like to do; I am not the boss of you. But here on the internet you can share it on your social with the tag #MFGJ and submit it to be preserved forever on the Micro Fiction Games Jam website along with all the other great games.
Why?
It's fun.
Limits are good for creativity. Having to work within a really tight character limit is an interesting thing to do. You have to, at a point, start being clever with your wording to try and fit it all in. Add having to work within a specific theme to that give you quite the interesting challenge,
It also makes for a really good writing warm up.
Most of all it is just fun though.
But you cant make a game that small, it is impossible.
Wrong!
Games in this tight format can push some really creative and interesting boundaries of what we call games. Here are some examples from previous years:
Tiny Rivulets by Lari Assmuth - This game is an introspective played using rain drops on a window.
Andy's Attic by Andy Wood - Stacking and searching for things in a dice based attic.
Years of Mud by Alfred Valley - Using words to describe play.
Crush Clock by Logan Timmins - Meet a stranger.
But I can write a game, I am not a game designer!
YES YOU ARE!
You invented games, and worlds to play those games in, all the time when you were a kid. Everybody can design a game if they want to.
You absolutely can write a game in just 280 character, and if you have never written a game before then this is the perfect moment to give it a go. It doesn't matter if it is the best game ever written or now, because the act of creating it in the first place is just as important at times.
You can make a game, and you should.
Be like a kid again, design a game that makes no sense, or an epic in a tiny box.
GO WRITE A GAME!
