In Praise of Game Jams
In Praise of Game Jams
Make Small Games for Fun
Matthew Orr
I recently wrote my first LARP (live-action roleplaying game). It is very small and might not be very good, but I think there’s “something” to it. It’s very small. It was made quickly. And it was made for friends. I’d like to take these three points and expand on each a bit with an end to encouraging you to make more small games.
Make Them Small
I have been a fan of making very small games for a few years now. It basically began when I discovered the 200 Word RPG Challenge (Shout out to Jax, who used to run the Challenge). The idea is very simple. Write a game in only 200 words. No layout, no art, not much space. I appreciate the challenge of making such a focused game and I have read plenty of incredible games over the years of the challenge. Sadly, the Challenge is not currently active. But I don’t need the Challenge to make the games. Constraints can fuel creativity, after all. I found it a short step from making a 200 word game once a year, to making them regularly. It’s not that much work to write a game that small. It can be done in just a few minutes once you get the hang of it. At least the first draft. I’ve always believed there’s a lot of value in finishing projects. Even if it’s a small game, once you complete one, you’ve done it; you’ve made a whole game! The small stakes of making small things allows you to make them more often and experiment with more ideas. Once I’d expanded my idea of what a game can be out from 150 page books with full color art, a world of games opened up.
Make Them Fast
After doing the 200 Word RPG Challenge, I was in the mood for more game jams. If you haven’t encountered this term before, it’s like a musical “jam session,” but, you make a game. Lots of game jams exist, especially over on itch.io. The next one I participated in was The Gatsby Jam, hosted by Jess and Alex of Wannabe Games, to mark The Great Gatsby entering public domain. You can watch a great video about it here. Gatsby Jam was a month long. Sometimes games are made in a week, in a weekend, in 24 hours. Then there’s Daniel Kwan and the Asians Represent podcast crew who did a 15 minute game jam during Breakout Con and put it on the show. This idea so captured me, I recorded several 15 minute game jams at conventions in 2023. Such as with Crystal Mazur at Gamehole Con and the Scryptid Games crew at Pax Unplugged. Making a game quickly is a different constraint than making a short game. But it leads to a similar “first thought, best thought” sort of creation process. There’s an intense energy I have found to game jams. There’s no time to get everything perfect, so you don’t worry about that. Perfect is the enemy of done. The game jam process is more about the active creative energy than about producing a complete, good, or even playable game. But some of these games have in fact been worth writing down! Or more likely, developing further after the fact.
Give Them Away
These aspects of short and fast combined together when I joined a Discord channel where we not only discuss games, but regularly pitch and craft new ones. It’s basically a continuous game jam for tiny games. Thanks to Graham Gentz for the invite to this community. Really, the word community is the key part here. Putting a game up on the Internet for an unknown number of people to see is one thing. Writing up something knowing a couple dozen people, most of whom you know by name, and who are going to look at it, is another. It’s all supportive comments, too. It’s the culture of the place. The group wants to see what you’ll do with a silly picture or a weird idea, not tear you apart for less than perfect execution. I love seeing how three or four of us will come up with very different games based on the same starting point. It’s both game-making and practice in game-making. It’s an invitation to take risks and try new things. Plus, I feel safe doing so because it’s not much effort invested, and it’s all for fun.
Practice is Practice
To sum this up, I feel certain that tiny games have an end beyond the simple fun of making them. If you are looking to make larger scale games (more pages, more character options) with higher stakes (money on the line for art, backers looking for the finished product), you can do a lot worse to build your skills than practice by making games all the time. The more you make, the more you improve your process of game design. I’m not really saying anything new here. If you are supported in a community of others (on Twitch, on Discord, at your friendly local game store), so much the better. If you don’t have a group like that already, consider starting one!
So, my first LARP. We were challenging each other to remix mass market board games. I was given Twister. It just seemed right to make something involving being up and moving around. I don’t think I would have made a LARP if I wasn’t in this particular group. Will I make more? Maybe. The second one is always easier than the first.
All Twisted Up Together
Place colored circles on your body where your character will be touched:
Yellow - friendly touch (handshake, butt pat, hug)
Blue - nurturing touch (hand on shoulder, lifting the chin)
Green - sexual touch (caress, kiss)
Red - violent touch (slap, stab, punch)
This is a touching game. You decide what your comfort and safety is.
Spin the spinner—all you have as the seed for your character is Left Foot, Right Hand, etc.
Interact with the other characters. You probably don't know each other. You might. Find out who you are playing. Who you can be to each other. What you can do for each other.
If you and another player think it makes sense, you may touch one of their circles, fulfilling that part of their story. That circle is removed from the player’s body.
Decide together who should keep the circle—representing which character took more from the encounter.
Once all your circles have been touched and removed you may only touch one more circle.
The game ends when all of the players have gotten to the point that they do not want any of the remaining characters to touch any of their remaining circles.
Debrief. Who were these characters? How do they differ from you?
This IGDN blog article is brought to you by Matthew Orr, Creative Director of Wet Ink Games. If you want to get in touch with the contributor they can be reached at wetinkmatt@gmail.com or visit their website at wetinkgames.com.