Observations of the Fox

I've finally gotten the page up for Come One Come All. It's a weird game, it didn't get a great response from Little Game Chef, but it's out there now. Anyone is free to have a look at it, manipulate it, modify it, and generally play with it in whatever way they feel improves the experience. I might go back to it once I've finished working on my Quincunx graphic novel, or my new series of children's books "The Adventures of Butterball and Skitz". (Yes..that's right, I'm starting yet another project. You can blame my wife for this one.)

I've just admitted to writing "Come One Come All" for Little Game Chef. It was a bit of a monster, but it got some ideas out of my system. I thought that I had gotten them out in a coherent fashion, but I guess I was wrong. The game concept is a step toward realising my Brigaki Djili idea, in two ways. Firstly, it is a game of communal storytelling. A single focus drives a story and the players collaborate on uncovering a collective truth. Secondly, it is a game described from the perspective of an anthropologist. A game developed from a ritual described by an outsider. I'm trying to write things in such a way that they are approachable by someone who has no idea about roleplaying games. Perhaps something that might have been developed in the late 19th century as a parlor game; maybe based on Ouija boards and penny-dreadful mysticism. It's probably even connected to my current thought patterns on Art Nouveau style gaming. I guess these two concepts need a bit more...

I just re-read the rules for Little Game Chef and one of the rules explicitly states that you are allowed to talk about your entries on your blog (if you so choose). But at this stage, I'll just hold off. I could write pages about my insights...maybe even write more than the length of the game. I've had a quick look at the other entrants so far, and there is an interesting mix, some short...some long. Some following the traditional forms of roleplaying, and others pushing into that weird role-playing space that I'm associating with Scandinavian play styles. Some clever short form games, I probably should have considered last year's "Harper Award" when writing mine (write a game that fits on 2 sides of a single page....NO MORE!!!), as normal I went a bit too descriptive. I'm most intrigued by the game "Have you seen the Yellow Sign?" because every time I download it, my pdf reader just gives me a black screen...very zen. I'm wondering if the c...

I've had a habit recently, a coming up with great idea then releasing it to the world through a contest entry. That's the theory anyway. Sometimes the ideas don't take (I like to think that the ideas are simply too revolutionary, and people aren't ready for them yet)...sometimes I probably just don't explain them well enough. Little Game Chef is on now. ...and so, another of my ideas bordering genius and insanity is coming to fruition. But the judges have asked that we work alone, not posting our ideas on the various forums where the contest was advertised. This post is basically a reminder to myself, a chance to reveal the various ideas and research regarding the tool I'm using in my Little Game Chef entry. Suffice to say, it should link into the contests theme of "comedy" pretty well. Especially in an immersionist way.