Fractured Birthday TTRPG Game Jam Results!

[radiantfracture]

Hey my game jam is over! I'm announcing the results a little early.

Folks, that was brilliant. 32 people signed up, and there were 10 entries in the end! (Plus one after the deadline.) I ended up giving awards to four games instead of three because I liked so many.

It is damn difficult to be in charge of judging things, but I do feel like the small prize encouraged people to enter. It's so nice to win a thing.

Here are the four cup-of-coffee winners (couldn't stop at three in the end). I had lots of criteria, but it came down to -- how easy was it to tell a story that I loved through the game? All of these games helped me build a story that I wouldn't have come up with on my own and that surprised, delighted, and moved me.

• Monster in the Wilderness - ursula - a beautiful abstraction of the themes of Beowulf (or that's how I read it) - gorgeous
  
• A Moment too Late - ToriBee - You are a time-travelling tortoise who always arrives too late for the Major Historical Event and has to piece things together from the aftermath - Crept up on me!
  
• A Game of Tower - yhlee - Fantasy, surrealism, and personal growth via confronting your lies about yourself - delicious
  
• Kintsugi - elusis - A supple yet strong spine for stories of damage and repair - poignant
  

There was lots of fun and story to be had in all the games, though, and I recommend reading / playing the others.

{rf}


PS what is a good name for the cup-of-coffee prize and/or winner?

Comments

[honigfrosch]

You are a time-travelling tortoise [...] Crept up on me!

I see what you did there :D

[radiantfracture]

Haha would you believe me if I said it was an accident?

[honigfrosch]

I see what you accidentally did there :D

[radiantfracture]

Hahaha

If I do another will you make a game?

[honigfrosch]

I think it's too early in the morning for me to even parse that question 😅

[sabotabby]

So cool.

[radiantfracture]

It was so great! I genuinely like and would replay the games.

Maybe I'll do one in the spring with a new theme.

[elusis]

EEEEEEE wow! I'd like to thank the Academy Our Benevolent Host, & so on.

Call it the Frackies? ;)

I would like you to use my cup of coffee to buy yourself a book on the Kindle (or some other pleasure.)

And I would LOVE to know more about the story you told with my game.

[radiantfracture]

I found the order of the tables/questions really helpful for evolving the story, which kind of grew around the questions in a spiral fashion rather than progressing in a linear way, although the tables also offer a kind of throughline.

I was the apprentice of a master leatherworker. All I did was break the hook on the back of the door that held his apron, but this small inconvenience disrupted the whole workings of the shop and threw everything out of order. Every other square inch of the walls was covered in tools, in half-finished work, in things he thought he might need ready to hand.

I tried to replace the apron-hook with a button-hook, but it didn't hang properly, and then I tried to fix it by making myself the hook and holding the apron for him, but I was never in the right place when he wanted it, and I couldn't do my other duties efficiently. The shop began to lose money and my livelihood was threatened.

However, I was secretly pleased about the whole thing, because the master often contemptuously refused commissions for wealthy or prominent clients, and now he would have to take them and get rich and famous.

[elusis]

This story is absolutely unlike anything I could possibly have imagined. It's amazing.

[ursula]

This was so much fun from beginning to end. Thank you for making all of it possible!

I am fascinated that you thought of Beowulf, because my initial inspiration was the much humbler Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I guess there is something to be said for deep story patterns!

[radiantfracture]

AMAZING TWIST.

I love that even more. I 100% was like "oh whoa great Beowulf adaptation."

You're right -- one point for team Tale Type Index. I've always thought of Goldilocks as the monster, though.

How may I deliver your cup of coffee?

[ursula]

I see you figured out a solution to the coffee problem (via a very obvious method that I'd completely forgotten I'd set up). Thank you!!