Get your Game Jam On!
On Saturday, the 12th, I am helping host a Code Chix Game Jam at the Madison Public Library, in The Bubbler.
Don’t Panic
As a video gamer for most of my life, with boardgames and pen and paper rpgs thrown in there as well. I’m so very thrilled to be able to share some of that passion.
I can still remember playing InfoCOM text games in my neighbor’s basement. I must have been fairly young, as I also associate this time with my crush on the fox in the animated movie Robin Hood.
I remember sitting on worn wooden chairs in front of a huge monitor, sunlight filtering through the fluttering curtains. The screen was black, with white text reading:
You wake up. The room is spinning very gently round your head. Or at least it would be if you could see it which you can’t.
It is pitch black.
>
It was my first foray into text adventure games and, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, will always remain a fav. HHG, based on the novel of the same name, was written in a major humorous tone that makes running into bad poetry and crazy aliens and tea a deep satisfying fiction experience. Also a frustrating one, you can die in may silly ways.
That’s a link to a 30th anniversary edition, but I’m sure basic versions are still floating around the net.
Twine
I’ll be mentoring a group who will make an interactive text game with the Twine tool. I love how easy it is for anyone to make a game or tell a story with Twine. It takes all the pain out of hypertext and makes the process just as fun as the time I first discovered HTML links.
I love how you could make hundreds of games and stories with just the basics, but that you can also expand and use CSS and images and sound to create a different experience. You can go even further with variables and some basic code commands that keep track of what you may carry in your bag, or how many times you’ve wandered into a room.
We will have a great group of Code Chix and general public playing along all day with the goal to plan and start some games and learn in the process. If you have time on Saturday, you should wander through. 😀
