Announcing The Winners Of The Public Domain Game Jam!
from the like-it's-1923 dept
The votes are in, and it's time to announce the winners of the Gaming Like It's 1923 game jam!
At the beginning of January, we decided to celebrate the long-awaited entry of new works into the public domain with a game jam, inviting designers to submit games of all kinds based on newly-copyright-free works from 1923. We got way more entries than we expected, and handed them off to our huge judging panel of game designers and copyright experts, who left comments and nominated them in our six prize categories. Now we've tallied up the votes and reviews, so without further delay, here are the winners of Gaming Like It's 1923:
Best Analog Game — Permanence by Jackson Tegu
This award goes to the best overall non-computer game, with a clear consensus emerging from the judge's review scores. Permanence is perplexing at first glance, and requires some serious prep work, but sometimes that's the cost of a game this unique and creative. Using the format of a book that can be read in two directions, it weaves the painting Metempsychosis by Yokoyama Taikan and poetry from the book The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran into an artistic gaming experience that isn't quite like anything you've seen before.
Best Digital Game — Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to Steal Treasure by Alex Blechman
The award for best digital game goes to this short, sweet, simple, and above all entertaining take on Robert Frost's famous poem. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to Steal Treasure tasks you with jazzing up the verse by subbing in some new material to entertain a modern gaming audience. Give it a try, or two or three...
Best Adaptation — God of Vengeance by jrgoldb
This award goes to the game that most faithfully and meaningfully adapted its source material, carrying its original intent forth into a new medium. God of Vengeance, based on the 1923 Yiddish language play of the same name, is an analog storytelling game that puts players in the main roles from the play and provides an interesting mechanical framework for improvising scenes and exploring the themes of a work they might otherwise have never encountered.
Best Remix — Will You Do The Fandango? by Lari Assmuth
This award goes to the game that made the best combined use of multiple public domain works. Will You Do The Fandango? starts with the 1923 film Scaramouche, but then draws on the whole world of Commedia dell'Arte and the mechanics from games like Apocalypse World and Lady Blackbird. The result is a high-energy tabletop roleplaying game, complete with dice and stats, in which a troupe of traveling players tour revolutionary France engaging in bombastic drama and romance — with printable masquerade masks to boot!
Best Deep Cut — Not a Fish by J. Walton
This award is for the best use of an obscure or unexpected source that doesn't appear on the typical roundup lists of works entering the public domain, and the cuts don't get much deeper than Not a Fish: a game based on a pair of 1923 science journal articles about Amphioxus fisheries in China. Like the jigsaw puzzles that inspired the mechanics, the game starts out seeming jumbled, but it quickly starts to resolve into an exploration of social and political themes you might not be expecting from the subject matter.
Best Visuals (Tie!) — Chimneys and Tulips by litrouke, and The Garden of God by DreadRoach
There wasn't a single stand-out winner for the best visuals category, and understandably so — one month is scarcely enough time to create or assemble a game's worth of stunning graphics. Instead, the award for best visuals goes to two browser-based submissions which, while they have their limitations, certainly caught our eye.
Chimneys and Tulips is a creative arrangement of four poems by E. E. Cummings, with a focus on beautiful minimalist design. Though the gameplay is somewhat lacking, a lot of work and vision went into the colorful style in which the works are presented, and while the interactive elements may be simple, they aren't arbitrary. Fans of poetry, and of typography, will find plenty to explore.
The Garden of God is a short narrative experience based on the novel of the same name by H. De Vere Stacpoole. It's built in RPG Maker MV, and most of the visuals are stock sprites and graphics from that tool — but a lot of thought and effort went into how they were used. The game has multiple unique settings and maps, and well-choreographed scripted scenes with attention to background detail.
All the winners in all categories will receive their choice of a copy of our public domain card game CIA: Collect It All, or one of our copyright-themed t-shirts from Teespring. We'll be reaching out to all the winners on their games' Itch pages, so if you see your game listed here, keep an eye on your incoming comments!
Thanks again to everyone who submitted a game — there are lots of entries worth checking out in addition to the winners. And thanks again to our panel of judges:
- Whitney “Strix” Beltrán
- Nicky Case
- Eric Goldman
- Charlie Hall
- Carolyn Homer
- Daphne Keller
- Albert Kong
- J Li
- Mark Lemley
- Randy Lubin
- Mike Masnick
- Jason Morningstar
- Rebecca Tushnet
- April Kit Walsh
We'll likely be back with another game next year when, if all goes according to plan, the public domain will continue to grow!
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Filed Under: 1923, board games, copyright, game jam, games, public domain, public domain game jam, rpg, video games
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Winners
Everyone wins when works are added to the public domain. :)
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Re: Winners
Exactly! More games means more people can have fun the way they want. Idk why anyone would put down something like that. I get it if the game is reaming you with micro transactions or something but not this game.
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"God of Vengeance" doesn't look like game, but lots of WORK!
More entries than you expected? Hmm. Were LOW, then. You have more lipstick than pig here. With so few, you're STUCK.
Eventually risked opening that .docx. You can verify this if still available, but I advise not wasting time.
There's no rules -- nor much else -- in the "rough cut" that I read. GOV is not a game but an exercise in acting -- for serious persons. 4 characters are to extemporize dialogue about the given sitch: husband, former "sex worker" wife, their daughter (whom the wife may advise to, er, make her own bed and lie in it), and "The Ensemble", an even more vague multiple role.
I'm sure that with Katzenjammer "Yiddish" and skilled actors well prepared ahead of time with SCRIPT, besides diverting from the grim premise, could be fine, but calling it a GAME? Es is nicht der usual schmeckin', du sieht?
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Re: "God of Vengeance" doesn't look like game, but lots of WORK!
Don't worry - I assure you nobody is going to invite you to play it, or any other game.
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Re: "God of Vengeance" doesn't look like game, but lots of WORK!
Amusing how it's always copyright's biggest supporters who are the first to mock and criticize the creative output of others. Especially those who are different and do things in the traditional way through the traditional corporate giant conglomerates. I wonder why...*
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Re: Re: "God of Troll"
Because Blue Balls only supports Copyright when it's wielded by corporations to censor or spy on people.
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Awww, someone is a little cranky-wanky about not being able to makey-wakey something of their oooooooooooooown!
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Re:
Blue Balls there can't do his own thing because you will dox him, Stone. At least I saw someone claim that is why the people who think TD is doing it wrong can't start their own blog.
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Re: Re:
Yes, it was one claiming that asking who another is as a supposed creator, or where we could find their awesome blog where they expound on their thoughts and arguments rather than merely hint at them at great length and repeatedly, was an attempt to provoke enough info to dox them. Because that is what the commentariat, i mean mob here, does all the time so we can continue the lulz of leaving flaming bags of dog poo in front of their doors and using their credit cards. True story.
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Re: Re: Re:
Why the fuck would I do that? No, I'd rather know who these assholes are so I can avoid their work. You know, like tp, who complains why the man on the street isn't giving him money even though the mobile phone he'd already paid for contains a tiny bit of code tp put in. Which he doesn't cite.
I mean, the alternative is to believe these critics may not be truthful when claiming that they're inventors and artists being "hurt" when Techdirt profiles copyright trolls...
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The regular commenters around here do not “dox” people. (We have better things to do, anyway. Like writing long-ass comments.) The reason we ask for information such as names and blog URLs or factual citations such as sales numbers is because anonymous cowards such as yourself keep claiming to be super-successful artists/authors without proof. Your credibility takes a hit when you fail to provide the receits, which is why no one here takes you seriously any more when you claim to be a successful writer or musician or whatever the hell you are this week.
And as for the blog thing: All the “TD is censoring me!” types love to complain about how their voice is “silenced” here, but when asked about where the hell else they post their opinions aside from Techdirt, they all mysteriously have nothing to say on the matter. It’s as if they come here to troll the site and don’t really have any opinions worth sharing. Imagine that.
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er, more on topic, i am hoping the jam page and links stay up for further perusal
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Re:
Me too, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to Steal Treasure by Alex Blechman is fun
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Great Jam
Hard to believe were already on to gaming like it's 1926! This was a fun jam and the start of a great tradition!
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The Last Word
“The regular commenters around here do not “dox” people. (We have better things to do, anyway. Like writing long-ass comments.) The reason we ask for information such as names and blog URLs or factual citations such as sales numbers is because anonymous cowards such as yourself keep claiming to be super-successful artists/authors without proof. Your credibility takes a hit when you fail to provide the receits, which is why no one here takes you seriously any more when you claim to be a successful writer or musician or whatever the hell you are this week.
And as for the blog thing: All the “TD is censoring me!” types love to complain about how their voice is “silenced” here, but when asked about where the hell else they post their opinions aside from Techdirt, they all mysteriously have nothing to say on the matter. It’s as if they come here to troll the site and don’t really have any opinions worth sharing. Imagine that.
made the Last Word by Gary