Game Jam Winner Spotlight: The Great Gatsby Tabletop Roleplaying Game

from the gaming-like-it's-1925 dept

Last week, we took a look at ~THE GREAT GATSBY~, one of the recently-announced winners of our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925. Today, we're moving on to our second spotlight, and looking at the winner of the Best Adaptation category, The Great Gatsby: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game by Segoli.

Best Adaptation is always an interesting category in these jams, because every entry is on some level an adaptation, but that doesn't mean they are all truly good candidates for the prize. Some make use of elements of a public domain work in a way that detaches them from their source, others focus so closely on the source that it is more like a study of the original — both those things can be amazing, and both approaches show up among our winners this year. But there's also something special about a game that turns a public domain work into something brand new while also carrying forth and further exploring its original meaning and context. That's the kind of game that is a candidate for Best Adaptation, and that's the kind of game The Great Gatsby: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is.

As the name suggests, the game follows the contours of a typical TTRPG, with players taking on various characters and participating in a story (in this case, the story of The Great Gatsby, at least to begin with...) aided by a game master and some dice rolls. What makes it especially interesting as an adaptation is how it frames things for the game master: they are given a concise synopsis of the events of the novel, and encouraged to focus on whether their players are making more traditional choices that adhere to the original story, or wilder choices that rapidly diverge from it. Whichever way the players are leaning, the GM is encouraged to act as a counterbalance, throwing in fresh twists to push a traditional story off-course, or adding period-appropriate obstacles that force more divergent players to remember and address the setting. A lot of conventional wisdom says GMs should always try to flow with their players and take the game in the stylistic direction they want to take it, and downplay the idea that the GM acts "in opposition" to the players, but the framing of the advice in this game is actually quite brilliant: it means the players' tastes will shape the challenges they face in a satisfying way, while also keeping the game orbiting around the work it is adapting, and examining that work from different angles depending on the way the players want to interact with it.

Of course, there's another great way to win our hearts here at Techdirt, and that's by putting ideas around copyright and the public domain directly inside a game. The Gatsby TTRPG does exactly that, and it's just great. See, there's something I haven't mentioned yet: while the setting and story is firmly rooted in the novel, the player characters are not. Rather, players are required to be other public domain characters, turning the game into a mashup of Gatsby and any number of other works. And the instructions include a list of possible options, and a whole bunch of great intellectual property jokes that our audience here will surely appreciate:

Please note that several of the characters listed are temporally locked, which means you may not play as them until they enter the public domain in the year listed next to their name. Additionally, keep in mind that copyright law varies from country to country. If you are playing this game in Europe, you may have access to a greatly expanded list of public domain characters.

1. Dracula
2. Mrs. Claus
3. Sherlock Holmes (empathy-free)
4. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
5. Dr. Frankenstein (not the monster)
6. Feral child raised by apes (see below)
7. Bambi (the novel character) (2022)
8. Sherlock Holmes (with empathy) (2023)
9. Walt Disney’s mouse OC (2024)
10. Peter Pan (UK only: the destruction of a specific children’s hospital in London)

Please note that if you are playing as the feral child raised by apes, the trademark to that character's name is owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., a company located in Tarzana, California. They are extremely protective of their trademark, so you may not refer to this character by name, despite the fact that the character himself is in the public domain. Additionally, please note that if you are playing this game in the UK, you may not play as Peter Pan as long as Great Ormond Street Hospital continues to exist. Elsewhere, he’s free game.

For those not in the know, those are some excellent references that highlight absurd minutiae of copyright. Sherlock Holmes has entered the public domain via earlier stories, but the Doyle estate is trying to assert that portraying him with emotions and empathy is still copyright infringement because he gained those qualities in later stories. Tarzan is a prime example of a recurring problem: the use of trademark law as a backdoor to perpetual copyright. And the situation with the rights to Peter Pan, a character that is nearly 120 years old but still under copyright in the UK, is just plain weird.

As you can imagine, a lot of our judges got a huge kick out of this, as did we. The copyright themes continue into the gameplay, with the difficulty of player actions being partly based on whether they are invoking something from a public domain work or one that is still covered by copyright, and it's just masterful how the game weaves together these themes, and the wackiness of combining all these public domain characters, with a genuine exploration of the original novel. For all those reasons and more, it's this year's Best Adaptation.

Get the rules for The Great Gatsby: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game on Itch, and check out the other jam entries too. Congratulations to Segoli for the win! We'll be back next week with another game jam winner spotlight.

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, great gatsby, public domain, winner spotlight

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: ~THE GREAT GATSBY~

from the gaming-like-it's-1925 dept

This week, we announced the winners of Gaming Like It's 1925, our third annual game jam celebrating works that entered the public domain in the US this year. Over the next few weeks, we'll be taking a closer look at each of the winning games from the six categories (in no particular order), starting today with the winner of Best Visuals: ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ by Floatingtable Games.

The first thing that strikes you about ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ is just how robust the graphics are for a game jam entry. It's a platformer presented in a retro pixel-art style — the designer explains that it has the same screen resolution as a Nintendo Game Boy, but one more color in its palette. The player is immediately presented with a beautiful title screen depicting one of the most iconic pieces of imagery from the novel:

From there, the game reveals itself to be more than just the mechanical prototype one might expect from a platformer in a game jam — rather, it's a fully-formed (albeit very short) experience that includes an opening "cinematic", some RPG-style interactions with NPC characters including simple dialogue choices, two main platforming levels (the first of which requires you to retrace your steps, finding the path more challenging in reverse — a classic level design technique — and the second of which feels distinctly different and introduces a new kind of obstacle), and a clear conclusion. In other words, there's some genuine thought put into the game design here, and an effort to make the game "complete" that really paid off. But it's still the graphics that stand out the most, from the detailed cityscapes with parallax-animated skylines in the background and pixelated haze drifting through the air...

...to the interior scene with its own set of unique sprites, the stylish character portraits, and the simple, easily-understood interface elements:

Note the attention to detail — it would have been easy and perfectly acceptable to slap the same simple window graphic from the outdoor scenes onto the interior wall, but instead we get a brand new custom sprite that includes the skyline visible outside in the distance. That kind of extra effort is apparent all throughout the graphics of the game, and that's why it was an easy pick for the Best Visuals award.

Play ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ in your browser on Itch, and check out the other jam entries too. Congratulations to Floatingtable Games for the win! We'll be back next week with another game jam winner spotlight.

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, great gatsby, public domain, winner spotlight

Announcing The Winners Of The 3rd Annual Public Domain Game Jam!

from the best-of-the-best dept

It's that time again — the judges' scores and comments are in, and we've selected the winners of our third annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925! As you know, we asked game designers of all stripes to submit new creations based on works published in 1925 that entered the public domain in the US this year — and just as in the past two jams, people got very creative in terms of choosing source material and deciding what to do with it. Of course, there were also a lot of submissions based on what is probably the most famous newly-public-domain work this year, The Great Gatsby — but while everyone expected that, nobody expected just how unique some of those entries would be! So without further delay, here are the winners in all six categories of Gaming Like It's 1925:

Best Analog Game — Fish Magic by David Harris

David Harris is our one and only returning winner this year: he won the same category in Gaming Like It's 1924 with his previous game, The 24th Kandinsky, which as the name suggests was based on the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky. This year's entry, Fish Magic, continues in a similar tradition, but now drawing inspiration from Paul Klee's 1925 painting of the same name. The game itself is very different, but just as captivating: it turns Klee's painting into a game board which players navigate to collect words, then tasks them with inventing new kinds of "fish magic" or "magic fish" with the words in their collection. Where The 24th Kandinsky was tailored to Kandinsky's abstract art, with players focused on manipulating the shapes and forms of his compositions, Fish Magic's gameplay is more suited to Klee's surreal and expressionist style, shifting the focus to the magical ideas and mysterious underwater world evoked by the titular painting. Our judges were immediately drawn to this clever and original premise, and impressed by how complete and well-thought-out the final product is, making Fish Magic a shoe-in for the Best Analog Game.

Best Digital Game — Rhythm Action Gatsby by Robert Tyler

Anyone working on a game based on The Great Gastby for this year's jam knew they'd be facing competition, and would have to do something unexpected to truly stand out — and that's just what Robert Tyler did with Rhythm Action Gatsby. Rhythm action games are a simple premise, and it would have been easy to just slap one together, but this entry was lovingly crafted with an original music composition, recorded narration of a famous passage from the book, and carefully choreographed animations, all presented via a representation of the iconic cover art that we all recognize in a pretty, polished package — plus, bonus points for taking the time to include a basic accessibility option to turn off screen flashes. Our judges immediately found it cute, delightful, and genuinely fun, even taking multiple runs at the roughly-two-minute game to improve their scores, putting it straight to the top of the charts for the Best Digital Game.

Best Adaptation — The Great Gatsby: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game by Segoli

One of the things we loved most about last year's entries was that, beyond just using newly-public-domain materials, several of them brought themes of copyright and culture into the games themselves. While there was less of that this year, The Great Gatsby: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game by Segoli puts these concepts at the core of its game mechanics in a fun and amusing way that won some of our judges over before the end of the first page of rules. The game is a robust, well-thought-out framework for improvising and roleplaying a new version of the story of The Great Gatsby, with the traditional setup of a Game Master and a group of players — with the twist that those players are encouraged to play as other public domain characters. Indeed, the comical character creation rules aren't about rolling dice to assign skill points, but about figuring out what's in the public domain where you're playing, and the core mechanic for player actions can be more or less challenging depending on whether the action invokes a still-copyrighted work. And yet despite all this playful copyright fun, the game also encourages a genuine exploration of the book and aims to produce great alternative versions of its story — all of which makes it the winner of Best Adaptation.

Best Remix (Tie!) — Art Apart by Ryan Sullivan, and There Are No Eyes Here by jukel

The Best Remix category, for a game that draws on multiple 1925 works, is one of the most interesting and most challenging categories in the jam. This year, there wasn't a single stand-out winner, but rather two games that are at once very similar and very different, and both deserving of the prize.

Art Apart by Ryan Sullivan is a game that, at first glance, nobody expected very much from — it's just a series of digital jigsaw puzzles of 1925 paintings. But once they dove in, our judges were pleasantly surprised by just how charming it was thanks to a great array of paintings and a selection of gentle background music (also from 1925, of course!) This attention to detail carries through in other features, like a timer with a "best time" memory and a full-featured interface that lets the user switch between puzzles and background tracks at will. Mostly, it's a showcase of how the act of mixing multiple creative works can be valuable in and of itself when someone takes the time to choose those works well.

There Are No Eyes Here by jukel is its own kind of painting-based puzzle, taking an approach that is more focused on the elements of the artwork. Indeed, one wonders if the game was at least partly inspired by last year's The 24th Kandinsky, as it is also based on paintings by the famed Russian abstract artist, but this time ones from 1925. The game makes the elements of the paintings themselves into the levers of the puzzle, essentially becoming a spot-the-hidden-object game in which players locate the elements of the paintings that they can manipulate to complete each stage. It carefully mixes and matches elements of multiple Kandinsky paintings, forcing the player to carefully study their elements in a way most people haven't taken the time to do, and rewarding them with hand-crafted animations. It's a simple game that is as abstract and intriguing as the works it draws from.

Best Deep Cut — Remembering Grußau by Max Fefer (HydroForge Games)

Building on public domain works doesn't have to be all about chopping up and changing them, and games don't always have to achieve their goals in an oblique way. Sometimes, there are games like Remembering Grußau by Max Fefer/HydroForge Games that tell you exactly what they are: in this case, a guided reflection on the death of Jewish artist Felix Nussbaum and a work he painted in 1925, nearly twenty years before he was killed at Auschwitz. The game is calm, meditative, and deeply moving, remaining entirely focused on the painting and prompting the player to study it and consider its meaning with the knowledge of Nussbaum's life and death. It's the only Twine game among this year's winners, but it also goes beyond the browser-based interactive story, tasking players with writing a letter on paper and returning to the game after spending time to contemplate it. Our judges found it impactful and highly effective in its goals, and by drawing on one specific lesser-known work and truly exploring it to the fullest, it became the clear choice for Best Deep Cut.

Best Visuals — ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ by Floatingtable Games

In terms of its visual presentation, ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ by Floatingtable Games is one of the most polished submissions we've ever had in these jams. It's a simple, classic platformer — complete with double-jumps and deadly spike hazards, plus some story cutscenes — and while the gameplay won't blow any minds, the striking monochrome pixel graphics will catch plenty of eyes. The brief level loosely tells the story of the second chapter of The Great Gatsby, and from the warm brown color palette to the parallax cityscape backdrop to the expressive character portraits, everything on screen just looks great. Why turn The Great Gatsby into a retro-style platformer? Well, why not? If nothing else, it's a great way to win this year's prize for Best Visuals!

The winning designers will be contacted via their Itch pages to arrange their prizes, so if you see your game listed here, keep an eye on your incoming comments!

In the coming weeks, we'll be taking a closer look at each of these winners in a series of posts, but for now you can head on over to the game jam page to try out all these games as well as several other great entries that didn't quite make the cut. Congratulations to all our winners, and a huge thanks to everyone who submitted a game — and finally, another thanks to our amazing panel of judges:

• Sharang Biswas
• Anil Dash
• Clio Yun-su Davis
• Jim Greer
• James Mendez Hodes
• Carolyn Homer
• Kathryn Hymes
• Albert Kong
• Randy Lubin
• Mike Masnick
• Jason Morningstar
• Jamila R. Nedjadi
• Hakan Seyalioglu
• Lizzie Stark

We'll be back next year with another public domain game jam as works from 1926 run out of copy protection, so whether you participated in this year's jam or not, it's never too early to start planning for the next one! Plus, these games just scratch the surface of the many, many works that entered the public domain this year, and we hope this jam continues to demonstrate why exploring those works can be so valuable and so fun — so get out there and keep on mining that public domain!

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, public domain

Judging Has Begun! Check Out The Entries In Our Public Domain Game Jam

from the judging-time dept

View all of this year's entries on itch.io »

Our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925, has come to a close, and the entries are now being reviewed by our amazing panel of judges. They need a bit of time to work through all the games, but while you wait, you can check out the entries for yourself.

We got more entries than last year, though there are a couple that don't quite qualify for the jam because they aren't clearly based on 1925 works. The designers had lots of clever and creative ideas this year, and some of the games are nicely polished. As expected, we got lots of entries based on The Great Gatsby, but plenty of designers also explored other corners of the public domain and built games based on 1925 art, poetry, film, and music. All the games are either playable in the browser or downloadable as PDFs and other game materials, and you can dig through them all over on the game jam page.

Once again, a big thanks to all the designers who submitted games this year, and to all our judges who are reviewing the entries and selecting winners in six categories, which we'll announce later this month. And if you didn't manage to get an entry in this year, it's never to early to start looking into works that will enter the public domain in 2022, when we'll be back with Gaming Like It's 1926!

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, public domain

Gaming Like It's 1925: Check Out The Early Bird Entries In Our Public Domain Game Jam

from the first-in dept

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

We're on the home stretch of our annual public domain game jam! If you plan to submit something but haven't signed up, make sure you do it before it's too late — and if you're just waiting to play the great games that come in, you can head on over now and check out some of the early bird submissions.

Although only a handful of brave designers have decided to submit their entries before the deadline, we've already got a great-looking selection of games piling up for our judges to start playing on Monday. As expected, The Great Gatsby has been given a lot of attention: so far, we've got a platformer with beautiful pixel graphics, a stylish rhythm game, and not one but two tabletop roleplaying games, all based on the famous novel. But it's not all Gatsby stuff — there's also a competitive card game based on Smithsonian portraits, a game inspired by a 1925 jazz song, a game about Jewish surrealist painter Felix Nussbaum, and more.

There are likely to be a lot more entries before the jam ends tomorrow night at midnight (that's still enough time to whip something up, by the way) so if you play to play them all, you might as well get a head start.

A big thanks to all the designers who have already submitted their games, and all those with something in the works! Let's all start gaming like it's 1925.

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, public domain

The Clock Is Ticking On Our Public Domain Game Jam!

from the weekend-project dept

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

What are your plans this weekend? If you're like most of us living under pandemic lockdown, the answer is probably "not much" — but it could be "making a game using newly-public domain material!" All you have to do is sign up for Gaming Like It's 1925 and start exploring the wealth of works published in 1925 that have now run out of copyright protection and can serve as the basis for a great new analog or digital game. But don't delay — entries are due Sunday night at midnight!

If you've never made a game before, that might sound like it's not enough time — but a two-day game jam is actually a great way to try your hand at game design. Entries can be as simple as a few rules for a roleplaying game typed into a text document, or you could make use of a tool like Twine or Story Synth that's easy to learn and provides everything you need to create a simple browser-playable game. The important thing isn't complexity or fancy assets — it's a clever idea and a vision for building something new based on old material, to show why a growing public domain benefits us all.

Check out the game jam page for the full rules and some links to public domain works you could draw on, then join the jam and start working on your entry before midnight on Sunday, January 31st. Our judges will be playing the entries to select winners in six categories to receive some great Techdirt prizes (the winners of the 2020 jam are linked below, and you can read our judges' thoughts on them here):

• Best Analog Game (Previous Winner: The 24th Kandinsky)
• Best Digital Game (Previous Winner: You Are The Rats In The Walls)
• Best adaptation of a 1925 work (Previous Winner: The Hounds Follow All Things Down)
• Best remixing of multiple sources (Previous Winner: 192X)
• Best “Deep Cut” from a work not listed on any of the round up articles (Previous Winner: Legends of Charlemagne)
• Best Visuals (Previous Winner: Hot Water)

You can also check out the handful of submissions we've already received, but as in previous years most people are likely holding off until the last minute so they can tweak and perfect their entries — so hurry up and help show how a rich public domain fuels creativity!

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

Filed Under: 1925, culture, game jam, public domain

The Crunch Is On: Join Our Public Domain Game Jam And Whip Up An Entry This Weekend!

from the tick-tock dept

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

Game jams come in all shapes, sizes and, crucially, time spans. Many of them take place over a single weekend — so even though it's been running since the start of January, there's still time to sign up for our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925 and start working on an entry before the deadline on Sunday night!

We're seeking analog and digital games that make use of material published in 1925, which entered the public domain in the US this year. Sometimes the best games are the simplest ones with the clearest focus, and that's where a three-day crunch can be a help rather than a hindrance! By making use of tools like Twine or Story Synth, even if you've never used them before, making a digital game is easier than you think. Or, you could try thinking up a roleplaying or party game that needs nothing more than some written rules. Check out the game jam page for the full rules and some links to public domain works you could draw on, then join the jam and get designing!

Entries are due by midnight on Sunday, January 31st and then our judges will begin playing the entries to select winners in six categories (the winners of the 2020 jam are linked below, and you can read our judges' thoughts on them here):

• Best Analog Game (Previous Winner: The 24th Kandinsky)
• Best Digital Game (Previous Winner: You Are The Rats In The Walls)
• Best adaptation of a 1925 work (Previous Winner: The Hounds Follow All Things Down)
• Best remixing of multiple sources (Previous Winner: 192X)
• Best “Deep Cut” from a work not listed on any of the round up articles (Previous Winner: Legends of Charlemagne)
• Best Visuals (Previous Winner: Hot Water)

The submissions are trickling in and the jam has many more participants who are finishing up their entries as we speak, so hurry up and help show how a rich public domain fuels creativity!

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

Filed Under: 1925, game jam, public domain

Gaming Like It's 1925: Last Week To Join The Public Domain Game Jam!

from the there's-still-time dept

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

It's now been almost a full month since works published in 1925 entered the public domain in the US, and that means we're nearing the end of our public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925 — but it's not too late to get involved! After all, plenty of game jams only run for a couple of days, and you've still got an entire week to cook up an analog or digital game based on newly-public-domain material and compete for one of our great prizes.

Check out the game jam page for the full rules and some links to public domain works you could draw on, as well as game design tools for designers of all experience levels. Even if you've never tried making a game before, a week is plenty of time to learn the basics of Twine or Story Synth, and anyone can try their hand at thinking up a roleplaying or party game — we've had winning games that are nothing more than some rules in a text document.

The jam runs through January 31st and then our judges will begin playing the entries to select winners in six categories (the winners of the 2020 jam are linked below, and you can read our judges' thoughts on them here):

• Best Analog Game (Previous Winner: The 24th Kandinsky)
• Best Digital Game (Previous Winner: You Are The Rats In The Walls)
• Best adaptation of a 1925 work (Previous Winner: The Hounds Follow All Things Down)
• Best remixing of multiple sources (Previous Winner: 192X)
• Best “Deep Cut” from a work not listed on any of the round up articles (Previous Winner: Legends of Charlemagne)
• Best Visuals (Previous Winner: Hot Water)

We've already gotten a handful of submissions and we're anticipating many more as the due date approaches, so hurry up and join the jam to get your game in the mix!

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, public domain

Gaming Like It's 1925: Less Than Two Weeks Left To Join The Public Domain Game Jam!

from the not-too-late dept

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

The clock is ticking — we're past the halfway point of January, and you've got just under two weeks to submit something for Gaming Like It's 1925! We're looking for analog and digital games that are inspired by and/or make direct use of materials from works published in 1925, which have now entered the public domain, and giving away prizes for the best ones in multiple categories.

Check out the game jam page for the full rules and some links to public domain works you could draw on, as well as game design tools for designers of all experience levels. The jam runs until January 31st and then our judges will begin playing the entries to select winners in six categories. The winners will be able to choose one of or great prizes:

• The Working Futures anthology of speculative fiction
• A deck of Working Futures Cards which you can use in scenario planning
• Our board game CIA: Collect It All (a remake of the public domain CIA training game)
• A Techdirt t-shirt (e.g. Copymouse)
• Digital copies of Behind the Magic and Premise

Check out the winners of the 2019 and 2020 jams (which used works from 1923 and 1924 respectively) then sign up for the jam and get designing. We've already got a few entries this year, and we can't wait to see more and play everyone's games!

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, public domain

Gaming Like It's 1925: There's Still Plenty Of Time To Join Our Public Domain Game Jam!

from the mine-that-domain dept

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

We're just over a week into our third annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925, and it runs until the end of the month so there's still plenty of time to sign up and start working on an entry! We're looking for analog and digital games that are inspired by and/or make direct use of materials from works published in 1925, which have now entered the public domain, and giving away prizes for the best ones in multiple categories.

It doesn't matter if you're an experienced game designer or someone who's never tried it before — the beauty of the public domain is that it supplies a growing wealth of inspiration and assets for you to use, and the beauty of modern game design tools is that you can dip your toe in without any particular expertise or technical knowledge (and we've got links to several tools that can help over on the game jam page). Entries can be as simple as a one-page set of rules for a game to be played in person (or perhaps over Zoom, given our current circumstances) or as complex as a full-fledged video game, and anything in between. There are six categories to compete in (the winners of the 2020 jam are linked below, and you can read our judges' thoughts on them here):

• Best Analog Game (Previous Winner: The 24th Kandinsky)
• Best Digital Game (Previous Winner: You Are The Rats In The Walls)
• Best adaptation of a 1925 work (Previous Winner: The Hounds Follow All Things Down)
• Best remixing of multiple sources (Previous Winner: 192X)
• Best “Deep Cut” from a work not listed on any of the round up articles (Previous Winner: Legends of Charlemagne)
• Best Visuals (Previous Winner: Hot Water)

Sign up for the game jam on itch.io where you can also read the full rules and find links to lists of 1925 books, plays, films, art and music, including stuff from many notable 20th century creators like Aldous Huxley, Gertrude Stein, Zora Neale Hurston, Pablo Picasso, Charlie Chaplin, Irving Berlin, and Louis Armstrong. You've got until January 31st to submit your entries after which they will be played by our amazing panel of judges from both the game design and copyright worlds.

Check out the winners of the 2019 and 2020 jams (which used works from 1923 and 1924 respectively) then sign up for the jam and get designing. We've already got a few entries this year, and we can't wait to see more and play everyone's games!

Sign up for the Public Domain Game Jam on itch.io »

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, public domain