New! Discuss the jam on the brand new Narrat forum

Narrat Jam 2

Welcome to the second narrat game jam. This game jam is about making games with the narrat game engine. Narrat is a game engine for making narrative RPGs and currently compatible with HTML5 and Desktop.

Timeline

The jam will start on Saturday, July 1st and run for a month, ending on Tuesday, August 1st.

What is narrat

Narrat is a game engine for making interactive narrative RPGs that can export to the web and desktop. It allows the creation of visual novel type games but with RPG features baked in like Skills with skill checks, an Items inventory, a Quests System and more. Games are created with a Simple scripting syntax. The script system is very powerful and allows branching choices, functions, variables and conditions. There are many other features which can be found in the docs

Here are some screenshots of games made in Narrat:

This is a demo video of the engine (with extremely placeholder content)

How to make a narrat game

This one minute video shows from start to finish how to install narrat, create a game and run it

For more info, full docs and text instructions, visit the narrat website and click on the "Get Started" button

The scripting syntax is easy to use, for example:

The Theme

This year, the theme is a randomly generated list of words, as well as optional diversifiers.

To give more options to people, the theme is made of 4 randomly generated words.

Your can use as a theme any of those words, all of them, none of them, or any combination of them of your choice.

The four words are:

Decay, Element, Guardian, Negotiation

Diversifiers

As well as the theme words, we have a list of diversifiers. Diversifier are bonus categories which you can choose to make your game fit (they’re mostly here to add constraints or extra inspiration if desired). You can choose as many diversifiers as you want

The itch.io page for your game should list which diversifiers you chose, if any.

Feel free to ignore diversifiers if you don’t like them

1. Plot Twist: The game has an unexpected twist that’s hard to predict

2. Grey writing: A game where choices are uncomfortable with no obvious morally good path

3. Wholesome game about a cat and a witch: The game has a wholesome theme and includes cats and witches

4. Personal Experience: The game explores a personal experience related to the creator’s life

5. Breaking the system: The game breaks the intended use of narrat, or does something clever and out of the box in general

6. Who put politics in my game?: The game explores political topics

7. Ultra replayable: The game includes some mechanics that make replaying multiple times particularly interesting.

8. A bit fucked up: This is not a happy game. Let your depression or traumas out, channel your inner emo, write something morally ambiguous, I don’t know. Sometimes it can be cathartic

9. Everyone is invited: One or more of the collaborators on this game is new to game development and this is the first released game they’re involved in the creation of

10. “That’s just a theory, a game theory”: The game hints at some deeper secrets/lore that invites players to think about it and potentially theorise about it.

11. History: The game relates to real-life history in some way (but can still be fiction!)

12. Narrat Shorts: The game can be played to the end in a very short time (5 minutes maximum). It is also available on the web without downloads, and plays decently on a mobile browser.

13. NSFW: NSFW in some form, contains adult themes or sexuality, etc. Obviously please make sure to check the rules of platforms you’re planning to publish on, and flag it as 18+ with the relevant methods of whichever platforms you post the game on

14. Endings: This game has a particular relationship to endings in a broad sense

15. “The bourgeois are not human”: Look, this engine was inspired by Disco Elysium, so I figured a quote from it would make a fun prompt.

16. “In the dark times, should the stars also go out?”: Interpret that one however you feel like. Yes, it’s also from that game.

17. Open Source: The game is open source, the game’s page should have a link to the source in some form

18. Public Domain: The game is not only open source but also free of copyright, under a license similar to cc0 or MIT. The license must be explicitly provided with the game.

    
    Game Jam rules

    • Submitted games must be made with narrat
    • Use of any assets, libraries, code etc is allowed as long as you have the rights to them
    • You are free to submit your game to other jams too
    • If your game isn't 100% finished you can still submit a demo or prototype
    • You are free to do weird clever things with the engine if you feel like it
    • You are free to release your game in any other platform or format, free or paid. Do whatever you want with what you made.
    • There are no other restrictions

    Posting games on Twitter

    If you post your games with the #NarratJam hashtag or tag the @NarratEngine account, the narrat account will retweet your submissions for people to see them

    More info

    Go to the Narrat website for more info on how to use Narrat. You can also follow the engine on Twitter or on Mastodon, where updates about the jam will be posted
    

    Last game jam edition

    Feel free to play through the games of the previous narrat game jam