This jam is now over. It ran from 2021-10-16 21:00:00 to 2022-02-15 04:00:00. View 8 entries

The creative process can be frustrating. Let's ~~make it easier~~ fuck it up even more!

For this jam, do A, B, or both A & B.

A: PROCESS

Document a step-by-step PROCESS that creates art of some kind. The process you create must be somehow inspired by a game mechanic like the ones below.

Think you can jazz up your creative grind by turning part of your poetry-writing regimen into a pervasive game? Design a process for making poetry that you can enact while you're walking around the grocery store. Everybody loves time manipulation, a mechanic found in videogames like Braid. Why not build a theoretical creative process based around the ability to rewind the flow of time?

You don’t have to limit yourself to one of the mechanics linked to on this page; pick any game mechanic from any source. You can interpret “somehow inspired” as loosely as you want to—you could draw inspiration from the traditional implementation of the mechanic, or even just the name itself.

Be as wild as you'd like with your processes. Be playful. Hell, be artful if you want to.

SOME EXAMPLE LISTS OF GAME MECHANICS:

https://inventwithpython.com/blog/2012/07/30/need-a-game-idea-a-list-of-game-mechanics-and-a-random-mechanic-mixer/

https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgamemechanic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_mechanics

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When designing playful creative processes, the sky's the limit...

Your process can be

... Possible:

Example Mechanic: Forced Constant Movement

Example Process:

Step 1: Get a step counter, and some post-it notes.

Step 2: Put the step counter on and activate it.

Step 3: Pace increasingly-frantically around your house.

Step 4: Label all the things that have tripped you in the past.

Step 5: Stop labeling when you trip over something.

Step 6: Write X words about the thing that tripped you, where X is the number of steps you have taken.

... Dubiously possible:

Example Mechanic: Bullet Hell

Example Process:

Step 1: Live on Earth.

Step 2: Play Mario 64 as a competitive speed runner.

Step 3: Experience a single-event upset during one of your runs that allows you to handily beat your competitors.

Step 4: Mull over your win, and experience existential restlessness about the randomness of your current profession.

Step 5: Grab a paintbrush.

Step 6: Paint your fears and insecurities onto a canvas, vast and black like the universe.

or

... Impossible:

Example Mechanic: Manual Dexterity

Example Process:

Step 1: Mix your parents cremains around in a pile.

Step 2: Pick up a grain of your father using tweezers.

Step 3: Stack that grain on top of one of your mother’s.

Step 4: Repeat steps 2-3 until you’ve created some art that makes a licensed clinical psychiatrist say “Hell fucking yeah, dawg.”.

Step 5: If your tower falls, or if you drop one of the grains at any time, sweep the cremains up, shake them around in a box, and start again from Step 1.

Your submission should include these:

>>>PROCESS: A written or visual explanation of a creative process inspired by a game mechanic.

>>>INSPIRATION: A short (or long, I don't care) explanation of how your mechanic of choice inspired your process.

Any submissions containing those are valid, regardless of file format or medium!

B: CREATE

Create some art using another jammer's Process from (A). Include a link to their process with your piece so that people can see it.

You can also film, record, or otherwise physically document yourself enacting the process if you’d like, but this isn’t required.

GUIDELINES:

Your piece of art can be about whatever subject matter you want, but try to fit it into the medium described in the process (if their process describes a painting, make your submission a painting—even if it's just children's watercolors). If you can't do this, or if you see some other way to riff off the process described, go for it. No submissions will be removed for not being the right medium.

Quality isn't a concern! Have fun.

Although using someone else's process to create is definitely encouraged, you are certainly allowed to use one that you created.