shufPoetry is hosting its first ever "game" jam for its 9th issue! 

Please submit your experimental, poetic pieces for the chance for it to be published in shufPoetry's literary magazine. View past issues here: shufpoetry.com

What is shufPoetry?

shufPoetry is an online literary magazine that seeks work which challenges the very definition of poetry through experimentation, mixed media, genre bending, video, animation, sound, visual text and music.  

shufPoetry wants to take advantage of digital media by providing a home for work that cannot be solely expressed through print, work from emerging and diverse audiences, work that might be lost without media collaboration, work created with love and attention and poetic care, work deserving of being shared with the world.

shufPoetry has been on a hiatus since 2017, and this game jam will kick off our resumption as a brand new spanking literary magazine! 

What's special about Issue 9?

Issue 9 is dedicated to interactive media. (AKA games!)

We invite you to submit pieces that are interactive to some degree, be it interactive fiction, choose-your-own-adventure-poems, playable media, or any piece that ask users to play a more active role in the unfolding of the poem. Print the poem and cut it up? Write the poem on different body parts with a marker? Draw all over the poem? We love it! Send us your most experimental interactive pieces. Be bold, take risks, and have fun!  Interactivity is whatever you define it as, so go wild!

Join us! Even if you're not a "poet"! 

Are you're thinking, 'I'm a game designer, not a poet,' let us formally invite you to create a game-poem and submit anyway! Here at shufPoetry, we value experimental poems, which really means it's whatever you make of it! It doesn't even need to have words! Check out our archives (shufpoetry.com/archives.html)  to see some of the stuff we've liked in the past, but don't let it limit you. We just want to see you push the boundaries of what you're familiar with. We love the unconventional, the anti-traditional, and the downright insane – so please just send us your interactive experiments.

Poetry can be mechanic-driven too, so don't feel limited to words, or forms, or anything your English teacher told you was poetry! (Scroll down for some examples of interactive game-poems that are mechanically-poetic, not just linguistically.)

Rules? Barely any!

1. You can work alone. Or in a team. It's whatever you want!
2. Recycling code and assets is A-OKAY! We just want to see what you've got!
3. You can use anything, so long as you're not infringing on any legal copyrights or anything. Give credits to artists/assets you use, and don't use any you don't have the rights to!
4. Give a warning to players about mature or disturbing content, if there is any.
5. The game/poem/playable media you submit doesn't even have to have been made during this time, but must be previously unpublished. Did you start working on a poetic piece for a different jam, but never finished? Submit it here! 
6. Theme? The only "theme" is interactive poetry, and poetry is however you define it. So don't hold back.
7. Multiple Submissions are accepted! Submit as many game-poems as you'd like.

How is it scored?

We at shufPoetry know that ranking poems is like ranking flowers -- you just can't do it! But we decided to make this a ranked jam anyway, because giving and getting feedback helps you grow as an artist. We highly encourage participants to rank and leave comments for the other participants, this helps build community and is such an enriching part of jams!  Please note: You don't have to score high to get accepted into the literary publication! 

The game-poems will be scored as followed:

• Experimentation
  • How much did you push the boundaries of the medium? How much did you play with conventions or expectations?
• Interactivity
  • What role does the player play in this game? Are the active agents in the unfolding of the poem? 
• Polish
  • Experimenting is hard! How well executed/ how polished is your piece?  Is it a finished piece, or is it a work in progress? 
• Poetry
  • Can this game be considered a poem? Or is it more of a game? This is for a poetry journal, so we really would like poetic pieces. Again, this doesn't mean there needs to be words at all (but of course, there can be)!
• Overall
• Was the piece memorable? Fantastic? Creative? Just so much fun? We love that!

Please note that our editor/s will play every single submission, and leave personalized feedback in the comments section. There'll be a section for you to tell us upon submitting what kind of feedback you want. 

Do you want feedback on a specific part? We will give it to you, as in-depth as we are able! 
How about just some 100% genuine pasture-raised praise? You will be showered in nothing but.
Brutal critique? You betcha.
Comments only in Elvish? We'll try our best. 

Please just tell us how we can help you grow as an artist, because that's what we want to do!

Join us on Discord!

Wanna talk with one of the editors of shufPoetry? Joins us on Discord! If you're looking for a team, technical support or feedback, or just somewhere to chat and hang out, this is the place! We at shufPoetry want you to to make something for this jam, so we'll be on the Discord hanging out, doing our best to support you with whatever you need!

Join our discord: https://discord.gg/xBDnVA3Sgc

To be transparent: our community is small! This is our first jam. 

Also, visit us on social media: Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Some examples of game-poems we love!

We know that this is a little different than most game jams, so we've compiled a list of games that we consider to be poems. Most of these were found in the wild, right here on itch.io!

With Those We Love Alive (Porpentine) made with Twine
The Horse is Dead (Nico May)
NOTES (Xochitl) html5 poem
Sohoek Ekalmoe (Caleb Wilson) made with Inform7
If We Were Allowed to Visit (Ian Maclarty & Gemma Mahadeo)
The Heart Attack (Jordan Magnuson) no words, but stunning visual poetry (*You don't need words to have a poem!)
last november (dh croasdill)
Bouteille de vin _sur corps assis. / Bottle of wine _on seated body. (Xochitl) paper-based poem
I saw DARKNESS and it saw ME (axoona) paper-based poem
Folding poem: The Length of a Body (Terri Witek) paper-based poem

New to game dev? Here's some resources to get started!

No coding? No problem! Use one of these:
Google Forms (user-friendly interface for making an interactive piece) (Play example here)
Google Docs (user-friendly interface for highlight poems — just make some text the same as the page!) (Play example here)
alienmelon's Electric Zine Maker (for the lover of traditional bookbinding formats) (Play example here)

These require special syntax but it's really not far from natural language at all:
Twine (easy hypertext creating engine) (Play example here) *Great for beginners!
Inform7 (classic interactive fiction creating engine) (See also Dr. Pintar's recent Boot Camp)
ChoiceScript
Ink

A lot of people really likes these too, requires coding:
Unity 
Godot
Construct 3
Phaser

Some more resources for assets (sound, art, & more!)!

Sound:
FreeSound (CC0 or Attribute License sounds & music)
8bit Sound Generator (You have full rights to all sounds made with bfxr, and are free to use them for any purposes, commercial or otherwise)
Free Music Archive (The license for each song is on the download page. Public domain means the track is free to use with no conditions applied.)
Dangos Music (Read the license here)

Visuals:
Color Scheme Generator
Open Game Art (read the license on how to give credit here)
CC0 Images

Other Useful Things:
Glorious Trainwrecks (Twine themes, macros, and CSS plugins)
Inform 7 Youtube Tutorials

Getting published in the Literary Magazine?

All submissions to this jam are automatically considered for publication! We'll reach out to you for more information if your piece is accepted. Namely, we'll want a short bio and a little info (a brief artist statement) about your poem(s). We are unable to pay for work accepted, and ask that your piece is previously unpublished. 

Finally...

We want experimental work, so go wild, then go wilder.  

Have fun!!