Hello! I am droqen. I occasionally annually run an end-of-year variety (mega)jam, wherein I dare the daring to design, make, and release 10 games in different genres in a short period of time. I haven't personally participated in it for a while, but that is about to change, because this year I'm all excited about playables. I've kinda already accidentally started with my -and-write and this gem mining thing! (I'll make 10 more though. I'm no cheater.)

What exactly a "playable" is is up to interpretation tbh, but the important part is that a playable is something you can play, or play with. The first VMJ was born out of a sense that I hadn't done enough that year -- I wanted to feel like I could look back at that year and say, "Look! Look at all the games I made in 2014 or whatever year it was!" (In retrospect: what??? i did the VMJ at the end of the year in which i released starseed pilgrim? what was wrong with me? i must be doing the math wrong)

This time I'm revived because of playables. They feel so much more effortless to make. If you have no idea what to do please hit me up on twitter @droqen, and I'll tell you in that moment what I think a playable is, but really just take a game, strip away the game parts until it's not a game but you can still play with it, and instead of lamenting its lack of win condition or title screen or whatever, just call it a finished playable.

(Oh, and please please please feel very welcome to design things you can play without a computer! Make a roll-and-write, instructions for a paper prototype, a folk game (but a folk playable I guess), or a storygame, or whatever else you like.)

Here we go:

Make 10 different things to play with.

Don't use explicit instructions*, progression, or goals.

* instructions are okay i guess, but if you're making a videogame don't put instructions inside the videogame. just put them in plaintext outside of it.

Play with them.