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Interesting manifesto, though I’m confused as to why you bring Doom 2 into this.

Historically? Someone we knew when we were writing this was a fan of Doom 2, and a conversation with them about Doom 2 and system requirements was a big part of what inspired the manifesto.

Artistically? It’s kind of clickbait, I think? “why are you using so much computer?” is a less attention-grabbing question, and I think it makes our argument feel less extreme than it is. We are, in fact, saying that the makers of Overwatch and Fortnite and Alan Wake 2 should stand up and explain to the general public why they were so arrogant as to reject using Doom 2 as their game engine. Even if that didn’t really come across in the rest of it.

Especially considering the part on “Low-poly 3D environments” which depending on the old engine used could use about as much hardware power as Doom 2.

Or more hardware power than XCOM: Enemy Unknown (the Firaxis one). With Doom 2 we’re pretty sure it’s not gonna be a slideshow on Harriet, our Dell Latitude E6410 with 4 GiB of RAM that we mentioned in this manifesto, but we’ve seen low-poly 3D games that were slideshows on it.

I dunno, I hope that answers your question. It’s honestly not just about mindfulness to us - it’s about the computing industry wanting to landfill our computer specifically - but I guess it is also about mindfulness.

Varies by game!

• maryland tornado warning, conspiracy in reverse, unstressful leaves, repurposed spaces, and leave two footprints are one-player,
• as you would expect, talk about your lives, for thought or feeling, and a saga for player and GM are two-player,
• four nightmares is four-player, and
• space to unfold, where things will happen, last safe room, waiting outside on call, but what does it mean, moving with what we have, and lipu pi sitelen kulupu / the group drawing are all flexible but intended for groups.

Edit: Oh, and exposition space battles is nominally for a group of flexible size but not intended to actually be played.

We decided that Cornflower (we picked something blue, because we had to ask our fellow player what the “something old, something new, something borrowed” reference was) was a god of dreams and fantasies - in rituals, usually involving music like lullabies, our Vessel would be possessed by a spirit from Cornflower. And it (our Vessel) didn’t actually get to remember what that spirit did, so when the first spirit summoned by the Believer showed the path they’d need to take on a map … well, that left our Vessel forced to follow the Believer’s guidance.

We really dug this! We ended up telling a story where our Vessel character was rescued from arrest by a soldier defecting from the guards charged with breaking up their mutual religion, and we had fun developing our character to the point where it could trust and seek comfort and support from its Believer. The name prompts were really helpful, too - it was easier to pick an old profession than just A Name with no guidance.

Thanks! We did the two car models in a very laborious way - we had a little program to make 3D reference images and then hand-drew it based on the reference - and we tried our best to dial in the controls.

Thanks! It’s a bit inspired by roguelikes, with visibility areas and focusing on the current level, and also by D&D map conventions.

And thanks! Libraries are great.

having a lot of aro feelings in this twine tonight

thanks for the questions and answers and metaphors

This was rad as hell - thanks for writing this!

Randomly found this on my hard drive from when I downloaded it - still such an absolute banger. The framing device is so good.

We love this game so much. Almost always one we go back to play again when we replay Adamant Gambit games.

Oh, this is interesting! I like the theming and the Renown mechanics - the line “even the desperate will not trust you” establishes a really interesting atmosphere that I want to lean into.

Libraries good!

I believe face cards count for 10.

What a cool mechanical concept! Good writing, too - I appreciate all the chaos.

thank you for listening, and for saying so!

thanks! the new library building is nice but we still remember the old one

the way the names work is really clever!

thanks! it has, and we appreciate it. :D

We semi-accidentally started a solo TTRPG book club on the fediverse, and “Princess with a Cursed Sword” was the first game all of us played. It was super super fun to talk about the game and read others’ playthroughs! We had some good conversations with folks about how its mechanics shape the tone of the stories we told. Our own playthrough ended up on the dark end of those we saw, but we had a good time with it.

I think if I understand you, yes - the way a Bitsy game works, you have the initial title text in a box with a blank background, then you play through the part of the game with screens that you move your character through, then you have the epilogue text in a box with a blank background, and then it goes completely blank. When the title comes up again, that’s you back at the beginning again.

Thank you! We’re really proud of how much we got done on as short a time as we had to finish!

Name: Star Courier. Code: 92200

Genre: Arcade Theme: Space Platform: IM-98 Feature: FMV Feelies: Journal

An action game where you dodge asteriods, fire from enemy ships, and more to traverse the space between the stars and deliver your vital packages.

Release Year: 1991

Time to Beat: 13 days. This is definitely from the era where they used difficulty to stretch out playtime - fortunately, we had some friends willing to hang out with us while we streamed playing it and give pep talks.

Notes:

The IM-98 CD-ROM attachment was a late addition in the history of the machine, and opened up space for a few early FMV games to release on the console, like Star Courier. It’s clear that playing video used up almost all the power of the processor, but they got around it by having video windows pop up during breaks in the action. The game is essentially a rail shooter without the shooting - obstacles and enemies are sprites that pop up in front of you, grow, and then fly (hopefully) past you, and you move your ship around the plane of your screen to dodge them. Some objects do move diagonally, and it uses the limited color capacity of the IM-98 to highlight them as they near you. The story is pulpy and the acting is campy, but it’s still a neat experience if you’re willing to die a lot to get through it.

The booklet included with Star Courier is something of a highlight - it’s a fictional research log by a scientist investigating a strange new element. The urgency of the rest of it - and how dramatically your ship explodes when struck - makes a lot more sense if you read this first.

we never read the story but this takes something better from it than most responses we’ve seen and we appreciate that

This was so effective. What a series of events.

glad we could share it!

Oooh, the way you interleaved the percussion in Midnight Oil was super clever - these are great tracks!

New Beginning is so good! And I love the pair of Storytime and Cursed Storytime!

Nice pieces! I think Shadowfall is my fave - it has a cool tense atmosphere!

Really neat rhythms! Thanks for sharing all these!

Love the break in the middle! Delightful piece!

Sorry, belated question: do other PICO devs have permission to use these? The purpose of the jam was to provide free music to devs to put in their carts - if that’s not what you want, it doesn’t belong in the jam.

Cute piece! Very well-chosen title - it does feel like what would play in a town or something.

Oh, belated question: do you know what license you would like to release this under?

I like the choice of accompanying music.

May you get what you deserve and may they get what they deserve.

Thank you for all your work and for keeping us all updated - I definitely would not want to be blindsided by an unexpected change like that, but Medical Aid for Palestine sounds like a good organization to support and I appreciate your getting that organized.

Adventure on the Garden Planet is cool! Haven’t downloaded the others to check them out, but thanks for submitting!

Oooo, cool piece!

Oooh, cool visualizers and tunes!

I’m still stunned that you pulled this off. Good job!

Apologies in advance for deleting your comment; we’re aware that a tokiponist exists who uses our sitelen pona characters to translate a far-right webcomic, but they deserve to rot in obscurity so we shan’t give them any publicity about it.