Sunday, September 19, 2021

Windhammer and a question

 Hi all. Who hear has heard of the Windhammer competition? When I mentioned it at the last online Beer-o, a lot of people hadn't, to my surprise.

It ran annually from 2008-2016 and the entrants include a lot of people who went on to write published gamebooks. The Arborell gamebooks are also awesome (and free!). It's stopped now.

The gamebook entries were short (100 sections and 25000 words max), so first timers didn't feel that they had an impossible task.

I enjoyed entering it and seeing some of the innovative entries - there's a mind bending symbolic one about light and darkness, one about being an orc in a dungeon, a couple of Fabled Lands inspired ones and one where you are a dwarf leader amongst others.

I'd like to start a competition like this, maybe as a gamejam on Itch or maybe on a website or both.

Who would be up for that?

7 comments:

  1. I would love to read all of them, that's for sure! I loved when contest time rolled around. I knew I would be experiencing some amazing stories and cool new mechanics.

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    1. Cool! It's absence has definitely left a hole in my life.

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  2. Yes; but I think the more direct maintenance of the interactive-fiction fan-base and its resources is far more important. Competitions for new material comes secondary. Your thoughts?

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    1. What do you mean by maintanance? I'm interested to hear you elaborate more.

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    2. I don't think gamebooks are a zero sum game. Creating new short gamebooks is not going to take away from other gamebooks. My aim is for people to enter for the reason I entered which is to give something new a go. I did not do Windhammer at the expense of other projects.

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