Collaborate and Listen
Embarking on our collaborative game
We’ve discussed the possibility of making our own Hello Words game a few times, but finally got around to outlining what this might actually mean during this session. First of all, there will be a central hub area, most likely in Twine, because it allows weblinks. This hub will link to everyone’s games so no-one has to be limited to using a program they feel uncomfortable with — everyone can use whatever program the like, so long as it can be made freely available online.
After a brief discussion, it was agreed that science fiction would be the best genre for our collaborative work, as it allowed the most freedom, whilst also ensuring coherence. For example, if someone wants to imagine a posthuman future while others are more interested in human stories, they need only travel to a different galaxy. The game universe has the potential to be extremely broad.
Obviously, we want some sense of unity, so we discussed the possibility of reusing characters, settings and lore. It was agreed that certain things will be off limits, such as killing off someone else’s character. We discussed some of our initial ideas and influences, such as surrealist imaginings of impossible planets and Guardians of the Galaxy infused space romps. Ultimately, we decided that our next session needed to be entirely devoted to world-building so we could properly agree on the rules and systems our projects would be beholden to.
If you have a space game idea you’d like to be part of the Hello Words universe , feel free to come along to our next session on Thursday 13th July in the NVA’s Clubroom. You can sign up here or just turn up. Here’s a handy online worldbuilding tool for jotting down some early ideas!
