Thank you so much for entering our Novels That Shaped Our World Games Jam! We were overwhelmed by the quality of games that were submitted and we absolutely loved looking at them all. It was incredibly difficult to judge the competition and we all had our favourites, but using the categories to score each game we have decided on a winner and two runners up.

Winner

Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s Monster: Double Wedding

This game took a well-known story and created something unexpected out of it. A lot of thought went into the different elements of planning a monstrous double wedding. We loved the connection to the original novel but also the surprising aspects of the game, such as teaching your monster what dating is!

Congratulations, such a creative game.

Frankenstein's Double Wedding by WretchedBees (itch.io)

Runners Up

The Open Wizarding Challenge

 We loved how the themes from the book are so interwoven into this game and the moving staircases, secret passages and charms take you into the wizarding world. There is so much here for fans of Harry Potter but also enough to inspire new readers.

The Open Wizarding Challenge by Suzini56 for Games Jam: Novels That Shaped Our World - itch.io

Fortune of War: A game of Napoleonic era Naval Life

This was an incredibly complex game and so much time has gone into designing the rules and concept. We really liked how the game tries to capture more about Navy life than just the battles, and we thought this would encourage people to try the Aubrey-Maturin series.

Fortune of War: A game of Napoleonic era Naval Life by webcowgirl for Games Jam: Novels That Shaped Our World - itch.io

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Join us for a two day jam inspired by BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. We are looking for physical or digital games that bring stories and characters to life and that will encourage people to pick up one of the novels on the list!

You can create video, board, escape or card games – anything you want. Just upload your work here on the 24th and 25th April as part of the Games Jam weekend. 

Form teams of up to 6 people or work alone, start in advance or on the day. 

Theme

We will be focussing on four of the BBC Novel themes:

• Adventure
• Life, Death and Other Worlds
  Rule Breakers
• Crime and Conflict

Content from our Special Collections relating to these themes is available to use.

The list of books can be found here and you can join our Facebook group to discuss themes, share resources and ideas! 

Judging Criteria

We want the game to make us and our audiences want to read one of the novels or themes on the BBC 100 Novels That Shaped Our World list. Games will be judged by creativity, a strong link to the theme or book, enjoyability, clear instructions and playability. Bonus points for using library collections. We will use a scoring system out of 5 based on these criteria:

1. A strong link to a book or theme from the 100 Novels That Shaped Our World list 

2. Clear Instructions

3. Creativity

4. Playability

5. Bonus point for using our collections

How to submit a game: youtu.be/cQ8KcwOIXVE?t=199
* For a Downloadable game, zip your project and include the exe and any required files or folders
* For a Web game, zip the project and make sure it has an index.html in the zip
* For a Table top game, you can upload a print-and-playable PDF, including all rules, tiles, cards, etc. that will need to be printed in order to play. Or upload a video of you describing the game.
* Change the project to Public and save

Rules

• You can use any tools, materials, collections that you like.
• Your game must link to one of the novels on the BBC list in some way
• You can use pre-made assets from sites such as Open Game Art as long as the license permits it (eg. public domain, Creative Commons etc.). Make sure you give proper credit so the judges know what is your work and what is the work of others.
• You can present a prototype, model, or proof of concept with accompanying rule book for the panel to judge.
• This hack is aimed at adults to create games which may be used in events across our service.
  
• No offensive material will be tolerated . We want to make sure that everyone feels safe. Think carefully about how you represent race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, gender or identity within your games. 

Prize

Winners will be announced at 5pm 25 April 2021. First prize will be £150 and £50 for two runner up prizes.

What happens after the Jam?

We would love to be able to use your games to inspire others across the city. If you don’t want your game to be used in workshops or for publicity please let one of the organisers know.

Keep in touch!

There will be workshops, talks and events taking place throughout April. For more information visit this page. There are also links there to useful resources.

Keep the discussion going, ask questions and ask others for advice on our Facebook group 

Funders

Thank you to Libraries Connected, Arts Council England and BBC Arts for funding this project.