the idea is nice but the problem is that the instructions are meta-instructions. it doesn't tell me how to play but how to construct the game rules; if i'm not a tabletop/card game designer this information is next to useless to me. burrowing mechanics from other games without any decent links to manuals or brief explainations really don't help.
what i'm saying is that i got instructions for making a cake recipe; but not only i'm not a chef i'm not even a good cooker; i'm just hungry
Hi g_o, thanks for the feedback! You are correct! They are, indeed, meta-instructions. If you spend a lot of time in the tabletop rpg space, then this would (in theory) be playable with only what is here. But, as I say in the document, this is both an intuition and a version zero, so I don't expect this to be readily playable as it is.
I came to the jam really late and so I didn't have very much time to develop the rules into something complete (or even playtest them! I have no idea how balance would actually work out at the table, for instance). I borrow many mechanics because I was using them to think through the central intuition inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre (the freedom mechanic, which is my own). And since this was a philosophy game jam, I was more concerned with getting the philosophical framework written down than having comprehensive rules written.
I hope to work on this more in the future, so maybe one day I'll be able to provide you with a better recipe so that you can satisfy some of that rpg hunger! Thanks again for the feedback.
make no mistake it's obvious that you knew what you were doing; but it's just unfortunate that it isn't accessible (although to be fair, the more you delve into tabletop rpg the higher the entry bar). still, i see a game jam as a party; and even my hardcore rpg game designer friends know that at a party you have to sometimes build things ground up to make sure everyone's on the same page or maybe demonstrate it once (maybe on the discord server). it does look like you thought about the philosophy of identity and free will (although i didn't read the referenced book); it's just a shame i didn't have the motivation to dig deeper into what you were saying there because of the instruction barrier and somewhat hastily made gameplay.
but yeah just tried to say you definitely seem experienced and so post-jam updates of this might be nice to see.
Oh for sure, g_o! I didn't feel like that's what you were saying, and I totally apologize for the lack of accessibility! I actually really dig your idea of a game jam being a party. Hopefully a full version 1 in the future will be able to realize that ethos better.
Your feedback is helpful because it shows we where to focus on building out rules. I don't want to assume that everyone has read all the same games, so providing that context will be priority for sure!
Thanks again for the comments.
Also, if you're interested in identity and free will, Being and Nothingness is a really great, but very challenging text. It's well worth close reading, and because it's so long, it's definitely not one to rush through. I sure didn't! Many paintstaking hours...
