Clockwords: Prelude

Screen shot 2009-09-22 at 12.31.29 AM Clockwords is a word/defense game by Gabob, who previously did Now Boarding (mentioned here). This time, they’re using a story that I wrote to go with their gameplay concept. I’ve really enjoyed this — it’s exhilarating seeing what the artist has done with my suggestions, and fun to work on something a little different from my usual format. The core gameplay lets you build words, but (in contrast with most word games) in a way that doesn’t absolutely restrict you to a set of letters on the board. If you’re the kind of person who gets frustrated by all the great words you can ALMOST make in Boggle or Scrabble, Clockwords might be up your alley. What’s more, as you play you gain the ability to manipulate which letters are available for future use.

This installment is just the Prelude; future installments will contain a lot more of the plot, and more variations on the core play.

Game Master as parser

“Action Castle” is apparently a tabletop semi-RPG where the game-master pretends to be an IF parser. I found this narrative of play amusing and fascinating — especially because, when I was a young teenager, I would often play the parser this way for my own friends. (I always did allow the parser to understand all the commands, but there were annoying mazes and unfair plot arcs.)