Let’s talk, very briefly, about #YuriJam.
As I write this, Yurijam is 42 minutes away from starting and I want to take this moment to advise you, you, yes you, the person reading this, to consider making a game for Yurijam.
There’s a lot of room for games. There’s a lot of stuff you can do with game structures and game rules, and not all of it needs to be programming. So I just want to remind you of some things to consider for possibly making games for Yurijam:
- Card Games. Cards are really good for games, because they have built-in random number generators, they have space you can put rules, and they can be used to store memory information. You don’t need a big card game, either – a game like Love Letter gets all of its work done with sixteen cards. And you don’t even need to go print-and-play – there are places to get stuff like this printed for you, quite cheaply.
- Single-session RP games. Hey, you ever heard of Fiasco? Fiasco is a single-session roleplaying game designed to emulate a movie where Everything Goes A Bit Cockeyed. I’m not saying making a game like Fiasco is easy, but if you don’t code, but you can think of rules, if you can think of ways to make systems that people react to… consider it!
- You can sell RPG books and supplements on itch.io, and I’ll be damned if they’re not games. Would you like to just tell a story about some yuri tale in your favourite game setting? Try that, then give the characters unique mechanics or options that players can pick up, to connect them to that story. Maybe Pathfinder deserves a Knight of the White Lily (whose powers relate to having a princess to protect) class, so players can look at those games and go hang on, yeah. People like me exist and we’re rad.
- Steal another game! I don’t mean like, properly, actually steal someone’s work, that sucks, but look at older games and consider how you can use them as yuri-focused versions. Look at Snakes and Ladders, and consider how that game could be restructured as a game about players’ relationships, rather than random events. Look at games like Gin Rummy and consider if players are trying to assemble the Perfect Smutty Doujin collection to woo their fellow Fujoshi on whom they have a crush.
Everyone should have a try making games. And I encourage you to try something this season if the idea seizes you.