(if: $name is 0)[(set: $name = "Friend")]
(align:"=><=")[(text-style: "blurrier")[<h2 style="font-size: 400%">Songs for Giants:</h2>](text-style: "blur")[<h4>An Interactive Essay on Lyric Games</h4>][[BEGIN.->Begin.]]
<div style="font-size: 65%">[[ABOUT]] | [[CONTENT NOTICE->CONTENT WARNING]] | [[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]] | [[CHAPTER SELECT]]</div>
<img src = "https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/GraveSnail-Logo-1.png" alt = "grave snail games logo" width = 35%>
(set: $Ymir = 0)](set: $name to (prompt: "What is your name?", "Your Name"))
//Hello, $name.//
This is a short, interactive essay on (text-style: "mark")[lyric games].
In a recent lawsuit, the courts deferred on defining a videogame (much to the relief of a concerned Ian Bogost).
I like that games (both video and not) are both all-present and yet difficult to define. Like the word "dynamic." Or "vibes." Some smart people, such as game scholar Bo Ruberg, have drawn comparisons to the way that queerness, like games, defies dichotomy. I appreciate that too.
But here's the thing: I also think it's fun when games aren't games. That is, when games aren't really playable.
In *'A Dozen Fragments on Playground Theory'* game designer Jay Dragon writes:
(align: "<==")[
//(text-style: "expand")[When my friend went to the hospital, they brought my game Sleepaway with them
and read it something like a dozen times. It was an anchor to a world they couldn’t otherwise access.
And that was play as well.
There are always more ways to play than the designer can envision.]//]
(align: "<==")[This guide too will be a kind of play. In it, I'll theorize a bit about the (text-style: "mark")[lyric game] (and other microgames, like the one-page RPG), and you'll even have the chance to make a couple of your own.]
(align: "==><==")[Are you ready to [[play->THE GAME]] for yourself?] Riverhouse Games also published the extremely important "<span class="external">(link: "How To Write A Roleplaying Game: A Comprehensive Guide.")[(openURL: "https://riverhousegames.itch.io/how-to-write-a-roleplaying-game")How To Write A Roleplaying Game: A Comprehensive Guide.]</span>" I recommend reading it before continuing any further. You will want it before we begin writing.
I will direct your attention, specifically, to step 1:
(text-style: "expand")["Write some profound shit like *[['You are trapped in a cave with no light but your heart.']]*"]
(set: $Ymir +=1)Riverhouse Games also published the extremely important "<span class="external">(link: "How To Write A Roleplaying Game: A Comprehensive Guide.")[(openURL: "https://riverhousegames.itch.io/how-to-write-a-roleplaying-game")How To Write A Roleplaying Game: A Comprehensive Guide.]</span>" I recommend reading it before continuing any further. You will want it before we begin writing.
I will direct your attention, specifically, to step 1:
(text-style: "expand")["Write some profound shit like *[['You are trapped in a cave with no light but your heart.']]*"]
(set: $Ymir +=1)
Oh, and also Step 3:
(text-style: "expand")[//Include something that doesn't make sense like "When the waves crash over your dreams, roll +hope."//]
[[THINK ABOUT THE GAME->THE GAME]](align:"==><==")[<h3>Chapter I: A Eulogy for Giants</h3>^^Playing unplayable games.^^
<div class="nextpage"><img src = "https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/The-Tree.jpg" height = 100% width = 100%></div>]
(if: $Ymir < 6 )[This is a short game.]
(if: $Ymir > 5)[(link-reveal: "This is a short game.")[(text-style: "smear")[ But winning will take an eternity.]]]
It is a game for //one passive player// and //many active players.//
You are the passive player. You play an ancient giant(if: $Ymir >0)[, Ymir.](if: $Ymir is 0)[ called //The Screamer.//] You are the first of all the giants. You have dwelled for eternity in (if: $Ymir is 0)[(text-style: "blurrier")[//[[a nameless abyss->Ginnungagap]]//]] (if: $Ymir > 0)[//Ginnungagap//] - the space between heat and mist.
(if: $Ymir > 0)[(transition: "dissolve")[
(align: "==><==")[
---
]
Lie down on the floor. You've been dead for a thousand years.
The other players are the gods. They surround your body and bones. They are free to do whatever they want. They may walk around the room, talk about you and your corpse, move your body, pick up your bones.
The game consists of you lying there on the ground while the gods use your corpse to build their world. The gods must make the following from your corpse. Remember, this is a game!
//your [[brains become the clouds]]//]]
(if: $Ymir > 1)[//(text-style: "expand")[
rake his hair out like pond scum—
hang it to drip and then drop him—
his knobbed knees bend to a fall—
roll him up like a damp snowball—
numb man in the ground.]//
//your [[hair the trees and vines]]//]
(if: $Ymir > 2)[//(text-style: "expand")[
the Giant is dead!
tighten your wig—
the pleasure never ends!]//
//your [[skull the sky->skull]]//]
(if: $Ymir > 3)[//(text-style: "expand")[
spread out pebbles below the grave—
spread his skin on the rocks.
below permafrost and humus, dig
with a shovel, a rake. With hands
made of gold, open a hole— sinful
and dry in the earth.]//
//your [[skin and muscles the soil->soil]]//]
(if: $Ymir > 4)[//(text-style: "expand")[
take cover, dears -
behind the wall!
the tub is full and awful
close to your lungs!]//
//your [[eyebrows the walls->eyebrows]] at the end of our world//]
(if: $Ymir > 5)[//(text-style: "expand")[
cheers for gods’ tears,
melted and gone—
the ocean never ends!]//
//your [[blood]] the [[water->blood]]//](align: "=><=")[<div style="font-size: 65%">[[RETURN TO TITLE->LYRIC GAMES]]</div>
]
Back when I was a kid, there was this stupid game called 'The Game.'
The idea behind 'The Game' was that every time you think about 'The Game,' you lose 'The Game.' That is it, the only rule-- except for 'be as irritating as possible in letting everyone else know that they have also lost The Game.'
Mostly 'The Game' was an excuse for middleschool chucklefucks to go around badgering their peers in every public setting. My whole experience with 'The Game' was really just being reminded ceaselessly that I was losing it. They made T-shirts. It was quite the thing.
After a while though, 'The Game' died away. Or, I suppose, we all finally started winning.
A game that can only be played by not playing. By not even *thinking* about playing. A game called 'The Game' that is not a game. Yet here we are; still losing, still trying not to play.
(set: $Ymir +=1)
[[THINK ABOUT THE GAME->THE GAME]]I have a real problem: *I keep collecting games I'll never get to play.*
I will lie to myself and say that I'm going to, you know, play them eventually. But between bundles, random gifts, impulse buys, and the occasional "shoot, I kind of know this person and feel like I should really buy their new project," I have shelves (wooden and digital) of games--tabletop games, board games, videogames--that I will never open.
Is this guilty avoidance, too, a way of playing?
Evan Torner has written about "(text-style: "mark")[Lyric Games]". Lyric games are somewhere between tabletop roleplaying games, LARPS, experimental fiction, poetry, and postmodern nonsense. Torner notes that their deeply personal, radically indie, arguably unplayable systems are intended to be less mechanical or narrative, but instead an 'incitement.' These games, Torner argues, prioritize reading *as* play <span class="external">(link: "(Torner, 2020)")[(openURL: "http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2020_paper_281.pdf")(Torner, 2020)]</span>.
One can see this in games such as *THE TREASURE AT THE END OF THIS DUNGEON IS AN ESCAPE FROM THIS DUNGEON AND WE WILL NEVER ESCAPE FROM THIS DUNGEON* by Riverhouse Games. In *THE TREASURE AT THE END OF THIS DUNGEON IS AN ESCAPE FROM THIS DUNGEON AND WE WILL NEVER ESCAPE FROM THIS DUNGEON* there are **[[Selves->Selves]]**. There are **[[Rooms->Rooms]]**. I'm not exactly sure which is which, but I am excited to explore them. The most famous lyric game is probably *<span class="external">(link: "Thousand Year Old Vampire")[(openURL: "https://thousandyearoldvampire.com/")"Thousand Year Old Vampire"]</span>* by Tim Hutchings. It is a journaling game. While Torner argues that most lyric games find *reading* to be a mode of play, //Vampire// is a game of *writing*. You are a thousand-year-old vampire and every century or so you will write about the shitty things that have happened to you and that you have done to others. There is no winning. No Game Master. Just a lot of brooding and pretending to be a vampire.
There are, however, dice in *Thousand Year Old Vampire*. Dice are what we often associate with gaminess. We feel their weight. We 'throw the bones.'
Sometimes, lyric games and little games have lots of ~~game~~ dice in them. In Jay Dragon's "<span class="external">(link: "In The Time of Monsters")[(openURL: "https://possumcreekgames.itch.io/monster-time")In The Time of Monsters]</span>," if you are one of the seventy-seven troll kings that rule the world beneath the earth, you can have ten million hit points!! Your fists deal 12d8 ^ BODY Furious Damage to everyone around you! Some games have an unhinged amount of math and too many bones.
In other games feature hardly any ~~game~~ dice at all. In "<span class="external">(link: "A Game About Throwing Tantrums")[(openURL: "https://possumcreekgames.itch.io/tantrum")A Game About Throwing Tantrums]</span>," written by an anonymous child, there are not so many dice, but lots of yelling.
My friend Thomas once walked into a game store and saw there was a gigantic, heavy plastic, 20-sided die on the counter the size of a grapefruit. Excited, he rolled it!
The man at the counter stared aghast and began to scream: "Not on the glass counter! Not on the glass!!"
Thomas left with a $30 die and a lesson in bad game design.
(set: $Ymir +=1)
[[THINK ABOUT THE GAME->THE GAME]]
<img src ="https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvNjA5MTAxLzMyMzYxNDAucG5n/original/%2FZyqcp.png">
(From <span class = "external">(link: "101 Games for Survival")[(openURL: "https://mariabumby.itch.io/101gamesforsurvival")"101 Games for Survival"]</span> by Possum Creek Games)
(set: $Ymir +=1)
[[THINK ABOUT THE GAME->THE GAME]]Lately, my Spotify algorithms have grown prophetic.
//In the Blood. Amongst the Boys and the Dead Flowers. Return to Me. By Moon and Star. Through the Crevice. Hidden Window. Our Voices Shall Return. Venomous.//
Is Spotify a lyric game?
Lyric games love to confuse reading and playing. Twine, too, loves to blur (text-style: "blurrier")[*reading*] and (text-style: "blurrier")[*playing*]. I can't really tell you which you are doing now.
We'll find out if that changes.
(set: $Ymir +=1)
[[THINK ABOUT THE GAME->THE GAME]]This is a long game.
It requires one active player and many passive players.
You are the severed head of the wisest of the gods, floating in the well hidden beneath the tree of worlds. You are called $name.
Everyone else is Odin. Odin's role is to die in the end, shrouded in mystery.
Your goal is to wait until the end of time, until the end of all things. Then, you will tell Odin the great secret, as the gods prepare for the final time.
//What will you whisper?//
(set: $Ymir +=1)
[[THINK ABOUT THE GAME->THE GAME]]
(align:"==><==")[<h3>Chapter I: A Eulogy for Giants</h3>]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 3s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s)[
remember, this is a game] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 4s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s)[
you lie on the floor] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 5s)[(transition: "shudder") + (transition-time: 2s)[
it is a short game for two players] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 6s)[(transition: "shudder") + (transition-time: 2s) + (text-style: "smear")[
//you lie on the floor!!!//] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 7s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s) + (text-style: "shudder")[
what will you whisper?] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 8s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s) + (text-style: "shudder")[
at the end of all things?] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 9s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s) + (text-style: "shudder")[
you lie on the floor!] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 10s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s) + (text-style: "shudder")[
what will you remember?] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 11s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s) + (text-style: "shudder")[
you just take it!] (stop:)]]
(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 12s)[(transition: "dissolve") + (transition-time: 2s) + (text-style: "rumble")[
$name, what will you [[whisper]]?] (stop:)]]You roll a seven.
"//Alright,//" The MC says. "//You get to hold one question.//"
You sniff the air and ask:
~~"Who here is the most afraid?"~~
~~"Who here is keeping secrets from the rest?"~~
"[[How close are the wolves?]]"
~~"What or who is the source of the most pain or fear here?"~~
~~"Who here would do what I ask?"~~
(align:"=><=")[<h2> CHAPTER II: HOW CLOSE ARE THE WOLVES?</h2>
^^Writing unreadable games. ^^
<div style="font-size: 65%">[[RETURN TO TITLE->LYRIC GAMES]]</div>
[[BEGIN->wolves40]]]
(enchant: "BEGIN->wolves40", (text-colour: white) + (text-style: 'blur') + (text-style:'bold'))In the tabletop roleplaying scene, it is often remarked that *'if you don't like the game, just hack it!'* This is usually meant in defense of big, overpopular games like ""Big Rooms and Old Lizards.""
Perhaps because the rules of TTRPGs are proceduralized (usually) by a human game master, tabletop games are often seen as more easily remixable than other games. And while it's true that you don't need coding expertise to hack most tabletop RPGs, critical modding scholars have shown us how 'hacking' games happens in all parts of the ludosphere from videogames to playgrounds.
I and many other analog game scholars have written about Vincent and Megeuy Bakers' *Apocalypse World*--which was widely celebrated for its 'hackable' focus on narrative-driven play--easily recombined and rearticulatd into entirely new genres.
In the TTRPG world, games are often hacked (apart, together, into homebrews or smaller games or larger amalgamations).
Yet lyric games, microgames, and other tiny games trouble the geneology of analog roleplaying games. At what point does something 'hacked' become a new form? A new kind of play? A new ~~game~~ [[body->Hacks2]]?<h1>THE RAZING OF VANAHEIM</h1>//Click to interract. Arrow keys to move.//
(align: "==><==")[
<script>
window.bitsy('https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/lyric/embers.html');
</script>]
Compared to giganormous, overpopular games like ""*Big Rooms and Old Lizards*"" or ""*Shadeyjog*,"" lyric games can be as small as you want them to be. Even unforgivably tiny.
In order for roleplay to happen, you must have a //role// and there must be a way to //play//. But that doesn't have to be complicated or involve volumes of text. The words for a lyric game can be, for example, small enough to fit in a cookie.
(text-style: 'expand')[*When fear hurts you, conquer it and defeat it!*]
A fortune I recently received with some pandemic-takeout.
This cookie-given-wisdom is also a game. My role is that of the afraid (an easy role to step into). To play is to conquer and defeat 'fear'.
That's it. That's all there is. And I get to eat the cookie.
A [[role->THIS IS A GAME]] (even if it's a self). A way to [[play->THIS IS A GAME]].
That's all there is. So, what are you waiting for?From Maria Mison and Jay Dragon's *101 Games To Survive*, #4:
(text-style: "mark")[GAIN A NEW APPRECIATION FOR THE INTERIOR OF YOUR CLOSET.]
It's not that different than my fortune cookie. But it has a role (an implied *you*). It has a way to play: by appreciating your closet.
Now, [[you try->CHAPTER III: FINAL]]. Go on.(set: $Pocus to (prompt: "What is your character's name?", "Pocus"))
(css: "font-family: 'Love Ya Like A Sister', cursive;")[
//This was not the session for The Angel to miss,// you think to yourself.
$Pocus climbs down the wall and joins The Gunlugger in the bloody dirt. The hill towers in front of her. It's a long way to the top but the Driver's fucking dead and the MC is smiling, so you know thing's aren't looking good. There were angel kits in the car, but that went up with The Driver, so...
$Pocus turns to The Gunlugger, whose armor is built from the bones of his enemies and asks:
>> [[How many are there?->What are you thinking?]]
>> [[What are you thinking?->What are you thinking?]]](css: "font-family: 'Love Ya Like A Sister', cursive;")["//Only one way to know//," The Gunlugger says.
"//We should scout it out//," $Pocus says.
The Gunlugger snorts. "//I have one 'Fuck-off big gun' and one M16. I'd like to see them scout that//," she says.
"//Anything else?//" $Pocus asks. "//Anything a little more... tactical?//"
"//Many, many [[knives]],//" The Gunlugger says. "//Let's go.//"]
<div style="font-size: 50%">After Baker & Baker's *Apocaypse World*.</div><h1>THE KNIFE. THE VAT. THE SPIT.</h1>//Click to interract. Arrow keys to move.//
(align: "==><==")[
<script>
window.bitsy('https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/lyric/dripdrop2.html');
</script>]A perfect example of this comes from (text-style: "mark")[one-page RPGs], which famously include minimal, often absurdist rules for play.
Grant Howitt's *<span class="external">(link: "Honey Heist")[(openURL: "https://gshowitt.itch.io/honey-heist")Honey Heist]</span>* is perhaps the most notorious one-page RPG, in which players take on the role of bears trying to pull off an Oceans-11-style score. Characters have only two skills: **BEAR** and **CRIMINAL**. *Honey Heist* adapts a similar tension to Michael Sullivan and Jeffry Grant's 2001 game *<span class="external">(link: "All Outta Bubblegum")[(openURL: "https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=16688")All Outta Bubblegum]</span>* in which the player has *one* stat (Bubblegum) and all actions in the fiction must be designated as "kicking ass" or "*not* kicking ass."
One-page RPGs often extend the 'whiddling' effect of hacking analog roleplaying games down to a singular point of tension or a single mechanic. Yet some like Oliver Darkshire's *<span class="external">(link: "Gay for the Pirate King")[(openURL: "https://twitter.com/deathbybadger/status/1512436603549102082?cxt=HHwWhMC9vfzEoP0pAAAA")</span>Gay for the Pirate King]* are also entirely functional.
Lyric games and one-page RPGs in particular trouble the geneology of analog roleplaying and wargames by breaking play and narrative down into their cellular parts. Smaller and smaller.
Riverhouse Games famously pushed this to its limit with it's "one-*word* RPG": *<span class="external">(link: "We Are But Worms")[(openURL: "https://riverhousegames.itch.io/we-are-but-worms-a-one-word-rpg")We Are But Worms]</span>*.
[[Hack it->wolves666]]. Smaller and smaller. (align: "==><==")[(live: 1s)[
(if: time > 1s)[//These are games.//]
(if: time > 2s)[They are games just for you!]
(if: time > 3s)[We will write them together. ]
(if: time > 4s)[They are only for you. Hide them well.]
(if: time > 5s)[Carry them in your hidden heart.]
(if: time > 7s)[
[[I UNDERSTAND.->play]]
]]]
(enchant: "I Understand->play", (text-colour: white) + (text-style: 'blur') + (text-style:'bold'))
(align:"==><==")[(text-style: "blurrier")[<h2 style = "font-size: 400%"> CHAPTER III: UNPLAYABLE</h2>]
Choose from one of the three prompts below. Each prompt will open in a new tab, simply close it when you're done.
When you're ready, continue to [[AFTERWORD]].
<div style="font-size: 65%">[[RETURN TO TITLE->LYRIC GAMES]]</div>
---
### WRITE A ONE-WORD RPG
|oneword>[<img src="https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OPRPG-Screenshot.png" style =" box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-khtml-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;">]
(click: ?oneword)[(openURL: "https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/One-Word-RPG-Final.html")]
### HACK A LYRIC GAME
|lyric>[<img src="https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Lyric_Screenshot.jpg" style =" box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-khtml-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;">]
(click: ?lyric)[(openURL: "https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/LYRIC-GAME-FINAL.html")]
### GENERATE A ONE-PAGE RPG
|onepage>[<img src="https://psberge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/OPRPG-SCREENSHOT-2.jpg" style =" box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;
-khtml-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #ccc;">]
(click: ?onepage)[(openURL: "https://the-one-page-rpg-generator.glitch.me")]
]# ABOUT
### Artist Statement
**SONGS FOR GIANTS** is a short, interactive essay built in Twine, Bitsy, and Glitch that offers reflections and prompts on (text-style: "mark")[lyric games]—a genre of analog games that, as Torner (2020) writes, are more “incitements” than playable systems. This essay weaves together personal anecdotes, myth, and scholarship to paint an opaque portrait of the analog microgame scene.
In *Chapter I: A Eulogy for Giants*, I define the lyric game (and its relatives) and encourage a reimagining of “play” that gets smaller and smaller. Through “roleplaying poemoirs” I cite key scholarship and argue for a reinvention of roleplaying games that decenters play itself. What do we do with games that are not meant to be played? Read them? Remake them? Hold them?
In *Chapter II: How Close Are the Wolves?*, I prompt the player through several Bitsy minigames to reflect on the ways that game mechanics and genealogies often center conventional, big-brand games. I ask what happens when we let games become small—single pages, or a paper fortune, or even a single word.
Finally, in *Chapter III: Unplayable*, I provide three “prompts” for users to make/hack/generate their own microgames. Through the first prompt, users can create and print their own one-word RPG. Through the second prompt, users can remix a one-sentence lyric game adapted from Maria Mison and Jay Dragon’s *101 Games for Survival*. Finally, in the third prompt (hosted on Glitch), users have an opportunity to generate absurd, one-page RPGs.
My hope is that this essay (and accompanying prompts) will incite a reimagining of the scope of play and imagine the possibilities of the microscopic—appreciating games that are so tiny they are almost unplayable. Such a reinvention opens space for a broader sphere of play and making.
### Author Bio
**PS Berge** (grave snail games) is a doctoral student in UCF’s Texts and Technology PhD program where they study queer and trans play in gaming culture. Much of their research has focused on independent tabletop roleplaying games that are pushing the envelope. Alongside their research, they are an active game designer—working in both digital and analog genres, they’ve designed award winning interactive fiction and published third-party material for tabletop roleplaying games. Their research can be found in or is forthcoming at Game Studies and the proceedings of ICIDS, DiGRA, and ACM Hypertext. Several of their games can be found at (link: "https://gravesnail.itch.io/")[(openURL: "https://gravesnail.itch.io/")https://gravesnail.itch.io/].
[[BACK->LYRIC GAMES]] # CONTENT NOTICE
This essay includes some references to game violence, blood, and dismemberment. Some of the pages also include anatomic visual illustrations (that are creepy, but not gruesome). It also includes some light existential themes, and various references to pagan mythology.
The randomly generated text in Chapter III pulls from open source vocabulary repositories. I have done my best to cull potentially offensive and harmful terms from the library, but it is possible that the generator may produce problematic or harmful content. If this should happen, please don't hestiate to let me know at <span <span class="external">(link: "hello@psberge.com")[(gotoURL: "mailto:hello@psberge.com")hello@psberge.com]</span>.
[[BACK->LYRIC GAMES]] # ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This short, interactive essay was built in Twine using the Harlowe and Sugarcube frameworks. Portions were built with Bitsy (using the Borksy add-on), with additional graphical components made in Photoshop and Illustrator. Many thanks to the tireless work of open-source developers who have modded the Twine and Bitsy frameworks to make this essay possible.
Graphics used have all been adapted from images licensed through Envato Elements, or through royalty-free sites such as Pexels and Unsplash.
Original drafts of some parts of this essay were composed in Dr. Anastasia Salter's (link: "Critical Making course in Fall of 2021")[(openURL: "https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:40757/")Critical Making course in Fall of 2021].
Finally, this essay references work by a handful of incredible designers (both of lyric games and other tabletop roleplaying games), including Jay Dragon, Maria Mison, Rae Nedjadi, Riverhouse Games, Grant Howitt, Oliver Darkshire, Tim Hutchings, Meguey Baker, Vincent Baker, Michael Sullivan, and Jeffry Grant. I am also indebted to the work of analog game scholars, notably Evan Torner, Aaron Tramell, and Sarah Stang. Evan Torner's essay "LYRIC GAMES: GENEAOLOGY OF AN ONLINE 'PHYSICAL GAMES' SCENE" is one of the few direct examinations of lyric games in analog game studies, and I'm especially grateful for his work here.
[[BACK->LYRIC GAMES]] I hope this short, interactive essay has-- like all lyric games should-- -incited some kind of interest in tiny and unplayable analog games.
Within tabletop gaming culture, the microgame, lyric game, and one-page RPG genres are an excellent place for new (and established) designers to experiment with play, narrative, and feelings.
On a personal note, I have found that in the midst of (gestures around at everything)--playing, telling stories, and making up games can feel overwhelming. Tiny games, games-as-poems, give us another way: experimenting with a small idea to share with one another.
Here, at the end of all things, let these tiny games be the whispers shared between us.
*$name, what will you whisper?*
***Thanks for playing(?)*** 💖
(align: "==>")[[[BACK TO TITLE->LYRIC GAMES]] ]<h3>[[Chapter I: A Eulogy for Giants->THE GAME]]</h3>
<h3>[[Chapter II: How Close Are the Wolves?->How close are the wolves?]]</h3>
<h3>[[Chapter III: Unplayable->CHAPTER III: FINAL]]</h3>
[[BACK->LYRIC GAMES]]