Jam Overview
The Three Forged Jam 2019 was a fun and different take on a standard game jam. The jam was split into three (roughly two week) phases, and after each phase the participants sent the game they’d been creating to another jam member. The new author would continue working on the partially-completed game, and then repeat. In the end each person worked on three different games, each at different phases of development.
Jam successes: It was incredibly exciting to see the progress of the ideas I built as they changed and moved through each person. It was also a fantastic challenge to get a half-finished RPG and continue building on someone else’s thoughts. Getting multiple people to review and modify a game’s vision tends to create better content than a single person in a vacuum. All of the games were incredibly inventive and evocative, and I had a hard time picking out my favorites to include here.
Jam setbacks: I thought that the jam was inherently too long. Nearly two months is a long time to maintain momentum on a project like this, and there were multiple authors who had to back out halfway through. It would be disappointing to say the least if an author left and took your game along with them. Unfortunately I think this is just an inherent feature of setting up the jam in this way, so I don’t know if there’s any way to avoid this issue.
Game Highlights
A few highlights of games that I thought were really good, inventive, or fun are included below. You can click on the titles of the games to go to their page on itch.io. As always, I did not include any of the games I worked on for conflict of interest, and there are tons of great games that I could not include. All of the submissions can be found at https://itch.io/jam/threeforged2019/entries.
The Queen of Cups
By Nick Wedig, Jason Vanhee, and Blake M. Stone.
This is probably my favorite game of the jam. The theme is evocative, the system is clean and easy to understand, and the mechanics tie into the setting perfectly. The game is a two to four person, GM-less game where the players all act as the staff of a coffee shop. Managing drink orders, bussing tables, and dealing with the supernatural clientele are all part of the job description. Fairies, vampires, werewolves, the bogey man, witches and warlocks all have their personal problems and you get to deal with them. I will definitely be bringing this game to conventions and I really hope they release it as a full game.
Haunting Ghosts
By Sohkrates, Katamoiran, and Gray Darling.
This game is extremely well written, concise, and evocative. I love the idea of playing ghosts sent to catch the other ghosts who wouldn’t cross over, and the mechanics feel consistent with the theme. I’m really intrigued by the interesting blend of the dice-size stat system a la Savage Worlds with the static success levels of a PbtA. It makes the stats feel much more significant than PbtA does, where it can sometimes feel like it doesn’t matter what you’re adding to the roll. On the other hand, the PCs are going to be really bad at anything they aren’t experts at. You really need to lean into your character’s strengths to succeed. Definitely a game I want to try out and see expanded and playtested.
Sworn Protectors
By Matt Lieutier, Luke Miller, and Dan Maruschak.
Sworn Protectors is a superhero game that specifically focuses on the vows and oaths sworn by the heroes. There are strong, concise mechanics that allow you to make almost any level of hero power and face off against mundane or universe-destroying foes. I personally think that this game needs some playtesting to work out the kinks, but there is definite promise in the idea and theme. This game was incredibly inspiring for me, and now I’m looking toward making a Ironforged game about superheroes.
Triage
By breathingstories, Katamoiran, and Matt Lieutier.
Triage is a GM-less game that fits in a generic fantasy setting. This is a game of two parts: the encounter and the recovery. The encounter phase is effective and evocative, but concise. The recovery phase is where this game really shines. The questions are thought provoking, emotional, and well designed to bring out the emotions of the characters as they progress through darkness. I absolutely love the recovery phase, and I want to homebrew a version of it into all of the games I run.