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Hard-Boiled Wonderland is a 1-month long, IF game jam that is centered on the noir genre.

The definition of noir, according to the Merriam Webster's Dictionary is: having a bleak and darkly cynical quality of the kind associated with hard-boiled crime fiction and film noir.

Some Iconic Films/Stories That Were Made Into Films :

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (Neo-Noir)

William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic (Techno-Noir)

Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley (Psychological Crime Thriller which intersects with Noir)

Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Detective/Crime Fiction Nordic Noir)

Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express (Hong Kong Noir/Romance)

John Ball's In the Heat of the Night (African American noir)

Other Examples of Noir or Noir Influenced Stories:

Kafka Asagiri and Sango Harukawa's Bungou Stray Dogs (Detective Supernatural Manga/Anime)

Hideo Kojima's Snatcher (Cyber Punk Police Officer Noir Adventure/Visual Novel game)

Grasshopper Manufacture's The Silver Case (Detective Adventure/Visual Novel game)

Innocent Grey's Kara no Shoujo series (Detective Adventure/Visual Novel Game

Bruno Dias' Cape (Crime/Cyberpunk Dystopia Interactive Fiction game)

Ryan Veeder's Taco Fiction (Crime Fiction Parser game)

El Dia & C's Ware's Eve ~Burst Error~ (Detective Eroge Adventure/Visual Novel game)

Porpentine's Nostrils of Flesh and Clay (Detective Parser game)

If you still want more familiarity of the genre, I suggest checking out what's on this list or reading stuff such as the Akashic Books series, checking lists on Goodreads, VNDB, etc. I listed mostly detective noir games but noir is also about people who commit crimes, aka the anti-heroes.

The jam itself is named after Haruki Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, which was a genre hybrid novel of detective fiction, absurdism, magical realism and techno-noir. Your story doesn't need to be based off or inspired by the novel.

1. Use any engine you want.

2. You can use this jam as a chance to finish incomplete projects. But it must be finished during the jam, do not submit an already finished game.

2. It can be choice based, puzzle based or static.

4. No slurs. You can do noir without a main character calling everyone an N-word. Just don't use reclaimed slurs that never applied to you.

5. You must submit your project by the deadline date, but if I notice everyone panicking to finish, I will extend it.

6. Fan-fiction is allowed. but make it explicit that it is a Phoenix Wright fan game.

Writing Resources

On Narrative Design

Narrative Design Tips I Wish I'd Known by David Kuelz

By the Numbers: How to Write a Long Interactive Novel That Doesn’t Suck by Dan Fabulich

Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Small-Scale Structures in CYOA by Emily Short

GCAP 2018: Sherlock it Up

Three Clue Rule

On Diversity

You (CAN) Ask That: Transgender Games Addition

Writing With Color

Twine Resources

Twine 2: Sugarcube 2 documentation

Twine 2: Harlowe documentation

Supplemental: Furkle's Harlow CSS tutorial

Twine 2: Snowman documentation (stuff for this is scattered all over, but this cookbook has some basics of this and the other formats.)

Twine 1.4 documentation (can't find the official documentation, so here's some Dan Cox videos.)

This resource list contains official documentation and other mediums that may or may not help you. There are all kinds of different sources on Twine in written format and on Youtube with Dan Cox being one of the largest contributors. But another way to learn is also plugging a twine game into the engine and poking at the contents.

Inky Resources



Dan Cox's Inky series

Official documentation

If you look through his youtube channel, you will find his videos on how to publish it on the web.

Renpy



Official Documentation

Renpy is one of the most popular visual novel engines, so a search on youtube will have plenty of tutorials.

Chats for IF

Narrative Games

Official Twine Chat

Euphoria IF

Inky Chat

Renpy Chat

Other IF tools include: Fungus (Unity), Parser engines (such as Adrift and Inform) , Choicescript, Yarn, pen and paper, etc.

You can seek help from most of these chats.

Cover image is the book cover of the 2006 American Vintage International print of Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore by John Gall.