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Hey, you. Yeah, you. I see you there. Settling down with your popcorn and snacks. "I won't watch GDQ all week," you tell yourself. "Just my favorite games. Then it's back to work." Five days later, you'll find yourself staring slack-jawed at a run of Big Rigs at four in the morning. "How did this happen? If only someone could've warned me!"

It doesn't have to be this way. There's still time. Time to make a video games.

The Deal

Make a video game this week! Time starts when the GDQ schedule starts, and ends 24 hours after GDQ (actually) ends.



No rules, no pressure. Start a new idea from scratch, or finish up something you've been putting off for months. Work alone, in pairs, in teams, or as part of a world-spanning hive mind.

FAQ

Q: Can I—

A: Absolutely!

Q: Is there a theme?

A: No! I'll be working on a game about my cat, and you're welcome to do that too, I guess????? Also it's my birthday on the 12th just saying.



Q: But I don't know how to make a video games???

A: I have got you covered.

How to make a video games

You are probably not going to go from zero to... uh... good at video games? inside a week, but here are some things that are relatively quick and easy to get into and also don't require a lot of art investment:

bitsy is a microscopic game engine for making little worlds where you can walk around and talk to people. It's actually hard to do much more than that (though a few people have managed). I made Roguelike Simulator in a day with bitsy!



Twine is a system for writing nonlinear stories. Doesn't sound game-ish enough? With some clever use of the Harlowe 2 story format, you can track progress and add an inventory and probably even rig up combat or something.

Inform 7 is an entire programming language designed specifically for writing old-school text adventures — the ones with no pictures where you have to type GET YE FLASK and whatever. It gets pretty deep, but since half the fun is in the writing, a week is plenty of time to make a charming little world with a few rooms and a few things you can interact with.



Doom is, you know, Doom??? The first video games ever made????? It turns out you can make your own maps for Doom, and walking around a world that you built from scratch as John Doommans is pretty rewarding! I wrote a whole series on how to do this a couple years ago.



MegaZeux is, I admit, getting kind of obscure, but I will give you a thousand bonus points if you actually make something with it. It's a DOS-era tile-based game engine with a bunch of built-in stuff, so you can treat it like a level editor if you want — but it's also pretty easy to dip your toes into adding custom behavior.

There are plenty more depending on what you're after; maybe ask in the Discord?

