I don’t really see where the collaboration is. Does the whole season have the same theme? Or are we all just making games? That’s fine, I was just wondering what was tying it all together.

Agh, I forgot that. As in the previous proposal, I’d like to hold Wednesday meetings / reports / “help me unknot this mechanic” sessions, either in chat or on the wiki.

Also, what about taking a cue from the game that was published immediately after your previous game? For example, Alice gets the random keyword “ducks” for her debut game, and writes a game about ducks and dynamite. Balice gets the keyword “balloons” and writes a game about clowns with balloons, published the week after Alice’s. Alice reads the game and, for her next game (due four week’s after Balice’s debut), includes an element of garish makeup. Does that make sense?

I’d also be interested to see an overarching theme, or set of themes, for the whole season (like “hallucinations” or “the Norse pantheon”). That could inform an entire design or just make a cameo.

Wait! Okay! THIS IS BETTER. Elements of collaboration:

a) Wednesday design-progress blog posts that are basically just an excuse for a new comment thread.

b) TAGS. That’s what the kids like these days! Tags!

Everybody gets a keyword for his or her first game design, which in turn becomes one of that game’s four designer-chosen tags. Like, I get the keyword “rope,” design a game called Hangman’s Bluff, and tag it “rope death bluffing alphabet.” Royce gets the keyword “keys,” designs a game called Locksmith, and tags it “keys missing security heist.”

For the next set of games, you must design a game that incorporates two tags from the previous set. Say we’ve all designed our first games, and it’s Kevan’s turn to design a game for the second set; he chooses “death” from Hangman’s Bluff and “heist” from Locksmith, and makes a game called Orpheus, which he tags “death heist music mythology.”

Does that sound fun or boring?

I think you may have hit it with TAGS. Sort of an exquisite corpse way to do things, in the sense that you are inspired by what has come before you and take it in a different direction. But I think the tags shouldn’t be limited to just the subject material. They could also include mechanics, like “death dice snakes cooperation”. Yeah?

Oh, yeah, totally! I meant to imply that with “bluffing,” but I realize now that it can be either a mechanic or a subject.

All sounds good from here, although I’m not likely to have access to many live human playtesters after this weekend.