thoughtportal reblogged
oh wow it’s an honor to know that tumblr is apparently playing a site-wide game of my very first ttrpg, post-popcorn
Dialect: A Game About Language and How It Dies
Dialect is a game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost. In this game, you’ll tell the story of the Isolation by building their language. New words will come from the fundamental aspects of the community: who they are, what they believe in, and how they respond to a changing world.
Players take away both the story they’ve told and the dialect they’ve built together. Includes hardcover book, deck of language generating cards, 4 core playsets, 11 contributed playsets by renowned game designers, linguists and activists, and a digital copy delivered immediately.
The game is pay-what-you-wish on Itch.io, downloadable for Mac and PC. Players can discover ways of survival by interacting with the objects scattered around the farm, learning to take a long walk to the well for a cup of water, or to milk the goats to make butter, which in turn you can trade to a passing peddler for hay to feed the goats. The peddler is the only other human character in the game, although he regularly delivers letters to Tikvah from brothers and other friends and relatives who have fled the countryside for the city or more fertile lands. Cardenas explained that the idea for the game initially came out of a conversation with his girlfriend, when they were fantasizing about leaving their London architecture jobs for a self-sustaining life in the country.
This is the melancholy start of a new immersive game made by developer Alexander Ignatov and poet Ilia Mazo. It’s Winter has garnered complimentary reviews from players and journalists alike, despite the game having no clear plot or mission.
The game is what is called a “sandbox”: where the gamer is free to roam and alter a virtual world. The developer describes it as “post-Soviet and sad 3D” where “nothing awaits you: there is no chance to get out, no room for adventures, nor a breathtaking plot.” All you have to do is experience the precisely detailed, pixelated mundanity of the world around you.