For the second week of the Y&R Kickstarter program I’ve chosen to back The Written World. This project is described as a multiplayer storytelling game which lives on the Internet. 

You had me at storytelling game. I’m a big believer in both of those concepts, so when they are combined I’m always intrigued. The Written World is the brainchild of Simon Fox of playlab London, Toby Green, Anna Fogg and Shelly Lozdon. The game itself is too textured and detailed for me to explain here, so I encourage you to read the Kickstarter page, but the underlying concept delivers an innovative approach to narrative and gameplay. Here’s the video:

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There’s clearly been a tremendous amount of thought put into this, and that’s one of the key lessons of game design that I’ve learned. The pre-production time is enormous, both on the creative side and in terms of game mechanics. The Written World creators appear to be expert world builders. Take a look at the design of the game characters:

The Written World Game Character Design

The gameplay is designed around collaborative writing by both “the narrotor” and “the protagonist.” See the run of the gameplay here. Ultimately, nothing in this project feels like a rehash to me, and that’s the sort of project I’m looking to support. This one still needs a bit of your help, so please consider backing this one.

You can also read this interview of Simon Fox by Emily Short for more on the game, as well as these other posts:

The Huffington Post: http://huff.to/rTxstX

The Atlantic:http://bit.ly/vs41oa

Hero by Clicking: http://bit.ly/uPe8nv

So it Goes: http://bit.ly/s9a9uW

Otterjotter: http://bit.ly/vCcJI6

Tags: cool kickstarter project, game mechanics, innovative game design