Fringe Game Craft: An Exploration of Fantasy Consoles and Exotic Game Tools

Abstract

This experimental submission is an exploration of fantasy consoles, exotic game engines/tools and the communities around them. It is a journey of the space of game tools that embody the "unconventional mixed with practical" (Natalie Lawhead, 2019) As someone who is outside of academia, I see this as a way of doing a hands-on showcase that may offer new perspectives on the craft of game creation and consumption, especially since these playful tools usually live in the "space of cultural and economic activity that includes hobbyists, artists, gamemakers with day jobs, (…) modders, and students" (Brendan Keogh, 2023). It will be presented as an interactive web journal, with embedded playable versions of the works that I create with each tool, and a contextualisation with thoughts / a micro dev log of the development experience. The source code for each micro-game will be also accessible. Figure 1: Pixel Vision 8, official engine screenshot.