I'm currently participating into a kind of casual contest on a French forum : each month, one has to write a full RPG, based on a given topic. The game has to fit on just one page.

I've been participating to it since the beginning (October 2006), and been writting one to four RPG's every month.
Topics were : Halloween (October), Soviet (November), Ocean(s) (December), Frontier(s) (January), Mask(s) (February), Mars (March)
My games are all collected on http://www.tromeur.com/1page.htm
I'm also hosting the page for the current contest (month of March, theme : "Mars") : http://www.tromeur.com/mars/

So far, I've only translated two of my games into English :
- my Halloween RPG from October : http://www.tromeur.com/samhain/
- my second Mars game for March (rough translation, still in construction) : http://www.tromeur.com/mars/hibernia-en.pdf
(Yeah, both games are somewhat about Ireland, that's a coincidence)

I enjoy that contest very much. It's not about speed (like those 24-hour contests) but that kind of short work is akin to poetry.

Is there such an attempt in the English language ?

That's very cool. Have you been getting feedback on your games?

How many people are actively participating each month?

That's very cool indeed. And it looks very profesional. Can you tell me perhaps, where you get all these graphics from. Do you paint them yourself / have a painter at hand, or are they from a public recource. Especially the Graphics from Voyages et Explorateurs are really great.

scrandy wrote: Can you tell me perhaps, where you get all these graphics from. Do you paint them yourself / have a painter at hand, or are they from a public recource. Especially the Graphics from Voyages et Explorateurs are really great.

komradebob wrote: That's very cool. Have you been getting feedback on your games?
How many people are actively participating each month?

Is there such an attempt in the English language ?

Very interesting works!

Unfortunately my french is so bad.
Otherwise, I would try.

I usually play with a 6 pages RPG...

Very strange indeed...I have a 16 pages web site in french and they complain that my game is too much undefined and need much more information. I was beginning to think that french people only wanted flash, bang boom site of 2500 pages...

Hey Philippe---are you responsible for Wuthering Heights? That game is amazing!

I participated in the contest Filip linked to, and I thought it was an excellent challenge in constrained design. It definitely makes you pare things down to the essentials, which can get to that "poetic" element you mentioned above.

Aaron

Sorry for the double-post, but I just now followed the link to look at the games you were talking about---holy crap! They look amazing! So the participants put these together, rules and layout, in just one month, every month? I'm impressed.

Aaron

Finally, we've got 12 games for March, not bad... http://www.tromeur.com/mars/

The theme for April is "President".

Hi Philippe,

I desperately want to compare the Soviet-topic games with the entries to my Ronnies contest which used the same term in November 2005. But my French is very poor, only good enough for the most basic things. Who can help me with translation?

Best, Ron

A complete translation would be a very long task, but I can summarize the topic of each game. I'll do it tomorrow...

Do you have a text version of the games? There are plenty of online translators, for example: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

I was surprised about that soviet parralel between the two competitions - bit spooky! ;)

Callan wrote: Do you have a text version of the games? There are plenty of online translators, for example: http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Filip wrote:

Is there such an attempt in the English language ?

There was this:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=20935.0

For those who speak french, you can find all the "one page rpg" related to the "frontier" at this adress :
http://www.indie-rpg.info/product_info.php?products_id=129

It's a webzine dedicated to them, and some more. Hope you'll like it (and the music). And Philippe, if you need help for the translation, email me, i'd be pleased.

I'm so busy with lots of things ... including my latest 1-page RPG, Aksaina, about the Trojan Wars.

Aksaina PDF

Aksaina image

edited by me to convert picture into links - RE

Finally the contest has been abandoned after 13 months (and 112 games).

Since it's over, I have decided to translate my most interesting 1-page games into English.

Now available : Five Rivers
A RPG about people who came back from the dead with kewl powerz.

That's a game based on simple concepts :
- NDE survivors have kewl powers, some of them are evil
- kewl powers linked the five rivers of Inferno (kokytos, phlegethon, lethe, styx, acheron)
- two stats : life and death

Uh.

Exactly when I'm strating to seriously consider brushing up my French to participate, you wrap the party up. What a shame :(

Filip wrote: What a shame :(