Official NaGa DeMon website
NaGa DeMon Facebook page
National Game Design Month is about making and playing games. In 2011 during the month of November I want You to create and play your own boardgame, RPG, flash computer game, choose-your-own-adventure book, wargame, cardgame or other destracting novelty. The rules are simple – create, write and play (at least once) a game during the month.
There are no restrictions on what kind of game you create; how “big”, “long” or “hard” it is; or how long you must spend creating it. If you want to bang out an RPG in 24-hours, go right ahead; if you want to spend 3 weeks putting together an electronic game, do it! Here are what constitute the “rules” of NaGa DeMon;
Create the game in November. It can be based on ideas, notes and other resources, but the putting together of the game should occur during the month.
Finish the game in November. Complete the game! A complete game should have everything required to play – no hand-waving (“Oh, I’ll make those cards later”) allowed! In the case of an RPG this means rules for character generation, resolving conflict, experience, and setting. Boardgames will need the actual board, pawns, cards and/or other objects gathered or created. Wargames will require rules for all the pertinent action and probably a couple of army / force lists (and you will obviously need some armies to battle with when it comes time to play the game!).
Play the game in November. It doesn’t matter whether you play your game in the garage with your mates, on line with a stranger, with your Nan over a cup of tea, or by yourself in the attic – just play it at least once!
Talk about your experience. Either during November or after, talk about what you did; share the game with others; blog about the process; tell everyone how awesome you did or how epic your failure was. What’s the point of creating your own game if you don’t tell everyone about it!
I hope you participate in this activity. Let me know what you think of the concept and whether you are going to give it a go.
Winning
You “win” NaGa DeMon if you do the above 4 things. There are no judges, panels or secret ballots. Follow the four easy steps and win! Complete this epic (4-step) quest and prove yourself a game design DeMon! What do you win? Besides the satisfaction of a job well-done, the respect of your peers and the admiration of those less awesome than yourself? Nothing. The point is to actually buckle down and make that game that you know you want to play and share. You do that and you win!
FAQ
Why “NaGa DeMon”? The name and whole concept is inspired by National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). That is where the ridiculous acronm came from. Naga’s are a mythical creature from eastern culture, variously described as some kind of multi-headed serpent. Most gamers will be familiar with the Dungeons & Dragons naga, a snake-like aberration with a human head. Nagas have nothing to do with creating games.
Can I do both NaGa DeMon and NaNoWriMo? Why, yes you can! NaNoWriMo lets you be a “NaNo Rebel” and do something other than write a novel. You can find out more about NaNo Rebels here.
What does my game have to be about? It doesn’t have to be about any specific idea, topic or theme. You are totally welcome to make an RPG about Ninja Monkeys fighting Space Rabbits; or a choose-your-own-adventure where you play a flea trying to escape the circus. Do whatever you think to COOL.
I really need some starting point or theme for this to work, can you help? This isn’t one of those game design competitions where you have to include specific elements, but if you are one of those folk that likes or needs a prompt, okay. This is totally NOT necessary, but if you are in need of inspiration or limitation here it is: include the idea of snakes, demons or naga in your game. If that still isn’t specific enough, then try this: Create a game about snakes that fight demons to save the world.
Can I use a pre-existing game or rules set? The idea is to create your own game, but if you want to base your work on something from the public domain, the OGL or other open-source, nobody is going to stop you. Just make sure you are creating something, not copying it, and remember that your finished game must contain everything required to play (so you shouldn’t be directing players to “see Book So-And-So”).
Do I have to make my game look professional? No, the only requirement is that your game is complete and playable. If it’s dot-points on a piece of notepaper, that is cool. If you want to go all out and get into some groovy layout, with illustrations or pictures, fancy headings and an index, that is also cool!
How do I prove I “won”? We’re working on the honesty system here. There is no vetting process or other requirement for you to prove you completed NaGa DeMon. Of course, I would encourage you to share your creation with others, or at the very least talk about the processes you went through. These two things are likely more than enough to clarify whether you actually completed NaGa DeMon. If you don’t complete it and claim you did, you’re just cheating yourself anyway.
Who owns my game? You do. It’s your creation, so its yours. If you used public domain, OGL, open source or creative commons material for your game then there might be some requirements or limitations on what you can do with your work, but generally things you create are yours. Participating in NaGa DeMon does not change that!
Do I have to show or post my game? No. It would be great if you shared your creation with others, but that is up to you.
Resources
Here are some banners and buttons you can use to indicate that you are participating in NaGa DeMon 2011.
Right click and “save as…” for each.
74 Responses to NaGa DeMon
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[...] NaGa DeMon [...]
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[...] http://nathanrussell.net/naga-demon/ [...]
[...] my blog I recently wrote about the upcoming NaGa DeMon and I think I might work on a special project for that event. So stay tuned for updates on that [...]
Very cool. Still on the fence about NaNo; might do this instead.
Now we just need to get someone to run World Adventure Writing Month again and I’ll be a happy camper.
Whatever you end up doing, let me know how it goes. And keep up the great work with the random generators – they’re great!
[...] Now, I’m not sure what it takes to officially register for that, but to register for NaGa DeMon, on the other hand… Well, you basically just have to do [...]
this is the first time im doing this, creating a rpg, so i hope i dont screw up. btw wher do people sign in to participate or do i just send the reult to a adress.
ps: sorry for the baad gramma english is not my native.
I am sure you will do fine! There is no “official” sign up, just like there is no “official” prize. Simply decide you are going to participate, tell someone (like you have here) then give it a go. In fact, the more people you tell, the more pressure you will feel to succeed – so tell lots of people. When you are done, tell the world all about it. You don’t need to send an “entry” or anything, but it would be great if you shared your experiences. The community over at 1KM1KT is great for this and you should check them out (there is a link under “Funky Stuff” in the sidebar). Good luck!
Hi there Nathan
great idea here. I been working on a game off and on for sometime (so doesnt really count)
you can see it on my link
Ready, Set…get creating!
[Bringing the Thunder from Down Under]
I’ve never designed a game before, but I’ve had thoughts about doing it and this may just inspire me to actually give it a shot.
[...] Month (Nationaler Spieldesignmonat), und das ist der November 2011 (siehe hier im Tanelorn oder hier beim Schöpfer dieser [...]
Hello! Well, the stars are right (….no!!) so I’m giving it an attempt. I’m using this opportunity to put together a “High Fantasy” implementation of Fate (think using Fate to play in the world originally created by AD&D, circa 1979).
Sounds like a terrific idea, and I’m in. Is it okay to use the button you have on the sidebar to promote this?
Well, I wake up on November 1st and look at you all! Good luck with your projects, everyone. Grey hawk Grognard, feel free to use the button.
I’m looking forward to participating. I’ll tag my game stuff twitter posts with #NaGaDeMon to help share.
[...] week I’ve posted about this year’s National Game Design Month (don’t let you distract by National, everyone may join the fray). I definitely want to contribute [...]
[...] …or, if you’re not hip to the lingo, National Game Design Month! [...]
[...] Russell put forth the challenge on his site to make November National Game Design Month, or NaGa DeMon. Similar to NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, the idea behind NaGa DeMon is to design and [...]
Count me the hell in. Spent the afternoon scribbling down ideas and cutting out hex shaped pieces of card. It’s ON.
[...] finally, in light of both these points, I am today embarking on a brand new project called the National Game Design Month. I found this just the other day and thought it looked really neat. My props to Nathan Russell [...]
Looking forward to it!
[...] likes a challenge. He also like to challenge others. Each year, the brave Ozzie co-ordinates the NaGa DeMon – National Game Design Month. Inspired by NaNoWriMo, where one writes a novel in a month, [...]
[...] NaGa DeMon kedd, november 01st, 2011 | Author: Vagabond Today is the day when the NaGa DeMon (National Game Design Month, or Naga Demon, whichever you like more) starts. Although I am pretty [...]
I have been designing board games for just over a year now. I fully intend to jump into this and I just started a Blog to document my progress. Feel free to stop by and give me some feed back once I have a bit more up there.
http://warprime.blogspot.com
NaNo is going well for me so far, so I’ll be jumping on this, as well. Might as well tie both together, eh?
[...] finally had an idea for what I want to work on for NaGa DeMon! Astronauts will be a hard sf roleplaying game set into a near future which focuses on human space [...]
I’ve got other projects in the works, but this was a quick and easy little word game that I threw together this afternoon. I’d love to get feedback on it. bit.ly/FunLW
I might be interested some other month but not the same month as NaNoWriMo.
Ah, but I’m treating NaGa as my NaNo as well! I’m going the “NaNo Rebel” route this year, as I’m writing four 15,000-word gaming supplements. So two birds with one stone, and all that.
I’m on it! I will create a Christmas themed Euro/Ameritrash hybrid board game in the month of December. I was just thinking that there aren’t any good Christmas themed game. Hopefully I can change that. I will post the development on my BGG blog “Design all the Time” http://boardgamegeek.com/blog/602/design-all-the-time
I’ll start posting stuff tonight or tomorrow. I have a few notes on paper at this point.
OOPS! I mean “November”. I can’t edit my post
Just stumbled across this. Brilliant idea, and I’m so in. I’ll spend a good chunk of my day brainstorming tomorrow.
[...] For those that aren’t dedicated writers (like me, this blog has 15 posts in over 2 years… yeah) but still like the idea of challenge of completing something in 1 month time there is now NaGaDeMon or National Game Design Month. [...]
Strange, I thought I left a post a week ago. Anyway, I am in and well on my way to getting a first pass at something playable.
You can follow my progress here:
warprime.blogspot.com
It turns out WordPress identified your first post as spam! I have fixed that up now. It’s great to hear that you are making progress.
Added some images of the “Game of the Month”
http://www.lusta.hu/2011/11/08/getting-there/
[...] news), I’ve just discovered a brand new distraction to steal all my free time and free will: National Game Design Month. Or “NaGa DeMon” for short. Cute, [...]
Literally only just heard about this, and already I’m on board!
Always wanted an excuse to finish a game properly, and it’ll give me something to do when I’m suffering from NaNoWriMo writer’s block.
[...] on Nathan Russell’s blog, he has introduced a fascinating concept to go hand-in-hand with the current National Novel Writing [...]
Hi! I heard about this “contest” from Greyhawk Grognard this past weekend at a game design convention called Metatopia (by the way, his icon looks just like him LOL) I prepared a new game within 4 weeks, from the first weekend in Oct thru Nov 3, and play-tested it at Metatopia. I”m exhausted from that effort, or I’d participate in NaGaDeMon too. Good luck to everyone!
(shameless plug next, ignore if not interested) After you complete your games, if you are considering taking the next step of taking the games to the marketplace, please consider using Gemini Wordsmiths to edit your written materials. Our specialty is game rules. (www.geminiwordsmiths.com)
Ann
Congratulations on your game design success, Ann! I would have very much liked to attend Metatopia, but find myself on the other side of the world! Folks should be aware that there is a wealth of cool info come out of Metatopia, via blogs and podcasts, and they should go google it! Oh my, I have ended every sentence in an exclamation mark!
Thanks, and congrats to you too on your game successes! I’d love to switch places with you next year so you can attend Metatopia and I can visit Australia! ;-D
ann
I mentioned it on the FU Yahoo Group but should reiterate here for posterity.
I’m writing a FU Pirates hack, it’s got a lot of add-on stuff without being complex (I really hope!) and really encourages swashbuckling sandbox pirate-y action.
I just need to write the juicy random tables and sheet designs (i.e. the best stuff for me!) to complete, and I’m done, well ahead of schedule!
I’ll definitely be taking part as well.
[...] know, which is semi-organized each November – and proposed the complementary NaGa DeMon, or National Game Design Month for this November 2011. Russell proposes four simple rules for NaGa [...]
well im halfway the roleplay and tested with some of my friends, it ended horrible cuze nobody knew wath to do.
survival horror in the modern day is not easy to begin with, and i learned alot from the first session .
(hint give the players something of a mission or quest or theyll run al directions.)
i dont know if this place is seuted for my progress explanation, if not delete it.
my rpg will soon be downloadeble, wait until i post again.
Posting near-halfway point progress:
I’m working on two games for this project, both of which I hope to submit to a developer at the end of the month (if my other writing contracts and my full-time job don’t interfere). Here is where I’m at so far:
First off, I gave myself a pretty major halfway-point deadline by signing up to run one of the new games (as well as a couple ones I’ve been working on) at a local convention this past weekend. This way, I was committing to having at least one game done by the halfway point of the month.
Hunted Castle is a card-based cooperative tower defense game in which classic horror monsters (zombie, vampire, creation of mad science, and werewolf) are trying to defend their castle from a mob of humans by scaring or killing them. The players can lose by getting attacked enough by villagers that the villagers are no longer afraid of the monsters. During playtesting at the convention, I got a couple pieces of solid insight.
First, I had given the castle wall card different abilities, which all the players completely ignored, so the next draft is just going to use face-down cards from the top of the deck as walls (and removing random villagers from the game).
Second, the monsters were too similar. I needed to incorporate something unique about each monster. I had already done this with the werewolf (which transformed from beast to human or vice versa each turn), but needed something similar for the others. In the end, I ended up getting rid of the ghost and witch (which were replaced by the zombie and the creation of science) so that I could have unique mechanics for the other monsters – zombies couldn’t generate fear and get fewer actions, but turn killed villagers into zombies; the creation of science doesn’t have an attack of his own, but creates fear whenever he moves to a new wall and can destroy walls.
Third, the villagers were too easy to kill. Just like I had weapons to make the villagers more threatening, I need to include items to make the villagers harder to kill. Once I have these three things taken care of, I’m going to run a second playtest session with friends.
Subterfusion is a set-building card game in which physicists are trying to create as many viable formulas for fusion as possible by acquiring sources of heat, fuel, and pressure rated from 1 to 6 that add up to 10 or 11 through research and theft from other players. After I got inspired by a story about cold fusion on NPR, the next game I finished for playtesting presented a different challenge: could I design a game in two days? The answer to this turned out to be no. While I didn’t have any playtesting done, after I played Zombie in My Pocket and Panic Station at the convention, I realized that what I had developed wasn’t a game by itself (although I suppose it could work as a variant rule); what I had designed was an objective in a larger game in the same vein as these other games. Now, instead of creating fusion being the goal of the game, it’s one of a number of things the scientists must do (along with locating a spacecraft needing the fusion reaction to work) in a game in which the players race to escape a hostile planet. Next step for this game is developing the rest of it – rules for exploration, a deck of room cards, and a possible deck building mechanic to add a guesswork element to generating the fusion reaction.
My goal is to have the rules and mechanics designed for the changes by next weekend, and the cards printed out for playtesting by Thanksgiving. This gives me the best chance of being able to playtest again and revise by the end of November (as well as making another comment here on progress).
Just bumping to see how other NaGa writers are doing. (I’m using my NaGa project toward NaNo as well…)
Thus far, I’ve cranked out well over 30,000 words towards these projects:
A “monster manual” with stats and descriptions of creatures found in the game world…
A compendium of one-night adventures for quick pick-up games or for running at conventions…
A two full-length adventure modules for the game system I’m focusing on…
With this one-month drive, I’m finally getting some real progress accomplished on a myriad of projects I’ve been trying to motivate myself to write. With luck, I’ll have the rough drafts of everything ready by month’s end, with the winter months spent editing, laying out, illustrating, and producing.
I’ve also posted a halfway-mark update over at my blog, here:
http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2011/11/nagademon-update.html
Shortest version: rules done, map done, on to counters and playtesting!
I’ve been working on an RPG all month for this, and it’s gotten to a point where I think it’s something that can be put out there for people to test. Right now it’s generic (no setting) but that’s easily enough fixed, and I’ve been giving in-genre examples for how to apply different mechanics as I go along. You can follow the process from the beginning by using this url to read all the posts with the tag (http://parenthesispress.com/tag/ngdm), which will continue to expand for the rest of November as I hopefully finish it up to send it out the door on an unsuspecting public.
Almost-at-the-end update now posted here:
http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2011/11/nagademon-update_25.html
The counters are looking great, if I may say so myself, and all I need to do now is print the thing out and play a game or two.
All in all and excellent idea, Nathan, and a wonderful way of focusing my attention on the project. It would doubtless have taken a LOT longer otherwise. Thanks!
I just heard about this initiative, so I’m not sure if this counts…
But in early November, I came up with a simple rules-set for a “choose your own adventure”-format game. *Part* of it was implemented for the adventure included in the back of “Shanghaied Mitts” (a collection of humorous short stories) which was was published on DriveThruFiction.com last week.
It came about because I wanted to make the adventure useful for purchasers who might not have the “Violent Worlds of Robert E. Howard” RPG that was included in another anthology, so I made it dual purpose, If not using “Violent Worlds,” then the adventure can be played with the “pick-a-path” rules and mechanics. I also wanted a system that was dirt simple, yet still captured a little of the feel of the RPG the adventure could also be played with.
During play-testing (when the editor of NUELOW Games’ RPG products played it), she suggested there needed to be a difference between “named characters” and “cannon fodder,” which resulted in modification to my original design that greatly improved the fun of the overall game. Which just goes to show that play-testing is ALWAYS your friend. (I was convinced the game was so simple that an eye-ball review was all it needed. Good thing I didn’t let my arrogance get the best of me.)
I will probably post the entire “pick-a-path” rules-set [all four-five paragraphs of it) by the end of the month. Meanwhile, here’s where it made its first public appearance:
http://www.drivethrufiction.com/product_info.php?products_id=96852
Top work, Steve! The great thing about NaGa DeMon is that it is all run on the honesty system – if you think it counts, then it counts! I totally agree, playtesting is always essential, no matter how simple the rules are or appear to be.
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[...] NaGa DeMon (National Game Design Month) is coming to a close. Deep in our underground gaming labs, the dwarves, gnomes, and pirates here at Skyland have been slaving away on our submission. Skyland Games presents: Fog of War! [...]
Well, I may never have completed NaNoWriMo, but I completed my NaGa DeMon project, Forgotten Heroes. It was actually the test bed for my system that I’m using for another project, and I’m pretty happy with it! I need to do some tweaking, but the rules played better than I expected, and my players seemed to enjoy it.
This implementation is a horror/suspense/investigation/thriller type of game, falling squarely into that area occupied by CoC, ToC, Esoterrorists, etc, where players seek out and eradicate the memory of ancient evils so that they can fade from existence. Once I do some editing (had a lot to do in a month, especially with a release at work imminent) I plan to conduct some more playtesting before releasing it and the underlying system. But I’m pretty stoked, and did want to announce it.
Way to go!
Mission accomplished!
My hex-and-counter wargame project, The Torian War, still needs some tweaking and a lot of playtesting, but I successfully played a game tonight, just under the wire:
http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2011/11/nagademon-mission-accompished.html
This was an enormously instructive and helpful thing, Nathan. I hope you’ll repeat it next year. I, for one, will not only participate again but will certainly spread the word as far as my blog will allow.
And I hit my personal goal of getting two project completed as well as a legit start on FIVE others.
http://savageafterworld.blogspot.com/2011/11/nagademon-nanowrimo-winner-and-whats.html
This was a great motivator to actually get these created and compiled. Now to use December for production! Thanks! It was fun!
Achievement unlocked! “Spirit of Greyhawk” (AD&D in Fate) was written to a sufficiently playable level! Managed to get in a last-minute playtest last night (whew!)
Thanks Nathan for the inspiration–without it, I don’t know how long this project would have languished at the “worked on it here and there” phase. I learned a lot about applying more professionalism (I write specifications fer a living) to an RPG project.
“Onward to… editing!”
I am totally excited to see so many successful NaGa DeMons out there! Way to go, everyone! I will do a post about my efforts shortly.
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I’ve finally gotten my results from NaGaDeMon typed up at http://johncdubois.wordpress.com/2011/12/13/national-game-design-month-part-1/. I had a great time, and I learned a lot about my design goals and where I should go next.
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I’m planning on doing an RPG for the 2012 NaGaDeMon. It’s sort of a mash-up of Fudge, WRM, and TWERPS (yes, TWERPS). I’ve been mulling over the idea in various ways for a year or two, with bunches of design notes, but haven’t actually written it. I’ve been wanting to use this as my own game for a while, but just haven’t gotten my ideas written down.
One thing you said above sort of threw me off, though. For RPG’s, you included “setting”. What if I’m not planning to use my own setting? For my own game, I planned to string together some published adventures, possibly using some of the Dungeon Crawl Classics material for their world (in particular, the ones that take place around Castle Whiterock).
I had planned to write up some sections on converting material from d20, including lots of standard things pre-done (bestiary, spells, etc.). But my question is: in trying to stick to the spirit of “winning” as you intended it, how important is the “setting” if your idea isn’t about using your own setting in the first place, but instead it’s about using pre-published settings via rule adapters?
It’s great to have you participating, John! All that stuff above are just suggestions – the only real rule worth worrying about is giving it a go and finishing that game! Have you joined the Facebook group? You can find it here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/306441599433963/
Not only did I join, I basically posted the same question over there
My gf is going to be doing NaNoWriMo (she also did it last year). So I told her “ok, this year, I’m not only going to be finally writing up my game, I’m going to do it for NaGaDeMon”. So, our house-hold challenge is on