When I was a kid I came up with something called Paper Computer Games, which are role-playing, puzzle solving games drawn on paper that emulated point-and-click adventure games. They are meant to be played with a single other person, and were usually tailor made for that player.
Paper Computer Games, or PCGs for short, also established a rich in-game universe that friends freely added to in their games. Over the years @Xaq kept PCGs alive, and fostered a supportive international community on Youtube, which continues to this day.
The games encourage creativity, intellectual collectivism, improvisation, and a certain giddy embrace of sloppiness to get it done and played by your friends. Many games are created in five minutes before they’re played!
It’s a small, weird niche, and it’s a lot of fun.
I recently finished a game I had been working on and playing with Xaq for 3 years. I drew all these “screens” (pages) on an iPad, instead of paper, and most sessions were held online instead of in person, but otherwise the concept is the same.
Every PCG maker’s style is different, both in art and story. Here’s a taste of my visual style, taken from some of my favorite images I made for this last game.
