OneShot Call for Games

As culturally-significant artifacts, games have garnered an increasing amount of attention from academia as well as business, marketing, and other industries once considered outside the realm of entertainment. Study of play, now out of its infancy, is likewise enjoying increased clout in industries looking to use this research to motivate, instruct, and develop new work. At this stage of maturity, discussions between and within the densely overlapping game development and studies disciplines have largely been limited to traditional forms of textual and verbal discourse, but that need not continue to be the case.

OneShot (see Mission Statement below) is seeking games of any genre made by scholars in any discipline about any topic. Projects may be single-authored or collaborative. Submissions should include a framing text/video piece by the game developer(s) to explain the context and goals of the project and describe what it is; a journal entry-style textual or video log of the game development process with particular attention to overcoming design and logistics challenges; and the game itself, preferably in HTML or other web-compatible format for ease of accessibility and hosting. Editors will do their best to work with designers using alternative formats. The journal welcomes submission of:

• Text-based video games
• 2D or 3D computer games
• Tabletop and live-action Role-playing games
• Board and card games
• Historical games
• Miniatures games
• Visual novels and interactive fictions

Submit project descriptions of 500-750 words that discuss the game concept and include inspirational texts and/or theoretical framing, specific platform(s), and planned genre. Additionally, proposals should include a project outline and production timeline. Send to 1shotjournal@gmail.com by February 1, 2018. Acceptance notifications will be sent by March 15, 2018, and final projects should be submitted by August 1, 2018.

Editors:
Kristopher Purzycki
Lauren Woolbright
Daniel Cox

Mission Statement

OneShot is a platform for games-focused, academic discussion using games not only as subjects of inquiry, but as the means of communication. Game studies has heretofore focused on critical analysis of video games, which is important, but OneShot intends to go a step further, supporting, promoting, and providing peer-review for scholar-designed games and emphasizing documentation of the game design process. We seek to create an open discussion of games, their development processes, and provide a transparent feedback and review process.