The WAG Challenge 2015 was a game jam focused on writing. The theme of this jam was “Down the Rabbit Hole”. There were many games entered in this jam, I recorded all of them in my video compilation series. Below are some of my favorites, in a random order.

Beyond the Brick Wall is a story about a lost gem that the whole kingdom depends on. A dragon has stolen this gem and without it the kingdom will start to crumble. This story, however, is just going on inside the mind of a child who awakens to find that the story has come true. Beyond the brick wall that surrounds her town, a bunch of fairy tale creatures are looking for a sword! The epic warrior chosen by the kingdom to slay the dragon has lost their sword. It is up to you to find it, help them, or decide to help someone who might be better suited to the role of dragon slayer. This beautiful game has quite the meaningful ending.

MegaGame is a game with a simple concept: you will slay a dragon with a sword. This game then takes that simple concept and applies it to how games are created - by adding different ideas or suggestions into the game. It states that often during jams, people think of ideas without considering the time required to make those ideas a part of the game. Those ideas may be great and add depth into the game, but at the same time they take a lot of time to implement. After you play through the beginning of this game, the game itself starts to add different ideas (located in a small box at the top of the screen). It really shows how much more a little idea can add to the gameplay. It is quite interesting to see the game evolve.

The Hollow is a game about a huntsman, who has lost his daughter. The huntsman and his daughter live in a cottage on the edge of a massive forest. This forest is home to dark and evil creatures - so it is forbidden. Everyone in the kingdom knows this. The huntsman’s wife becomes sick one day and dies. This brings a great sadness over the daughter, Molly, and the huntsman himself. Instead of talking or showing grief, both characters go about their lives until one day Molly goes out to play and is gone. The huntsman must now enter the forest, with the aid of Molly’s talking stuffed animal, to save his daughter. Full of evil creatures, a Hollow Queen and other characters meant to trick you - will you find out why Molly went into the forest?

Pure/Heart is an RPG game about a mother named Claire who has lost her adult som Matthew. Matthew has died in a car accident and is in a limbo between the human world and the spirit world. Matthew is all Claire has. She has gone into this limbo to try and save her beloved son from death. Walking around this limbo, you will encounter other spirits, in the form of final voices of words said to dying family members. There will also be spirits that want to stop you, as you are hurting the natural order of death. You must keep going forward, ignoring the corruption that this world has imposed onto you, to try to save your son. In being focused on getting Matthew out, you might just lose yourself…

The Drowning House is a touching story about a daughter who is going to the funeral of her father. You are driving down the road as fog takes over. It’s been a long drive to this funeral, and it is time to take a bit of a break. In taking this break, you find a lake house with a lonely girl, one forgotten by her parents, home alone. You go inside the house, she reminds you of your sister, and thats when things start to get weird. The whole house starts to fill up with water… What is going on in this strange, slightly familiar world.

The Bottom of the Well is a game about a girl named Alice, who had a very vivid dream about the imminent apocolypse. She is now describing her dream via online chat to her best friend, in the hope of figuring out what the dream means. You must decide what happened in this dream, what decisions were made in order to stay alive. Bombs are dropping everywhere, ash raining from the sky, limited supplies… At the bottom of the screen are a few meters - one to show hunger, one to show heath, and one to show other people. They will light up when you make a decision involving them. There are many endings in this game that lead to death and only a few that lead to survival. Which one will you find?

Eravols is about a little village which is taken over by some strange demonic curse…. Two children are playing by the forbidden pond when a sage comes to their town. This sage did not pique the interest of these two, so instead they decided to climb a tree. It was all fun and games until Ceara fell out of the tree, landing on some moving plant. This plant then infected her with a deadly disease, one that was heading towards her village. This disease is now spreading, fast, through the grass and into the village. The mysterious Sage has no cure so everyone must run… You must investigate villages that had this illness and figure out what you can about this demonic curse.

The Meteva Accident: Prologue has you playing the role of a journalist, new to the job, but given a big event to cover. It is the 30th anniversary of the Meteva Accident: when a biotechnology field company was forced to shut down their main research facility after a cyberterrorism attack. This attack caused the company’s greatest achievements to be withdrawn from the general public, setting back humanity in this field for years to come. People are not now living as long or as healthily as they would have been. The hacker who committed the crime was caught and sentenced to life in prison, supposedly stopping several other similar attacks. You must go and interview the criminal and lead detective for a newspaper article. Everything seems to be going fine until a hacker called Blue Rose starts emailing you, telling you of what he thinks happened… This game is quite short and ends on a cliffhanger so be prepared to wonder what will happen next.

Heresies of Discord is a story based RPG where you have to find objects that become clues needed to continue the story. Depending on which mode you pick; you may have more puzzles to solve or more people to fight. Devout followers of the goddess of Mercy, the Vanguard, have found a way to summon spirits from other realms. This power is not something that the Vanguards should have. You have been asked to search the Forbidden Shrine to figure out what is going on. You and your guide must explore this shrine looking for clues to help your town. What will you discover?

Drunk Girl Ruins Her Life is a humorous, somewhat random, game about a girl who has a huge office party the night before a big meeting. For 10 years Sandra has been working towards a promotion in the office. Crazy executives want to burn the office down. Willl Sandra, hungover and unsure of what happened last night, be able to stop them and earn a promotion? Will she learn not to party before important events? What the hell is even going on?! For quite the laugh, you should play this insane, short, story based game.

I’m Falling is a powerful game about someone who has thrown themselves into a seemingly neverending deep hole. With only negative thoughts on your mind, you fall. Small hearts are dotted around the hole. Grab them to chase away the thoughts and to remind yourself you are worth it. As you fall, watch out for the walls of the cave, which can begin to close around you. This game has 2 very meaningful endings.

StarChildren is a point and click game about a people that cared for a well. This well then produced stars for the universe, until one day the people decided they did not want to care for the well. The well stopped giving off stars and lighting up the universe due to this neglect. Abandoned, the well sat alone as the universe grow dark until one day, a giver was born. This giver follows her friend Cecilia into the well. Now you must explore this abandoned well and understand what has happened to it while it has been neglected.

Literate is about a young child, named Nathan, who finds that words turn into rabbits - hopping around the page. You are diagnosed illiterate. Unsure of what the word means, you start to imagine literate as the place where the rabbits are. Only the rabbits seem to understand why you cannot read. They are never mad like your father is, when they notice the words are hopping. You must listen to those around you and find out why the words are hopping. This story is not too long, but as someone with minor dyslexia, I just understood.

DERELICT is about an artifical intelligence, given the task of exploring an abandond extraterrestrial ship. When doing a routine check around Saturn, an abandoned ship was discovered. Serai, an artificial life, has been sent onto this ship to figure out what it is. You must control Serai, explore the ship, and bring orbs of life to where they belong. Over time, you will discover what happened to the crew of this ship and the rest of the extraterrestrials that the orbs came from.

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