I posted back in June that I was solo dev'ing a hyper-casual mobile game that I had originally pitched to WIMO. I thought I'd take this opportunity to showcase my idea that became POETRY SLAMMERS!
Poetry slammers is a word game where you build words using a "magnet maker" and then use those magnets to create shareable magnet poetry. In essence, Wordscapes meets fridge-magnet poetry.
My Poetry Slammers concept was never made into a full-fledged pitch deck. I had a page of ideas that detailed things like Genre, Hook, Gameplay, Competitors, etc, but I never conducted a deep dive audience analysis, developed a taste map, detailed a tutorial, or any of the things that we normally would do to help flesh out an idea. This idea was just one of ten other ideas to see which one bubbled to the top for our execs. That said, I always thought this had potential even if it wasn't a hugely profitable idea that our company was willing to invest in.
I've been uploading builds of the game to a password protected site and sending out links to a few friends and family to try out as I made playable builds of the game on Windows and Android. I'm currently on my 7th build of the game, and I think maybe I have only one or two iterations before I'm ready to share this publicly on an app store.
While creating this game, I've kept a pretty good log of my internal patch notes. Back on June 6th, I released my first build for friends and family:
Prototype Launch notes V.01
Poetry Slammers has reached its first playable prototype milestone. This early version establishes the basic game loop: solve word puzzles, collect word magnets, build a poem, perform it, and receive a star rating from a judge.
- Core Features
- Word Wheel Puzzle
- Players can solve a word wheel puzzle by dragging through letters to form valid words.
- Completed words are tracked, and the puzzle can be finished once enough required words are found.
- Word Magnet Poetry Board
- After solving the word puzzle, players move into the poem-building phase.
- Words earned from the puzzle become draggable magnets that can be placed onto the poem board to create a custom poem.
- Perform Poem
- Players can perform their completed poem and move to a performance results screen.
- The game reads the poem from the placed magnets and formats it into a final poem text.
- Basic Star Rating
- Poems receive a simple star rating based on current scoring rules.
- This gives the prototype an early sense of completion and reward.
- Judge Reaction
- A judge provides a reaction after the poem is performed.
- Campaign Map
- The first version includes the foundation for a campaign-style progression map, with nodes representing poetry locations.
- This establishes the structure for future circuits, unlocks, and themed content.
- Early Save/Progress Support
- Basic progress tracking is included so the game can remember completed content and earned stars.
- Prototype Goals
- Version 0.001 is focused on proving the core idea:
- Can a word puzzle feed into a poem-making board?
- Can players create something funny, strange, or charming with random magnets?
- Does performing the poem feel like a satisfying finish?
- Does the game loop feel worth expanding?
. . . and so, no one in the world would make this game but me ... so I might as well do it while recovering from Chemo. I threw on a blanket, sat in my computer chair, and shared my game idea with ChatGPT and I started chatting with AI about how to make this prototype, my overall vision for the game, and how it could help . . .
