from the gaming-like-it's-1930 dept

Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Diary Of A Provincial Lady

We’ve arrived at the end of our series of spotlight posts looking at the winners of our eighth annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It’s 1930! We’ve already covered the Best Adaptation, Best Deep Cut, Best Visuals, Best Remix, and Best Digital Game winners, and now we’re wrapping things up with a look at the Best Analog Game: Diary of a Provincial Lady by donnabooby.

E. M. Delafield’s novel Diary of a Provincial Lady was a smash hit when it was published in 1930, and it’s remained in print ever since. Its success came from its combination of comedy with authentic slice-of-life insight into a particular lifestyle, and its stylistic influence can be seen even in modern classics like Bridget Jones’s Diary. This game of the same name might not quite achieve the same status, but there’s no reason it couldn’t: it’s an excellent little party game that blends the mechanics of games like Apples to Apples with the appropriation-and-remix techniques of blackout poetry and similar art forms.

Like many such games, it all starts with a randomly selected prompt — in this case, a random combination of an illustration from the novel with a short question or fill-in-the-blank sentence.

Players compete to impress the rotating judge (or Provincial Lady) for the round by deploying a card from their hand to match the prompt. But rather than just making a selection, first they make alterations. Players are asked to modify a diary entry from the novel by crossing out, changing, and inserting words, adding emphasis with underlines and circles, and otherwise editing the text on their card to craft the best prompt response.

Like any such party game, how it plays out depends entirely on the creativity and taste of the players. The creative freedom of the editing aspect opens it up to so many expressive possibilities beyond the acts of contrast and juxtaposition that dominate other similar games. The charming illustrations and tone-setting text of the diary entries give shape to this freedom, rooting everything in the sometimes-dated, sometimes-timeless atmosphere of the novel. Put it all together and you’ve got a genuinely fun and replayable exercise that is this year’s Best Analog Game.

Congratulations to donnabooby for the win! You can get everything you need to play Diary of a Provincial Lady from its page on Itch. That’s the end of our winner spotlights this time around, but don’t forget to check out the many great entries that didn’t quite make the cut. Thanks again to everyone who participated in the jam, and stay tuned for next year when we’ll be back for Gaming Like It’s 1931!