UPDATE: The deadline has been extended to June 7th! You may also edit your submissions until that date.

Hello once again, fellow game design explorers! The time has come to open submissions for the 2021 GDC Experimental Gameplay session! This year's submission deadline will be Friday, May 28th.

Just in case you are new to the process (or need a refresher) the call for submissions below lists what kinds of games and prototypes we're looking for. In a nutshell: if you’re working on something weird and wonderful, it’s worth applying! We also strongly encourage designers from BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and underrepresented communities to apply. You can also check out the workshop's original inspiration and philosophy, history and organizers. And if you know of any creators doing interesting things in this space, please ask them to apply!

This year, we’re hoping to begin an ongoing transformation of EGW as a showcase, community, and platform. We would like to expand the kinds of experimental gameplay and development we recognize in the showcase. We plan to reflect on the diversity of games and creators featured, and grow a community around past, current, and future experimental developers. By making a submission, we will consider you a part of that community and extend an invitation to participate in it, regardless of whether your game is selected for this year’s GDC showcase. We’re excited to see what you’re working on!

What is Experimental Gameplay?

Experimental games take interesting approaches to interactivity that haven't been tried before. Since this definition is unavoidably vague, here are some examples of previous selections to clarify.

This is our focus for featuring Experimental Gameplay:

Games creating unexpected play experiences or promoting unique feelings within players through mechanics (Untitled Goose Game, What the Golf?, The Witness, Eloquence, EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK).
Generative games, where the gameplay, or world changes based on choices the player makes (Baba is You, Mu Cartographer).
Emergent gameplay, where the game systems interact to provide surprising situations and realizations (Maquette, Parable of the Polygons, Multibowl, Portal).
Interactive storytelling, where the plot or dialog changes in a fine-grained manner, as opposed to discrete "branching points" (Façade, Dwarf Fortress).
Innovative user interfaces - natural language processing, image recognition, gestural control, new hardware devices, unexpected physical materials (Edible Games, La Tabla, Line Wobbler, Hostile User Interface, Hell’s Couch)
Novel multiplayer interactions (Spaceteam, Dance Together, Journey)
Interactive experiences that examples and rubrics can’t otherwise account for!

This is typically not what we look for in Experimental Gameplay (with some exceptions):

Novel content, narrative, settings, character designs, artwork, audio or plots alone - unless they affect the core gameplay in a major way, or combine to create a uniquely deep and resonant aesthetic experience. (Selected examples of exception: That Dragon Cancer, Thumper, Walden)
New hybrids of already-existing genres - unless the resulting gameplay is unexpectedly more than the sum of its parts. (Selected examples of exception: Noita, Hack ‘n’ Slash)
Purely technical innovation, experimental business models or distribution mechanisms - unless the game itself is experimental as outlined above.

What kinds of prototypes are accepted?

Only playable prototypes are accepted. They can be in any stage of development, so long as the experimental part of the gameplay is playable. The submission doesn't need to be fun, but the experimental idea behind it has to be interesting and clear. This is because we favor the process of experimentation over the success of results. We look for work that demonstrates a deep and consistent exploration with the game’s mechanics, themes, and/or motifs. Work presented in submissions may be from the past, as long as the concepts still feel fresh in the current design landscape.

By submitting, you’ll gain access to the EGW community virtually (initially via Discord), even if your prototype isn’t accepted for this year's showcase. We reserve the right to deny or revoke admission to games/creators that we feel perpetuate discriminatory values in the community at large or otherwise make the space feel unsafe. Our moderation abilities in this community will be initially “as available”, and if you are interested in helping maintain the online community as a safe and respectful space, please let us know and get involved.

Note: More than one prototype can be submitted by the same person - and we encourage this when a body of work reflects a series of related or ongoing experiments. If you have submitted a project in the past that was not featured, please consider submitting again as our focus for the showcase is expanding.

How do I submit?

To submit your experimental prototype for consideration, please fill out THIS FORM HERE. Although we typically accept a small fraction of submitted prototypes to showcase at GDC, you’re welcome to share your prototypes with the EGW community on Discord and in future events. Selected prototypes are shown at our session at this year’s GDC (traditionally Friday at 2pm), and speakers who are selected for the showcase will receive a free Speaker's pass to the entire GDC conference.

What if I cannot attend GDC?

This will not prevent you from sharing the space with all the awesome devs. We can show a video about your prototype during the show.

If you have questions about your submission or need clarification about the process, please email us here or find us on Twitter at @ExpGameWorkshop. We look forward to hearing from you - and hope to see you at GDC!