Which underground communities do you visit (be it games, art, music, etc.)?
Don’t feel bad if they don’t overlap 100% with this space: as an example I frequently am on intfiction.org, as they are ace and fresh and innovative, even though they yet have to receive the Gospel of Free Software.
The community I follow most closely is the Abstract Games subforum on Board Game Geek. BGG’s defitinition of abstract games is broad, but the people who hang out in those forums are mostly concerned with two-player combinatorial games. The community is small, but some designers are quite prolific.
The games are non-commercial by nature, but not necessarily by intention. Every once in a while someone comes in asking if it’s possible to make money from abstract games. The answer is no, and exceptions are far too few. Money aside, some folks try to design for mass appeal, for pleasant first experiences, which has led to heated debates about how that affects the design in possibly bad ways.
But yeah, it’s mostly weird games in a genre that’s not entirely unpopular (see chess), but the people who play them prefer to focus on one game (see chess).
What else? I used to read the FreeGameDev forums, but I’m slacking hard (hi ffaf?). I’ve been playing Space Station 14, one of Space Station 13’s successors, so that’s underground, right? But most of the community seems to gather on Discord, and I don’t do that. I also read The Trick-Taking Guild on BGG, but at this point I start wondering if that’s underground enough. The whole mOdErN bOaRdGaMeS sCeNe is not exactly mainstream, but it’s VERY commercial! But yes, there are people making new games for ye ole deck of cards, or something else available as print-and-play. And I cannot, for the life of me, place those boutique Japanese card games on the commercialness scale.
Oh, quick edit: Gemini is fucken cool! But I haven’t read anything in there in ages, and I have yet to put up my own capsule…
The community I follow most closely is the Abstract Games subforum on Board Game Geek. BGG’s defitinition of abstract games is broad, but the people who hang out in those forums are mostly concerned with two-player combinatorial games. The community is small, but some designers are quite prolific.
Hark, thats cool :). Do you also play them, or is it more some sort of fascination for the topic?
Argh, the painful question! The truth is, playing opportunities are limited. I’m having to come to terms with that, and my second favorite, go, will probably drop out of my games rotation soon. And I don’t wanna try different games all the time, especially these games, they ask for some dedication. And my friends are usually more interested in other genres.
So mostly fascination, very little actual playing. =/
I’m afraid thats exactly the barrier I would encounter if I would try to enter these :3. Video games are - while still time demanding - a little bit more accessible.
Good idea. I’m using (mostly lurking on) Mastodon (.social), following some people, browsing some tags now and then. Recently noticed the web revival movement (in fact via a certain blog post about a game called “Pete is Hungry”) and I’m using melonland.net (a old fashioned bb-forum) as a gateway to it; don’t be fooled about the obsession with nostalgia among some of the people there - there is some crazy creativity around. I’m using some of the community functions of Itch.io.
My mailbox is also a bit active, I occasionally chat with some people.
A bit OT: I don’t really dwell there, but do you know allegro.cc? Their board is a bit active, and there are many games in different stages of development. Have yet to find the time to take a few strolls there.
allegro is a fantastic place, and it warms my heart that it is still active after all those year (another proof that OSS outlasts proprietary suites, like XNA).
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