Gaming Like It’s 1930: Winners Announced for Public Domain Game Jam

The annual “Gaming Like It’s 19XX” series has announced the winners of its eighth installment, celebrating works entering the public domain from 1930. The jam, which encourages developers to create games inspired by or based on these newly accessible works, saw a diverse range of submissions across both digital and analog formats.

Winners in Each Category

Best Analog Game — Diary of a Provincial Lady by donnabooby

Inspired by E.M. Delafield’s 1930 comedy Diary of a Provincial Lady, this party game combines elements of rotating-judge games like Apples to Apples with blackout poetry techniques. Players modify diary entries based on prompts, competing with cards featuring illustrations from the book. The novel, semi-autobiographical in nature, has remained continuously in print since its initial publication. Learn more about the novel.

Best Digital Game — I Could Do That! by Geouug

This game playfully challenges the common dismissal of abstract art with a nod to Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, which entered the public domain this year. Players attempt to recreate the painting after a brief viewing, receiving a numerical score based on pixel-by-pixel accuracy.

Best Adaptation — I am Sam Spade by Marshview Games

Based on Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon, this tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) uniquely adapts the source material by drawing inspiration from Raymond Chandler’s character Philip Marlowe. Utilizing mechanics from the minimalist TTRPG Everyone is John, players each embody different facets of Sam Spade’s personality.

Best Remix — Lilac Song by Autumn Chen

Lilac Song is an interactive fiction game set during the final years of the Weimar Republic, exploring themes of gender, democracy, socialism, and the rise of Nazism. The game incorporates public domain paintings by Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, as well as early 20th-century musical compositions, to enhance its narrative.

Best Deep Cut — CARAMENTRAN by RedSPINE and poymakes

Inspired by the Carnivals of Southern France tradition of scapegoating and burning an effigy representing the “King of Carnival,” CARAMENTRAN is a haunting video game where the player embodies the effigy, attempting to resist the flames and accusations of the townspeople. The game utilizes collage graphics created from obscure 1930s archival images.

Best Visuals — As I Lay Flying by Geouug

Based on William Faulkner’s 1930 novel As I Lay Dying, As I Lay Flying transforms the story into a slapstick physics-based challenge while retaining the heart of the original function. The game features polished graphics, including original character portraits and parallax backgrounds.

Honorable Mentions

• The Agatha Effect by A.M.Homunculus and Matteo Ignesti — A narrative game involving a murder mystery and a seance with Agatha Christie.
• Early Sunday Morning by Nora Katz — A unique play session involving hide-and-seek and an improvised scavenger hunt in the player’s city.
• The House Hunter Mystery by Gwen C. Katz — An object-finding video game based on Nancy Drew.
• Poetry Appreciator 2K26 by ZapJackson — A comedic exploration of T.S. Eliot’s Ash Wednesday with resource-management mechanics.

The winning designers will be contacted via Itch.io to arrange their prizes. More information about the jam and all submissions can be found on itch.io. Spotlight posts and a Techdirt Podcast episode discussing the winners are planned.