Kryptogamen

Kryptogamen is a poetry incubator, workshop, laboratory. Made in Excel, the game invites players to create a poem. Prompts are available but optional. As players move between sheets or "rooms," the previous room disappears. This is not a game for second guessing. Once the “continue” button is pressed, a player commits to moving forward.

The name comes from a now deprecated classification (Cryptogamae) for algae, spores, slime molds and other plants and plant-like organisms that exhibit “hidden reproduction,” typically via spores, not seeds.  Kryptogamen embraces the idea of an unruly, unconventional poetic process, harnessing the affordances of Excel to encourage players to write without restraints and self-judgment.  Once they reach the end and close the document, the poem disappears, renewing the creative process.

[I'll share the game soon!]