Submit to Game Poems
Submit to Game Poems
Subscribe to our email list on Substack to stay updated about open calls, and new issues of the magazine.
Intents to submit to Game Poems issue #1 are now closed. But issue #2 will be coming up fast! If you would like to be informed about the next open call, please subscribe to our free email list on Substack.
The theme for this issue is First Moves. We invite you to ponder, investigate, explore, and interpret this theme widely and creatively in relation to videogames, poetry, your own experience, and the world at large.
April 15, 2025: Register your Intent to Submit a game (form is now closed).
June 15, 2025: Regular game submission deadline (for full consideration and honorarium if selected).
July 15, 2025: Late game submission deadline.
The planned publication timeframe is Fall of 2025.
The game submission form will be posted closer to the June 15 deadline.
For details regarding the selection process, please see the submission guidelines below.
Game Poems publishes small, artistic videogames that explore and interrogate the convergences between videogames and various poetic traditions. Importantly, these games need not incorporate poetic text, or text of any kind. Where digital poetry traditions have long emphasized the thread of linguistic sounds and symbols as the chief thread connecting digital and computational poetry to written and oral poetry traditions, this magazine is interested primarily in ways in which poetic intervention can operate natively within videogames, irrespective of their use of words. While we welcome short games that do play with poetic language, we prefer that these types of games do not make up the majority of most issues of the magazine.
As a starting point, we are interested in games that simply follow in the lyric tradition of short-form personal expression. At the broadest level, this means that most short-form videogames are essentially eligible for publication. For discussion regarding ways in which videogames can intentionally position themselves as a kind of poetry apart from word play, please see our open access book, Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice.
For examples of the kinds of things this magazine might publish, please take a look at out our curated Itch.io collection. Also check out the games found within the Meditations project. Note that these examples are not intended to form any kind of canon, or hard boundaries around the types of games that we may publish in the future. They are intended solely as a helpful starting place. We are always looking for new and innovative approaches to the game poem form.
Each issue of Game Poems is edited by a collective consisting of past magazine contributors, along with invited artists and scholars. (The first issue was edited by founding editor Jordan Magnuson, in coordination with invited artists and scholars.)
The editors curate a selection of new works (between 5-10 short games for each issue) based on a combination of open call, and invited contributions.
Editing and production are done in coordination with a group of advisors with relevant publishing and editorial experience, and in coordination with the Game Poets Discord community.
We are looking for short-form games. In the tradition of lyric poetry, this is our most essential selection criteria. Typically, games should take no more than 5-10 minutes to play through (20 minutes as an upper limit). Games without any definite conclusion are still eligible for publication, but should have short play sessions in mind.
We are looking for games that engage with ideas from poetry—but that doesn't mean they need to include words. (See "What do we publish?" above.) Simply making short games as as a form of personal expression is a great starting place! You might also consider playing with material constraints or explicitly invoking lyric characteristics. (See the Game Poems book.)
We are looking for games that engage with the theme or constraints for the given issue of the magazine.
We are looking for artistic merit. Is the game innovative, emotionally resonant, conceptually strong? Does it push at boundaries or offer a fresh perspective?
We prefer new and previously-unpublished work. The magazine exists largely to encourage new creative output. Though we may occasionally invite previously published games, and will consider previously published games depending on submission volume.
We try our best to curate a diverse collection of games for each issue. This includes diversity of content, diversity of form, and diversity of perspectives/voices. Some issues are specially themed, or invite play with a particular constraint; however, we try to insure each issue is as diverse as possible within the bounds of any given constraints. Examples: unless Bitsy is a given constraint, we prefer not to publish only games made in Bitsy; unless "loneliness" is a constraint, we prefer not to publish only games about social isolation and loneliness; unless "word play" is a constraint, we prefer not to publish only games that play with words. We also try to give voice to a diverse array of creators: we want to see game poems being made by every type of person, about every type of human experience.
Note that artistic merit is only one among many selection criteria. If your game was not selected for inclusion in a given issue, it does not mean that the editors think it is a bad game.
We ask you to submit a brief written statement/reflection (500 words max) that will also be published alongside your game, if chosen. This can take any form you like. While traditional artist statements detailing motivations, processes, and innovations are welcome, you are also welcome to submit a simple reflection, meditation, or even (gasp) a poem.
Submitted games must be complete. Betas and demos should be finished first and submitted to a later issue.
Submitted games must run in a web browser on a personal computer (launched via an index.html file).
Note that most modern game engines have the ability to build to HTML5—but please test your game in a browser from the start!
Submitted games must be less than 100MB in total build size. (Talk to us if you think your game can't fit within this limit.)
Required compatibility/testing:
Google Chrome on Windows.
Browser window sizes between 1280x720 and 1920x1080.
Must support both windowed and full-screen browser modes.
Your game must run maximized within the browser window. (Not as a small, centered frame.)
Keyboard/Mouse input.
Preferred additional compatibility/testing:
Google Chrome on MacOS and Ubuntu.
Google Chrome on Android and iOS (with touch controls).
Adaptive scaling to support arbitrary window sizes and orientations from tiny (640x480) to huge (4k+).
Gamepad input support. (There's an HTML5 API for that, which many game engines support out of the box.)
Game Poems is an open access publication, distributed under a CC BY 4.0 license. By submitting to Game Poems, you agree that, if we accept your work, we may release and distribute it, copyright by you, under this same license. Note that this license covers the finished work only (as submitted), and not the work's source code. We prefer—but do not require—submitted games to be open source.
Note that by submitting to Game Poems you retain full ownership of your work, and the right to build on, publish, distribute, or sell it under any license you choose in the future—though we ask that you generally hold off distributing the game elsewhere for six months from the date we publish it, and that you acknowledge Game Poems as the place of first publication where appropriate.
We are happy to be able to offer a small honorarium of £100 to magazine contributors thanks to a grant from the University of Southampton Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
This grant will cover honoraria for the first issue of the magazine. We value creative work and are actively seeking ways to fund honoraria for magazine contributors in a sustainable way into the future.
While there are no hard rules against submitting text-based games, we don't expect to publish many traditional works of interactive fiction (e.g. parser-based games, Twine stories, text adventures), simply because there are already such rich and well-established communities and platforms dedicated to that kind of work—such as IFComp, Spring Thing, the XYZZY awards, Narrascope, ChoicBeat, etc.
Likewise, for text-driven digital poetry, there are strong traditions and venues that engage directly with language-based poetics—such as ELO, Taper, the HTML Review, the New Media Writing Prize, and others.
Game Poems is intended to carve out a slightly different space, focused on short-form videogames and ways in which poetic principles can operate within games apart from any particular reliance on words and language. That said, we are very open to surprises. If you are working on a game that emerges from a text-based tradition but feels more like a game poem than a traditional IF work, or a traditional piece of digital poetry, we would absolutely be interested in seeing it, and having a conversation about it! Feel free to contact us with your thoughts.
Not at this time. Our current focus is on digital games.
Yes. The game submission form will allow you to enter bio information for each author.
At this time, due to submission volume, we ask that each author submits only a single game for consideration for any given issue of the magazine.
Game Poems is an open access publication, distributed under a CC BY 4.0 license. As such, you must have the rights to distribute any assets used in your game under that same license. Public domain and CC0 assets are safe for this purpose. Likewise, assets licensed under most CC BY licenses would be useable as long as the original asset creators are adequately credited. "Full commercial use" licenses may also be accceptable depending on terms. Most other licenses would be too restrictive.