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What is iotaBuildIt?

It's an experimental game and method or philosophy for creating games. The [game] itself started out as one with very basic, flat graphics, and a number of features, but still very little actual game-play other than a tutorial on how to play. But a good portion of the available mechanics in the game revolves around building small robots from components that you pick up. Each component has a specific task, like powering other components, moving the robot or reacting to other creatures, to take a few examples. And the iotaBuildIt [philosophy] also revolves around building something from small components: the game itself. It is an experiment in crowd-sourced game development. Each user/player is invited to contribute something of their own to the game world that any other player can then enjoy as they play the game. Then, the hope is, if and when players can rate these contributions, the best game will evolve from countless contributions from multitudes of users. There is much more to say about what iotaBuildIt is, but much of it will be defined by the players.

For more details about what iotaBuildIt is, see:

• iotaBuildIt [game comparisons] to other games
• iotaBuildIt [philosophy]
• [screenshots]

Why is it called iotaBuildIt?

The meaning of the word "iota" is something very small. The hope is that a multitude of contributions, however small, can add up to something great when combined. Similarly, the robots in the game are built from small components. One of the preliminary titles for the game was "nanobots", but of course those are invisibly small. So maybe it makes more sense to call them "iota" bots. The idea is to combine small components to make a functional whole. The title iotaBuildIt also sounds like "I oughtta build it", and you should! We all ought to put something into this game to improve or expand it. The game is about building robots from small components, and the philosophy/method is about building a game from small contributions. The single title covers both of these concepts.

So how do I get started?

Visit the [participate] page for all the details on how to participate in this project. The information available is pretty basic at this point, but I think it's enough for an average tech-savvy user to figure out how to participate. And I hope you will also help improve the site itself by making your own improvements to the wiki as well. Once you have a SourceForge account, you should be able to click the edit icon at the top right of any wiki page (or add new wiki pages) to contribute your own improvements to the site.

Project Admins:

• Benjamin Marty

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