I’m thrilled to announce the a new program offering microgrants for game designers to make games in Story Synth. The program is being administered by Big Bad Con and is funded by Grant for the Web – you can find out all the details and apply by visiting Big Bad Con’s Grant Page.

There is $30,000 in grant funding, which will be given out in 100 microgrants of $300 each. The grants are all going to designers from marginalized background, to support them in making Story Synth games. The games will all be monetized using the new web monetization protocol, which is being promoted by Grant for the Web.

Big Bad Con is a wonderful Bay Area non-profit that organizes an annual storytelling game convention as well as many related events and programs. Their team is full of wonderful, thoughtful folks and I’m very excited to partner with them for this grant series. They’ll be administering the entire microgrant program but I’ll be there to help designers with any questions.

Grant for the Web is a fund to boost open, fair, and inclusive standards and innovation in Web Monetization. The new web monetization standard enables low-friction micropayments through web browsers – I wrote about my early experiments with the standard last year. They’re also providing funding for me to add new monetization functionality to Story Synth – I’m exploring different approaches right now but I will likely enable designers to put their games behind a micropayment paywall or to have a “freemium” approach where paying players get additional functionality or styles.

I’m eagerly anticipating a new wave of designers making Story Synth games and I look forward to helping them in their game design journeys. I have no doubt that they’ll have creative suggestions for new features and formats, which will hopefully usher in an additional wave of creative game design.

I’ll be sure to follow up here with the program’s progress and with links to the games!