12.1e — Grid/Symmetry Jam: Showcase
The third arcade row of the year, and the last one with new games for a while. Grid games are the most SPECTATOR-friendly genre: passersby understand them in one glance, which makes today's showcase the most watchable yet. Star votes, retro, and then the road ahead.
Arcade row (10.1f contract): host and player in equal measure, pitch sticky by every keyboard. Star categories, grid edition:
- BEST BOARD: which game was understandable in one glance — the purest grid virtue
- BEST SYMMETRY: where did the mirroring create fairness, difficulty, or beauty instead of just... mirroring
- BEST RULE: which single rule did the most work per line of code
Count the grid-game-only data: which game had the most passersby STOP (the one-glance test, live)?
The four quadrants (10.1f format), plus the grid-jam question:
- Went well / went wrong — one process fact each, with evidence
- The grid discovery: what did the GRID give you that free movement would not have? (Every constraint jam had one — this is the constraint's receipt.)
- The year-in-games question: your three jams side by side — 2-button, cards, grid. The Reflect block below asks what their constraints taught you about finishing, and what you would tell a team choosing a fourth (9.3 tradeoffs, artistic edition).
Reflect: three constraints, one lesson
Of the three jams you shipped this year, which constraint taught you the most about finishing — and what would you tell a team choosing their own constraint for a fourth jam?
Checkpoint — before moving on, you must be able to:
- Host + play with star votes and stopper-counts
- Name your grid discovery in one sentence
- Rank your three jams by what their constraints taught
- Leave a tagged repo and an honest RETRO.md
Reference Docs
Need a deeper explanation? These pages cover the same concepts:
- Unit 12: Season 2 — the final unit
- Projects — the year's work, collected
Saved on this device only — the Dashboard tracks your progress.