by David Harris, Curriculum Development & Community Manager
My first in-person Reacting event was the 2024 Game Development Conference at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. Like many new Reactors, I walked away from the conference deeply enthusiastic for the curriculum and brimming with ideas for my own games. It was in conversations there with Nick Proctor that I first heard a magical word: “BLORG.”
A secret library of games beyond the posted library of games! A place where I could stake out my slice of the Reacting pie. And so, like many before me, I went home from the conference and prepared to make my first submission to the BLORG. Except, upon parsing its lines of excitingly titled games, I found one that was just like the one I envisioned! Stifling my disappointment, I reached out to the author, hoping to either get a copy of their game in development that I could use, or potentially explore c0-authoring it with them. However, weeks went by, and there was no response to my email. I wrote again, and continued to wait, but the months passed and still nothing.
If my experience sounds remotely familiar to you, then you have some inkling of an idea why we are starting of 2026 with a hard reset of the BLORG.
Simply put, up to now, the BLORG has been “dead” resource – only intermittently maintained by people outside Reacting Central – with little correspondence between its nearly 600 entries and games actually in development. The vast majority of entries functionally represent an idea someone had at a Conference, but never pursued any farther. When I sat down with Reacting Editorial Board Chair Kelly McFall to discuss the current state of the BLORG in Fall 2025, he estimated that fewer than one in twenty Level 1 entries ever made the jump to level 2, and only a slightly higher percentage of Level 2 entries made the jump to Level 3.
We weighed trying to reorganize the current BLORG, which would have meant reaching out to hundreds of prospective authors and finding out the state of their entries. However, given the upcoming announcement of Reacting 3.0, an opt-out approach simply did not make sense. Even if a given author had continued work on their entry, the vast majority of Level 2 and Level 1 games would be completed under the 3.0 templates, introducing a whole new set of issues. And so, we decided that the best way forward was an opt-in approach through a hard reset.
The BLORG is Dead, Long Live the BLORG
To clarify, the old BLORG will remain linked on the website as an artifact of the Reacting 2.0 era, a place to go get ideas and potentially seek out co-authors. However, it will have no importance beyond being a window into the past of Reacting.
BLORG 2.0 is a currently a private document, which myself, Reacting’s interns, and members of the REB have been working on since last fall. BLORG 2.0 will be publicized to the community in early February 2026, after we catalog the initial flurry of entries that we anticipate will follow this announcement.
If you have a level 3-5 game that is currently on the website or published – there are no additional steps you need to take at this point. However if you have a level 1 or 2 game under development for Reacting and have not been asked to re-submit already, we ask that you re-submit your game if you are interested in claiming a spot on BLORG 2.0 and continuing work on your project.
As part of the BLORG relaunch, the REB has revised what it asks from authors at Level 1 and Level 2 to get an entry onto the BLORG. While these do not represent a fundamental break from what these levels have been historically, they do ask for a little more from the author up front.
For Level 1, in addition to the basic game information (location, time period, player count, etc.) that we have historically asked for, we are asking for a 250-300 word description that summarizes the structure of the game and its content and skills-based learning objectives. The goal of requesting this is to ensure more games submitted for level 1 have been brainstormed beyond the initial “I have an idea” phase, and will ultimately conform with many of the pedagogical and accessibility goals of Reacting 3.0.
For Level 2, we are now expecting the submission of game files. These will not go up on the website, and will only be shared internally. Asking for them ensures that the author has a working prototype that can be evaluated for further development support by the REB.
A Living Resource
The ultimate goal of the reset is to create a resource that is more useful to the community and supports the REB’s goal of fostering game development for Reacting to the Past
As a Reacting member, when you visit BLORG 2.0 you can be assured that every project you see is “active.” If it’s a level 2 game, there will always be files you can use if you are interested and email the author. If you are an author, you can be assured that other Reacting members can easily find your project, and thereby find play-testers and co-authors more easily. Moreover, your game in development being on BLORG 2.0 represents more than a line of text on a Google Sheets document, but evidences a level of investment in your project from Reacting Central and the Editorial Board.
Going forward, if you have a level 1 or level 2 entry on the BLORG, someone from Reacting Central (probably myself) will email you twice annually – during the summer and at the start of the spring semester – to inquire about progress on your game. This can be simply an opportunity to touch base, or can lead into a more detailed conversation to discuss the game’s development and share resources, depending on what the author’s preferences. The REB hopes to make use of a living BLORG to identify games in progress that are beneficial to Reacting to the Past as a curriculum (such as covering an a under-represented topic, or being playable by larger classes), and support their accelerated development to the benefit of the entire community.
Maintaining a living BLORG means there has to be mechanism for removing entries from the BLORG should the author stop communicating or stop development of their game for a prolonged period of time. The body that has the final say on this will be the Reacting Editorial Board, as that is the group best equipped to make rulings based on the inevitable extenuating circumstances that may arise in the course of game writing. Entries will be referred to the REB by the following policy guidelines:
If you have a level 1 entry, and you are incommunicative for a year (two check-ins), then your entry will be referred to the REB for potential removal. If you have a level 2 entry, and are incommunicative for two years (four check-ins), then your entry will be referred to the REB for potential removal. These policies are not aimed to punish potential authors for having life get in the way, but once again, ensure that the resource remains a living document that ultimately helps more than hinders game development.
There are sure to be many questions surrounding this reboot of the BLORG, and we welcome your feedback and thoughts. If you have questions or feedback about the policies surrounding BLORG 2.0 or game development in general, please email REB Chair Kelly McFall at reactingeditorialdirector@gmail.com. If you want to get in touch with me directly about submitting you entries to BLORG 2.0 or have questions about the submission process, you can reach me at david@reacingconsortium.org.
