Unconventional Game Engines

[alienhospital]

Hi! I was wondering if anyone has made games in programs not really made for video game making? Or made a different kind of game in an engine than what the engine is intended for? To provide an example, I saw someone make a visual novel on Google Slides. I believe the mechanism was that each given choice linked to a different slide on the sheet, so it could be played straight through via the link just like a regular VN. i thought that was so cool! Also -I found a Twine game that was a visual website that was also a game that was sort of like a midpoint between a rabbit hole, point and click, and interactive fiction? It was a very personal piece to the author, and heavily incorporated themes of CSA, abuse, and death, so I'd be hesitant to link it unless given the OK. But it did stretch the intended use of Twine (I presume Harlowe based on format) in my opinion, in a way I thought was cool!

I was wondering if anyone has done or seen something similar.

Something I'm thinking of doing:
-In the strawpage library, there is a short visual novel type feature, you can upload a sprite and background and make them talk. However, it's not intended for full game creation (rather, profile decoration) and its allowed sentences were very short last time I checked. I think it might be fun to make a short game using interlinked strawpages and this feature.

[TheFrugalGamer]

I have two in my bookmarks that I saved a while back:

• The Storyteller creates games in MS Excel. They're pretty extensive, and there are a lot of them, too!
• Dungeons and Directories is a D&D-type game that someone created with...well, directories. You click on the folder names to progress.

I feel like Twine can also be used for waaaaay more than just text adventures, especially if you're into hacking, though I haven't sat down and done it myself yet. As for your Strawpages idea, I'm sure it's doable! Websites are perfect for game creation, and I've created many of mine just in the browser with HTML5 and Javascript. Eventually I want to put together something like Myst or an old point-and-click adventure just using the same tools (so far, I've done puzzles and platformers).

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

Excel is a pretty common unconventional game engine - there are rather elaborated projects realized in it:
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=QnjmJKMtB7g

Another classic example would be games developed for graphical calculators. They were fairly common when I went to school - wonder if they are still a thing :D.
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=tY6t04XnCHY

Warcraft III offered many options to make maps that radically changed the game, but - by using a bug that greatly increased the means available to mappers ("return bug" - nearly no information on it can be found today, but prior to 2009 - when it was fixed - it was one of the most important tools of WC3-Modding), somebody turned Warcraft into a first-person-shooter:
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=zUZJB1a24oE

[bodypoetic]

I love this topic!!! I've not played it myself but my first thought was Radiator 1, which started its life as a Half-Life 2 mod.

It's interesting - I really struggle to think of games that fit this description, but it seems more common for electronic literature to do this kind of experimentation with platforms. I often feel like the divide between e-lit and video games is largely arbitrary, but in these particular examples, I do hesitate to describe them as games - I think because they don't allow any kind of reader input. I'm thinking primarily of Happenings, which uses Scalar (designed for academic texts), and _9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9, which unfolds through comments on seemingly random Reddit posts. Be warned that both of these cover potentially triggering subject matter!