(moved here per hpox's request...)
I hate to be the fly in the ointment, and indeed, it doesn't really matter to me because I didn't even end up entering the competition, but have the judges changed? Or was it always the case that different entries would be judged by different judges?
Either way, it seems to me that while the categories are the same, the way this judge assigned points is different than the way that the previous judge did. As such, I wonder if there's really a legitimate basis for comparison between the different entries such that you could coronate a "winner".
Now, you might say "well, it doesn't really matter if you win, the point is just to have fun and enter". But if that's the case, drop the judging pretense altogether and just post all the games here on the board and we can judge for ourselves which were the "best".
I don't know; it seems to be a really tough aspect of having a competition that a lot of people are going to enter: how do you get judges to evaluate all of the games on the same scale, except to have them evaluate ALL of the games? Yet, how can you ask judges to commit to doing the latter?
Perhaps for later competitions you should use a "Hippodice-like" method where there's an initial "filter" stage, and then the finalists will actually be playtested by the judges. The fact that that club judges the 50 or so games that make it to the finals by their whole group playing them all Spring strongly suggests that trying to judge 25 entries by playtesting with only a couple of judges was overly ambitious. Hindsight is 20-20, of course, but it seems that there are changes that can be made that would make future contests better. (I would probably say "must be made")
Maybe also charging a small fee to enter, and giving the judges a small reward would also be appropriate?
As for this contest...if I had entered, I'd probably be suggesting that we just drop the scoring altogether at this point, since it's taken so long and since the scores may be relative anyway. But I couldn't presume to propose that for the other people, who presumably worked hard on their entries and would like them evaluated.
Just my thoughts...
-Jeff
Darke, I can totally understand the woes and how they came about. It was a cool idea and I admire you for putting it together and try to work a solution even in the face of adversity!
But....
SOOOO, at this point, I just want to make sure that everyone at least gets their game reviewed. The contest was never really meant to be too competitive. With bragging rights being the only prize being offered, I don't feel that objective ranking is really necessary. Also, I want to maintain some sort of credibility in case we want to hold future contests.
If you're putting emphasis on "too competitive", that's fine, but it was always my understanding that this wasn't just a review opportunity, but a contest. If it was review of a game that you wanted to provide, there shouldn't have been a theme at all. I chose not to enter because I wasn't excited enough about my game to really finish it, and that was because I was working on other projects. If I had entered and the only outcome was "your game will be reviewed", I would have said "what a waste! I have other games I care about way more!" So I think that having some sort of objective rankings had to have been an important ingredient of a contest, or else why do it? Obviously, the prize wasn't a concern to anyone, but I think objective evaluation would have been.
With no disrespect to Wolf intended, I find his reviews to be different in quality than XXOCC's, and would be upset if I had drawn him as a judge rather than XXOCC. I think of one game's originality, he simply said "Yawn." So it's not even providing feedback, just a number for which we have no basis of knowing how he arrived at it.
I completely agree that future credibility is important and that's why I posted my remarks. I would love to see this contest become a legitimate and serious competition. And I do understand that things outside of your control have happened. But when you say "we never meant the scores to mean too much", that makes me feel like there were problems in the contest from the inception, and that there were parameters that were never obvious, at least not to me. Do you feel that you adequately communicated the idea that "we don't feel objective ranking is really necessary in this competition"? I guess I just never got that sense (though I agree that it was clear that it wasn't super serious and cutthroat.
I agree, but zaiga, for instance, has already pulled his submission; maybe others would do likewise? If you told me, for instance, "hey, we're having trouble with getting enough judges, and all we can promise you at this point is a review, and that review might say nothing more about elements of your game than "yawn"", I know that you could get me to pull my game in a heartbeat. If, of course, I had entered in the first place...
-Jeff