Comments and Questions on April 2005 Challenge

Hello all, while this is my first post (I only discovered this pearl of a website last sunday night), I already submitted my updated version of the showdown today.

I hadn't read this topic, so I was unaware of the no-board-discussion. My game has no board, but it has a couple of carddecks. My question is as folows:

May the players draw from the central (-being the only-) decks, or do they have to have their own decks? (In which case I have to redesign it (?quite?) a bit...)

Cheese!
Gogolski.

My Game:
1. roll dice
2. move your pieces according to the roll
3. landing on an opponents piece lets you move it back.
4. first player to get all their pieces to goal wins.

Interpret the rules any way you like. The other players will do the same.

Sorry for the bluntness, but I can't help but think that it's a bit unfair to participants to have the rules of the contest itself be subject to a judgment call. I'm not going to be participating anyway (a week just isn't enough time for my ideas to gel satisfactorily), but if I were, I'd much rather be judged on the basis of the quality of the game, rather than having to worry how others are going to interpret whether I should be disqualified.

The rules are ALWAYS subject to a judgement call... it's just a matter of whether or not someone brings it up before hand or not.

Then you would have hated the "original" Game Design Showdowns, where the whole point was to come up with a game idea on the fly, and the deadline was measured in minutes rather than days. My impression was that these Showdowns were intended to be similar, but were made a week long so that everybody could participate (they wouldn't have to be available at the precise time the showdown was going on). However, that necessarily changes the feel of the contest significantly. Game ideas can be instantaneous. Game rules take time to develope.

Nobody gets disqualified. If a voter disagrees with your interpretation of the rules of the contest, they might 'count you down' for that, but the worst that happens is that voter won't vote for your entry. Or, if the game is outstanding, but part of it sorta didn't jive with the rules, they might vote for you anyway.

My point is, the showdown's about spitting out a game design on the fly, with restrictions. How well someone does that is a subjective thing, as is how 'true to the restrictions' they are.

- Seth

Agreed!

Another thing to consider might be a fixed format. By format, I mean something like:

<br />
- Title</p>
<p>- Number of players<br />
blahblah</p>
<p>- Summary<br />
blahblah</p>
<p>- Game contents<br />
blahblah</p>
<p>- Game setup<br />
blahblah</p>
<p>- Rules<br />
rule 1<br />
blahblah</p>
<p>rule 2<br />
blahblah</p>
<p>- Optional rule(s)<br />
blahblah</p>
<p>- Strategic advice<br />
blahblah<br />

Most game-designs already folow something like this format, but it might make it easier to vote if it were the exact same for every entry. Also the big titles would make it easy to scroll up and down between the entries. Voters would find the same stuff in the same place and need less time to weigh certain game-aspects against eachother.

It would be easy to copy/paste the format, and then copy/paste every piece in the right space (=blahblah).
We could construct this format together of course. Just an idea, though...

Cheese.