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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

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Scurra
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Use this thread to post queries about this month's Game Design Showdown challenge: "Bits and Pieces" (link here)

Bonus competition: Name the games from which the various components came. (There is more than one answer for at least one of the components, and a couple of trick ones :-)
Use this thread to enter your guesses...

kungfugeek
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Dice?

Six-sided dice, I assume?

zaiga
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

155 Wooden cubes (31 each of five different colors)

El Grande

50 tiny Wooden disks (in one single color, Brown)

Puerto Rico

36 plain double-sided cardboard Tiles (blue on one side, red on the other)

Fire & Ice? :)

30 cardboard Shield tokens (in one single color, Blue, with 10 each of three types, labeled 1, 2 and 3)

Lord of the Rings

16 Wooden disks (in one single color, Yellow, numbered 1 to 16)

Ra

Dunno about the others.

Kreitler
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Scurra, you're one sadistic guy -- but I like it.
This looks to be the toughest challenge yet...

K.

Scurra
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Re: Dice?

kungfugeek wrote:
Six-sided dice, I assume?

Ooops. Well caught. I shall amend the original forthwith.
Yes, six-sided dice.

btaggart
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

I don't suppose we could get pictures of some of these (the shield tokens and elephants in particular)?

FastLearner
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Are the tiles square? Hex-shaped?

Hamumu
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Ouch, this contest is straight up nasty. And even if I come up with something I like... I'll never be able to playtest it!

DSfan
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Oh man, what a great time for me to actually start participating in these Game Showdowns. I think this sounds like the hardest one yet. All those bits for one game! And most of them are in a single color!

Oh well, enough with my babbling. I guess I better get back to work! [Begin sounds of typing amazingly fast]

Justin

Kreitler
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Is there any chance we can get a "news item" for the July Challenge on the BGDF home page. Previous challenges did this, and it made it much easier to reference the rules.

Thanks!

K.

Sebastian
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

zaiga wrote:
155 Wooden cubes (31 each of five different colors)
El Grande

50 tiny Wooden disks (in one single color, Brown)
Puerto Rico

36 plain double-sided cardboard Tiles (blue on one side, red on the other)
Fire & Ice? :)

30 cardboard Shield tokens (in one single color, Blue, with 10 each of three types, labeled 1, 2 and 3)
Lord of the Rings

16 Wooden disks (in one single color, Yellow, numbered 1 to 16)
Ra

15 plastic Pawns (3 each of five colors)

Seems a bit generic to guess, to be honest.

5 Wooden markers (in the shape of a chair, an onion dome, a head, a plain square and a dragon)

Sounds like St. Petersburg to me, except for the dragon which I'm guessing comes from the Carcassonne expansion.

12 six-sided Dice (2 each of five colours)

Are you counting in base eight for the rest of the numbers, too? ;) Again, a bit generic.

10 Wooden Elephants (in one single color, Brown)

Mammoth Hunters

Scurra
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

FastLearner wrote:
Are the tiles square? Hex-shaped?

Square.

Hmmm. Ought to get these things read more carefully before I post them...
(cf. Sebastian's comment about the dice.)

I shall edit the original post again. :-)

Pictures of some of the components? Not a bad idea. I shall see what I can do.

A news item has been submitted, but I don't have the requisite permissions to post it on the front page.

Kreitler
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

You give the quantity of all game pieces except money. Do we assume we have an infinitely wealthy bank? It's hard to come up with unit costs without knowing the size of your world ecomony. ;)

K.

Hamumu
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

You know the bill sizes, that's the important part... don't want people shelling out 1,000 $50 bills to buy things.

Scurra
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

FWIW, the 1's are Blue, the 5's are Yellow, the 10's are Orange and the 50's are Green, if you want to try and figure out which game they're from. Is that any help? Thought not. ;-))

Anonymous
Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Scurra wrote:
FWIW, the 1's are Blue, the 5's are Yellow, the 10's are Orange and the 50's are Green, if you want to try and figure out which game they're from. Is that any help? Thought not. ;-))

Well, that does help a bunch. The money must be from Power Grid.

And, about the components. Can we get relative sizes for everything? For instance, can the pawns stand on the square cardboard tiles? On the tiny wooden disks? Etc.

Pictures of everything would definitly help. (Especially the 'wooden markers'!)

Another question. Do we just need to use at least one item from each category. For instance, if I just used the Wooden Marker in the shape of a Chair and not the other 4, is that acceptable?

Thanks!

btaggart
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

The way I understand it, every piece has to be used in some way in the game, even if (for example) only in the case of a five player session.

So unless you're using those markers as Monopoly-style player pawns, you'll need to work all five into the game rules.

Scurra
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Bandit_Ripshawd wrote:
And, about the components. Can we get relative sizes for everything? For instance, can the pawns stand on the square cardboard tiles? On the tiny wooden disks? Etc.

Fair questions. The tiles would be about 1 inch square, so you can put pawns, dice and the wooden markers on them. The tiny wooden disks are described as "tiny" for a good reason, so assume that nothing can stand on them, but that multiples can stand on a tile.

Quote:
Pictures of everything would definitly help. (Especially the 'wooden markers'!)
I'll endeavour to put some pictures up tomorrow, if people can wait that long :)

Quote:
Another question. Do we just need to use at least one item from each category. For instance, if I just used the Wooden Marker in the shape of a Chair and not the other 4, is that acceptable?

Hmmm. Almost a rules lawyer question ;)
Ideally I think you'd have to have a good reason why the other four weren't being used. The example for the pawns holds here: if you used them to differentiate the players then not all of them would be used if there weren't five players. Of course, you couldn't then use colours to differentiate the players, since you're using the wooden shaped markers!

Sebastian
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

btaggart wrote:
I don't suppose we could get pictures of some of these (the shield tokens and elephants in particular)?

Assuming we're right in our guesses, the following links:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/33792
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/75442
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/66610
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/85924
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/70081
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/14326
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/80916

should be of use. I'm still missing pictures of pawns, the dice, the double sided tiles and cubes, and I'm not sure about the picture of the dragon.

doho123
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

the dragon is maybe from the game Emerald.

Anonymous
Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Scurra wrote:
Quote:
Another question. Do we just need to use at least one item from each category. For instance, if I just used the Wooden Marker in the shape of a Chair and not the other 4, is that acceptable?

Hmmm. Almost a rules lawyer question ;)
Ideally I think you'd have to have a good reason why the other four weren't being used. The example for the pawns holds here: if you used them to differentiate the players then not all of them would be used if there weren't five players. Of course, you couldn't then use colours to differentiate the players, since you're using the wooden shaped markers!

Follow up on this... (yes, you can call me a 'rules lawyer' if you want... I just want to make sure that I'm following all the guidelines!)

For the pieces that are all alike (tiny wooden disks, shields, cubes)... do we need to use all of them? If, for instance, we used the disks as a victory point system or something and wouldn't necessarily need all 50, is that a problem? Either way is fine here...

Basically, does our game need to account for every piece (like with the pawns representing players... they are all accounted for), or do we just need to use each type of piece? Again, this question is more geared towards the pieces that are in bulk (cubes, disks, tiles, shields, etc.).

Thanks! Hope this question made sense...?

Sebastian
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Sebastian wrote:
btaggart wrote:
I don't suppose we could get pictures of some of these (the shield tokens and elephants in particular)?

Assuming we're right in our guesses, the following links:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/33792
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/75442
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/66610
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/85924
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/70081
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/14326
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/80916

should be of use. I'm still missing pictures of pawns, the dice, the double sided tiles and cubes, and I'm not sure about the picture of the dragon.

Could we please have confirmation of the colour of the dragon. Is it coloured to match the other described in that section, or is it differently coloured?

Scurra
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Bandit_Ripshawd - aka 'not a rules lawyer wrote:

For the pieces that are all alike (tiny wooden disks, shields, cubes)... do we need to use all of them? If, for instance, we used the disks as a victory point system or something and wouldn't necessarily need all 50, is that a problem? Either way is fine here...

My intention was that all the pieces should be *available* for use. However, if the yellow disks numbered 1 - 16 were used as player order markers and the game only scaled to 5, then the excess disks would clearly not be used (but they would be available for use.) Whereas I think that saying that the board should be supported by stacking the yellow disks and resting it on them should probably be considered cheating. :-)

IOW the game needs to account for each type of piece, and it would be up to the judges to decide if their use was appropriate.

Scurra
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Excellent set of links to pieces snipped; they all look fine to me.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/69854
shows the cubes (yes, from El Grande.)
The pawns and the dice are fairly traditional, and there are no pictures of the tiles since they came from my own "Fire & Ice" game. But as I said, they are about one inch square.

Sebastian wrote:

Could we please have confirmation of the colour of the dragon. Is it coloured to match the other described in that section, or is it differently coloured?

The Dragon is from Carcassonne and yes, it's a different colour to the St Petersberg markers. Although my set of St Petersberg markers are different colours now (three of them are Green, Blue and Orange to match the applicable cards), so that isn't necessarily an issue ;-))

Challengers
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155 Cubes

What color are the cubes? I don't have El Grande, but it seems to have only four colors.

Scurra
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Re: 155 Cubes

Challengers wrote:
What color are the cubes? I don't have El Grande, but it seems to have only four colors.

Yellow, Red, Green, Blue and (iirc) Brown.

Challengers
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Not to flog a moribund horse but, with all of the components to account for, I don't see how we can limit ourselves to 800 words. I'm up to 480 already and that's just for set-up! (okay, some of it is the lead-in story but, still...)

Mitch

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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

My friend, you opened up a can of worms with this one....

But how many worms are there, what colour are they, and do I have to use all of them? Do I have to use the can? Do they have to represent worms, or can they be, say, leeches? Can I saw the worms in half, or glue several together, or stick googly-eyes to them?

~Josh

Kreitler
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Challengers wrote:
Not to flog a moribund horse but, with all of the components to account for, I don't see how we can limit ourselves to 800 words. I'm up to 480 already and that's just for set-up! (okay, some of it is the lead-in story but, still...)

Mitch

I hear that! My entry weighed in at 1457 words before I started cutting. I crammed it down to 797, but now it reads like a Rebus puzzle... 8-P

K.

Hamumu
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Was a consensus or rule ever reached regarding the penalties for including pictures? Just count in the words on the picture?

Kreitler
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Comments and Questions on the July 2005 Challenge

Hamumu wrote:
Was a consensus or rule ever reached regarding the penalties for including pictures? Just count in the words on the picture?

I don't think there was any consensus, but Bryk's last words were something like, "I don't want to worry about assigning a 'word cost' to pictures". I think that counting text included with pictures is where we're currently at.

K.

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