Critique the Decmber 2005 GDS Challenge Entries

-Bryk

Ah, yes, I see that now after taking a longer-than-just-passing-first-glance. I wonder if that was intentional.

I'm pretty certain it was.

-Bryk

Yes. If I remember correctly, "Donner, party of 8" is a Robin Williams punchline about the ill-fated expedition.

K.

If it's bad form to post critiques before voting is complete, just let me know and I'll remove the entry. Otherwise, no peeking until you've voted!

No really, no peeking.

It's not like I didn't warn you.

Apologies if any of these seem too harsh...

Entry #1 - Donner, Party of 8!
I think this one stretched the theme constraint a little past the breaking point, but is otherwise fairly solid. The mutation seems a bit of an absurd inclusion, and I'm also confused why letting the poor little bunny rabbit starve to death is somehow less evil, given that the reindeer will die even if he eats the carrot, but I suspect I'm thinking about that way too hard. It might be a bit less chaotic if you butcher the reindeer more finely and increase the game length a bit. I can't believe I just recommended that, though...

Entry #2 - JAGSPILL
This is a very abstracted take on the theme, and it certainly creates an interesting mental image, but I'm just not sure how well it will work. For example, what if two consecutive players want the white ball to catch the black, followed by two consecutive who want the black ball to catch the white. If the former pair hold the black ball, and the latter hold the white ball, what's to stop the game from freezing right there? Still an interesting concept, and fits the non-theme criteria well.

Entry #3 - Who Kicked Rudolph?
Several games in this competition interpreted 'hunt/chase' to include deduction games when the suspects are already in custody. I frankly don't quite buy that. I suppose the _players_ are seeking specific _cards_, but that really isn't quite the same thing if the characters are doing something unrelated. It definitely succeeds at being simple and silly...perhaps too much so. The same mechanics might make a bit more sense with a different theme, as it doesn't quite parse that the 'guilty' reindeer keeps changing identity. Not sure if the 'deleted expletive' spoonerism was deliberate. A part of me wants to use a singing greeting card chip with this one...gives the elves something more to go on than pure guesswork. perhaps "Grandma got Run Over..."?

Entry #4 - Alibi
I really wanted to like this one, but again, the detective player is hunting, but not his character. Unless, now that I think about it, you're hunting _information_...but that still seems a bit of a stretch, especially since in this case the information isn't even attempting to evade pursuit. Which leads me to what I see as the most obvious problem: the theme-mechanic mismatch that the guilty party has no idea they're guilty from the start. This is also true in Clue and assorted 'How to Host', but that doesn't make it right. Otherwise, maybe I'm just not seeing it, but there isn't a lot of opportunity for strategy here...the detective's intial choices more or less randomly target specific players. And not to name any specific stories, but...(spoiler?)...couldn't the detective have dunnit? I'd suggest that the author continue to work with this one...there's a much better game a few tweaks away, IMHO.

Entry #5 - Virus
Marginal pass on theme...virii don't actually seek hosts, they just spread enough that some will end up there. Very light, but sounds fun...biggest problem is very limited opportunity for meaningful decision. Especially once your blindfold is on, though a good spatial memory might let you target specific pawns you saw earlier. Is there some way of limiting the right to move the pawns so that the blindfolded can use this skill element without taking away the placement 'strategy' entirely? Probably the best game here to play with a large group of kids.

Entry #6 - More....BRAINS!
Strong theme support, though it's not one I'm especially fond of. Very interesting take on no player elimination'...reminds me of that 'Amoeba' tag from the Family Pasttimes crew. It might be more interesting to separate the auto-safety and 'draw cards' functions of the Safety Numbers. Sounds like it would be fun to play, and would be a strong contender were it not for one rather important omission: who wins? At first I thought this was just nitpicky, but it really isn't clear who wins if everyone gets away except the last one who gets eaten, or everyone is eaten except the last one who gets away.

Entry #7 - Predators of Yellowstone
Dead-on with the theme, and the asymmetrical teams look really interesting. Unfortunately, it's difficult to get a good feel for the game's flow with so many of the turn options being on the cards, and I'm also concerned that feeling might extend to the players as well, making it difficult for players to understand their possible future options...maybe also a little too 'gamer-y'? Simplifying
the possible actions enough that they're always available but require certain cards as payment might work well. Nitpicky., but do eagles actually hunt deer? Maybe you were better off with 'prey'. If I'd known errata were allowed, I'd've changed some things in my own game.

Entry #8 - Duke of the Hill
Very interesting...the players are hunting, and possibly even trapping other partygoers into unusual converstion topics, in a game which is otherwise pretty abstract. Nitpicky again, but the first sentence under 'Actions:' could be more clear on when they're allowed. I do think a different minigame should be included by default...The HILL is simple, but appears painfully dry at first glance, and I have a soft spot for abstracts. Something just as (or more) quick but with more chance or hidden information would probably inspire more non-gamer partygoers not to simply give up.

Entry #9 - Hot Pursuit
The theme is a fine match for the requirements, but unfortunately the link to the mechanics is rather tenuous. Ignoring that for the moment, the game seems to pretty much work, if rather chaotically. May a car starting on the majority color be moved? The flow of the turns and rounds could have been made more clear, but if I'm understanding it correctly, there will be some players who never have the last turn in a round, which I'm concerned will give them undue disadvantage. It also looks very difficult to make cumulative progress towards a goal...only the last few turns in a round are likely to have any impact on the scoring.

Entry #10 - You are in my team now
Again, set collection does not a hunt/chase make. And you might reduce your intended audience too much by only allowing players for whom a 'life-size' representation could fit on three index cards. ^_^ It seems to fit the other requirements, but I really don't get the fun factor behind Cranium-style party games, so I really don't know what to suggest that might enhance it...sorry.

Entry #11 - Zoo Gang
It seems what hunt there might have been has been put on hold, but I can't honestly say I'm sure what's going on here...it sounds as though there's an element of 'Balderdash', but the scenario makes little sense (perhaps intentionally, but not to good effect). Strategically, it seems to me that the Guardian simply pretends to be one of the other animals, and if this gives the impression of a single animal occuring more than once, the director randomly picks one of the pair. Or better, all of the animals pretend to be the Guardian, while the Guardian plays himself. That doesn't mean the game won't play well in practice...it seems to be one of those that is as good as the players make it with their stories...but I'm guessing some more work would yield a better framework within which the storytellers can work.

Entry #12 - Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
The theme's a bit iffy on this one...this time the characters are hunting, but the players barely participate in this process. It's a bit cutthroat for a party game, but if 'Werewolf' is OK, the math likely will be more of a problem than the attitude. The author would do well to consult a reference on the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma: the players should be uncertain when the game is going to end, or there's no reason to even try to negotiate late in the game...anyone holding to deals then isn't playing to win.

Mea maxima culpa. And if I missed something AGAIN, then let this stand as a monument to what happens when one posts without sufficient caffeine.

REVISED

Entry #6 - More....BRAINS!
Strong theme support, though it's not one I'm especially fond of. Reminds me of that 'Amoeba' tag from the Family Pasttimes crew. It might be more interesting to separate the auto-safety and 'draw cards' functions of the Safety Numbers. Sounds like it would be fun to play, and would be a strong contender, but skirts the edge of the 'no player elimination' requirement by not providing a means for Zombified players to win, even though they're technically still playing. Perhaps the Elixir of Life mentioned in the expansions provides enough of a loophole for this one to slip through.

OK...now that the results are in, my top three were:

1) More...BRAINS!
2) Who Kicked Rudolph
3) Zoo Gang

Congrats to everyone, and to all a good night!

K.

I've got critiques (pretty lame ones, really) written up, but I'm waiting until the results!

First, Congrats to doho123, Kreitler, Hamumu all nice games.

My first game idea this month had me and Mark laughing in our first couple brainstorming lunches. From my experience if you have something that is very entertaining in brainstorming meetings you should probably run with it. So we did although in the back of my mind I was never really sure we should do it.

The game was (briefly):

Wives, Johns, and the Pimp

Each player at all times is either a wife, a john or a pimp.

Each wife and each John had counter parts. (To pull this off there would be more Wives than johns and all Johns would always be in play. therefore Each John could have more than one Wife which could have hummorus effects)

Through the course of the game Wives are hunting their assigned John (Husbnad) while Johns are trying to evade their wife while he is searching for the one player that was the Pimp.My wife and a friend told me it was too edgy and in the end we decided to dump it. I think at best it would have been a humors entry that no one would vote for. So I took some elements and created "Duke of the Hill".

- Dwight

Sore? Did I ever say "stupid judges"? I just mispelled the word "brilliant."

Interestingly enough, I also won the trifecta of picking the 2nd,3rd,and 4th place winners in order. Which is sort of interesting given the "let's change the contest voting" discussion earlier this week.

Of course, now I can go off and write the guide book of "How to Win the GDS." Coming to Amazon.com soon.

(Note to self: next time wait to complain about the voting procedures until AFTER the totals have been announced.)

I just thought I should thank everyone who sent me some IM with congrats, as I was not able to return the messages personally.

I was fairly well concerned about Zom's comments about, essentially, Zombie players really having no win conditions, thereby "eliminating' them. I never really thought about that angle, as I've always looked at player elimination to mean "I'll go watch TV while the rest of you finish your game."

Being that the contest was about a party game, however, I really thought that the emphasis should be placed more on everyone having fun that the "drive to win." And what's more fun than grabbing a people with Grabby Hands! And looking at the design post-comments a little further, I've come to the realization that most likely, the players who probably wind up having the most fun, the Zombies (trying to get a read on what the PreZombies are playing and then trying to 'scare' them during the eyes-closed phase) actually have no way to win. Which is fairly unique.

But then, in real life, being a Zombie probably isn't a winning situation anyway.

And (I think Hamumu's comment) about the Zombie horde growing to big actually is a pretty good simulation of how Zombies operate; their hordes tend to grow exponentially, at least based on all the current top secret government simulations that I've been privy to. So, it would be a matter of playtesting to determine what the best starting ratio of Zombies would be (along with the map construction; Ideally, you'd want to Zombie horde growth to climax with just one or two PreZombies being able to be JUST RIGHT NEXT to the exit tile.

Along other lines, it was actually nice to create a rule set with lot's of extra words left over for a change. It even gave me some nice room to add the Dippin' Slime expansion which was suggested by a co-worker.

Dippin' Slime coming to your local game stores soon!

And (I think Hamumu's comment) about the Zombie horde growing too big actually is a pretty good simulation of how Zombies operate...

For those of you too busy to care or to read that far down in the post...

LOL!

I think it depends on whose version you're reading. I've always seen in "Donner" until this year. We bought "Twas the Night Before Christmas" for my son, and in there it's "Donder".

However...in German, "Blitzen" is lightning and "Donner" is Thunder, so I'm pretty sure Donner is the correct translation.

K.

FWIW, I've posted a greatly streamlined version of the Alibi rules in my journal. Normally, I wouldn't pimp it so blatantly, but since I'm interested in entering the Mysteria contest, I'm throwing all dignity aside...

Mark