Critique the May 2006 GDS Challenge Entries

Where'd all the hand-drawn graphics go? Have people started hiring out professional artists or something?

Seo

From what I remember, the brief mentioned 'high tech'. None of the accessories you mention here sound very high tech (though of course they would be if the game was set in the '60s). I would interpret high tech spying to be better represented by cryptograhpy, hacking, satellite surveillance etc. However, unless it's directly connected to the mechanics in some way, the distinction is simply 'chrome'.

I've had a quick read through this months entries and it seemed to me that in many cases the gadgetry existed as a deck of cards, and most (but not all) entries did not give alot of detail as to exactly what was on the cards, perhaps giving a couple of examples. An earlier poster in this thread was bemoaning the fact that he had to cut out a lot of the chrome and backstory to get his entry in under 800 words. I'm guessing that most people preferred to explain mechanics over theme.

Well my votes are in.

Remember vote early and often!

One thing that jumped out at me this time was that none of the games made me think, "Wow. I would really like to play that game!" This includes my own :)

Given the enthusiastic response the suggested theme had when this month's challenge was anounced, I was looking for a lot of interesting descriptive reading. It's not strange to found that some of the entries have descriptions of characters, cards, etc. that are better than the game in general. This time it was, IMHO, lots of interesting game ideas and mechanics, but not as much "literature" as I was expecting. But I'm talking more about what I was looking for and what I found than passing any judgment on the game ideas itself (if any, I would say that this month the competition is quite close).

Seo

[...]This time it was, IMHO, lots of interesting game ideas and mechanics, but not as much "literature" as I was expecting. But I'm talking more about what I was looking for and what I found than passing any judgment on the game ideas itself (if any, I would say that this month the competition is quite close).

I understand what you mean. In my case, I cut virtually all of the theme text in favor of retaining enough of the mechanics to play the game. I was tempted to provide more pictures of game components, but I felt that I'd be cheating the 800-word limit a bit.

(It's important to note that (although I found it hard to work with), I'm in favor of the 800-word limit. I'm also in favor of the 1-week turnaround time. They're challenging and useful restrictions that really force you to get to the heart of your game's concept.)

In future competitions, I think I'll treat it as more of a "sales pitch" where I'm trying to sell the game idea instead of tell people how to play the game.

That seems a good summary of the GDS. I guess if you want a compo that's much more about the game itself than the quality of the description, you probably need a less frequent competition with longer entries, which probably precludes determining the winner by public vote.

However, there could be a second competition using panel of BGDF judges (elected or randomly selected from a pool of volunteers), which will accept submissions of more finished games and then decide between themselves what the ranking is. This would be in addition to the current GDS, since like seo says it is a very useful learning exercise and good clean fun.

A number of posters have stated they cannot cope with producing a workable GDS entry in one week in 800 words, and may prefer to enter this type of showdown. The main problem with a judged competition where the judges are not anonymous is the inevitable ruffled feathers at the end though...

And the factthat if there are people dedicated to be judges, then they are most likely going to want to enter as well ;)

Here's a nifty and completely impractical idea: Everyone starts with three "credits". It costs one credit to enter a competition. Judging earns you three credits. (Optional rule: Winning costs you one credit.)

The idea amuses me, but I wouldn't want to have to track each person's "credit account".

Wheels within wheels within wheels...

Seo pointed out that feedback has dropped almost entirely away, leaving us with only voting results as a means of critique. Personally, this makes me a lot less interested in the GDS. If I win or lose, I have no idea why. Were my mechanics good or bad? Was I unable to communicate my design intentions clearly?

Were I forced to choose between having a system for determining a winner vs a system for providing "micro-critiques", I would much rather have the latter.

Acknowleging that selection of a single winner boosts entries, I'd recommend the following system:

We have 11 "normal" GDS contests each year. We do not vote for winners, but each entrant is required to provide a "micro-critique" of other entries (like Mike and I usually do).

In December, we run the "GDS Grand Prix", where people who submitted designs in the previous 11 rounds can select one of those designs to write up in all its glory and re-submit as a full game. Perhaps they must even be submitted in a "print'n'play" format. GDSers then review (even play?) these over the month of December and crown finalists and a single winner (using the current 10-point system?).

Yeah, I realize this is a big undertaking and probably not reasonable. It could be loads of fun, though -- and most importantly, it would put the bulk of the contest focus on useful critique.

edit
Or maybe we shift the time schedule to hold the Grand Prix mid-year, allowing people to use it as a "jumping off" point for Hippodice submissions.
K.

Seo pointed out that feedback has dropped almost entirely away, leaving us with only voting results as a means of critique.

Well, hopefully this month we can rectify that somewhat by getting verbal about our reasons for voting or not voting for specific entries.

It's also a shame that the workshop has been so quiet recently as well. A game by DarkDream was posted there recently, and got no feedback from anyone except myself, and my feedback was pretty pathetic.

The problem is that crits take a long time to do well. There has to be a payback for the time that critters put in. The best solution I have seen to this problem is at http://www.critters.org. It's a crit group for amateur and professional speculative fiction writers, and I participated in it for quite some time, and the scheme worked really well. Basically, there was a queue of manuscripts extending over a couple months, churning out 15 or so submissions per week, and one had to crit 4 to earn a credit, which allowed you to stick your own work in the queue.

Then when your turn comes up you get 5-15 detailed crits of your work via email. A good feature was that critters doing 10 crits in one block or the most crits in any one week block get a pass to jump their work to the front of the queue. Critters.org has alot more active members than bgdf does, so the numbers would have to be scaled down a bit, but it could work here. It goes without saying that the whole system was automated, it could not be done manually.

Their website has a good write up of how the system works and the various rules if people are interested. Perhaps something along these lines could be instituted in the new BGDF site?

The problem with that is that submitters to GDS' at the endof the year will not have enough time to complete the finished version for the GP.

I finally finished reading the May entries. I agree with those who expressed some disappointment with the designs. I think we failed to live up to promise of Bryk's challenge.

About 1/2 the entries felt overly complex to me, or just overly fiddly. The other 1/2 didn't seem to offer much tension in the game play (usually because it there was a single "best" move to perform and little reason not to perform it).

Also, a lot of these games used loads of components. I suspect this was a result of having to allow control of multiple agents.

All that being said, there were still several fantastic "design nuggets" out there. Every game had something interesting to offer.

Here are the micro-critiques. As you read them, bear in mind that I had time to read each entry only once. This may seem harsh, but the GDS is not just about coming up with good designs -- it's also about communicating them. In some cases, I just couldn't fathom certain mechanics on one read through. Potential publishers are unlikely to give a confusing summary doc a second read, so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to grasp 75% or more of the game the first time through. For the record, I don't think my writeup did this...

Without further ado, here are the individual remarks:

Stakeout!
The mechanics of this game feel potentially deep, but I'll admit I couldn't fathom the gameplay at all on my first read-through. The game is unabashadly abstract, but somehow retains an interesting espionage feel all the same (moreso than some of the more "concrete" designs). The use of multiple shaped tokens on separate "tracking boards" gave the design a very fiddly feel. That may be unavoidable, but I couldn't understand the design well enough to know if it could be "refactored" in a more elegant way.

STAM
I really liked the fact that the "spy gadgets" were items the players used (as opposed to their agents). The mechanics of "stealing secrets" and trapping agents reinforces the theme well. The decoder/codebook/microfilm mechanic feels overly complex. It feels like the board is so small that moles and spies could reach safe territory relatively easily. There doesn't seem to be much variety in the game play (e.g., there are no "gadgets" with special powers -- it's pretty much moving pawns, swapping their state, and looking at tiles).

Raid on Omnitech
This was my favorite entry. The rules were simple to grasp and the interactions clear. It was slightly disappointing that the gadgets didn't provide any special abilities. They "initiative bidding" system seemed clear, and I liked the twist of executing another players' order in exchange for keeping the high initiative -- though I didn't see an explanation of how players *got* initiative cards every round. I had some other questions, like "how can I plan an effective strategy if I don't know my opponents' Missions" and "how do you track the items Agents carry"? But the fact that I could ask questions at this level made me feel the core mechanics of the game were solid.

IPL: Thunder Point
I liked the ideas behind VP system in this game. I couldn't underestand the immediate implications, but it felt like a strong way to balance the game. Most of the mechanics felt simple and direct, but there was a lot of token shuffling to denote "who's in charge" and some text confused me (I never *did* figure out what "Agents must have at least 3 cards" meant). Neither the Mechanics nor the gadgets provided much flavor for the theme. I *did* appreciate the sense of geography in the game -- something that's important to the genre, IMHO, and lacking in many of the entries.

Alpha Complex Blues
I liked the isolated descriptions of the mechanics, though they were a bit hard to understand without a larger context in which to place them. After reading this entry, I felt like I understood pieces of the game, but not the collective whole. The game *had* geography, but one very limited in scope. The "Paranoia" theme was interesting, but a bit of a stretch from a "super spy" perspective. The design was abundant with special powers, which was a plus, and I liked the thought that collective more powers made you simultaneously more vulnerable. I only wish I had a better understanding of the overall game.

Sci-fi Pulp Adventure
This game had the most "flavor", largely because of the many example cards. I greatly appreciated the co-op design. Unfortunately, I felt like there wasn't much actual meaningful decision making. True, the group has to decide to rest or search, and if they search, they must decide how vigorously to do so. This seems to boil down to balancing the timer against individual hit points, which in some ways becomes a single equation. Player death raises the stakes, which is good, but introduces player elimination, which I generally think hurts a design. Like most co-op games, it suffers from the fact that the tension must come from the game system itself (usually). It's very difficult to describe a system that provides lots of meaningful choices *and* this multiple systems for providing tension in 800 words.

Cryptic City
This game had the best examples of "special powers" (Agent and Advantage abilities). In this sense, it felt the most interesting. The mechanics were simple and clean, and the bidding element was handled well. There were some confusing points: what was the special bonus for using Advanced Orders, and were turns resolved in player order first, or by Agent and then in player order (which would significantly change the effects of paying for multiple advantages/actions). This game had a very "static" feel -- there is no sense of moving the Agents through a world.

Gaslight Agents
I give this game props for its setting and the very interesting idea that certain cards stay on the board between *games*. Wow. The mechanics are generally simple and clean -- though once again they boil mostly down to token placement, which has a certain reserved feel. This isn't necessarily bad -- especially for an espionage game -- but I think most of the games short-changed the action aspect of the "super-spy" genre. Gadgets were not prominent, though I found it interesting that they *were* used as missions ("Space Cannon" and "Steam Bomb"). The Double Agent is a neat idea but seems like a potentially large penalty for an essentially random game element (unless there is some way I can identify a double agent).

Mission Improbable
I like the co-op aspect of this game. Of all entries, I felt it best reinforced the idea of an "agent team". It used gadgets well mechanically but, as with many other entries, not in a "flavorful" way. The Challenge mechanic, while thematically strong, lacks tension in that I should always choose the Challenge most "passable" by the active agent. There isn't much player choice there. I think this design would benefit from "role" cards that gave players VP for completing certain challenges. This would imply semi-co-op play, with the highest-vp player winning, but only if the group succeeded. This, combined with a "draw two challenges and pass one to the left" system and an "earn vp by guessing other Agents' secret roles" mechanic could be a powerful combination. There are mutliple other ways to address the lack of tension -- which only points out that the challenge mechanic is good bedrock on which to build.

After writing these critiques, I feel a bit better about our performance. Some games were more complete on second viewing than I had thought. Still, I agree with Seo that, overall, we dropped the ball. I'd almost like to see us redesign and re-submit our entries by the end of the month...

K.

Wow! Lots of voting. A critique in before the voting is over, hints at close voting! Maybe I reached my goal and got a vote this time!

You can stop worrying now JP! I did like your game alot, I felt it was the one that best satisfied the brief.