Game Design Showdown - Overview

I say, let round 1 commence and decide to tweak based on that. I love meaningless challenges to give me things to do!

I'm fine with either approach, just bringing up possibilities. I'm glad you have already discussed it. I'll sit quietly and wait for the first month to start.

Since someone reminded us that this thread already exists...

And I haven't changed my mind. I don't believe that entries to this contest should be taking anyone longer than an evening or two to put together. Then again, that may be why I don't do very well ;-)

But although I've come to terms with the 7-day deadline, I still have major issues with the whole business of graphics.

It has become fairly clear that including a graphic is worth an awful lot of words in an context in which wordcount is a major part of the exercise, although I want to stress that I don't believe that any judge takes the presence of graphics into account when deciding, but it does help.

I want to reiterate that I'm not objecting because of my total lack of artistic ability (I have decent layout skills but zero drawing skills!)
I simply feel that the games should be selling themselves on the outline; depicting an example card, for instance, can be a massive help as it not only avoids a description, but also demonstrates a practical game component.
For example, last month's Rattlesnake Rally included three example Track tiles. Although most of their content could be inferred from the text, things like numbers, parts and flags didn't need to be included in the description because the picture featured them.

As I am only now doing my first GDS entry, I was wondering about graphics as well - how much effort I should put in, and how 'fair' it is to include graphics.

But then I figure, well, I have a week, and I have stuck to the 800 word limit, and I want my entry to be as good as it can be, so I may as well put in some graphics that will aid the understanding of my game.

Also, thinking of rule-sets, one of the ways the number of pages in a set of rules can be cut down is through using images - how long would the Carcassone rules be if it had no images?

Sure there are limiting factors when people don't have access to graphics programs or the skills to draw-pretty-things, but if the main point is to assist in the understanding of the rules then everyone should have Paint on their computer, and last month there were even hand-drawn images which were great! Also, I think if we look back over past GDS's there are many entries which have great images but don't score, and some that have no images and do.

Also, I am under no illusion that if I produce sparkly pictures (which I won't/Can't) I will Shock And Awe people into voting for me - the people who do vote (I assume) are pretty dedicated Designers, and the game itself should shine to be worthy of votes - it takes time and eneergy to read through 10+ entries and I am sure people who do that aren't the types that are swayed by pretty pictures. Images that are included as fluff and do not aid in understanding the rules, or providing examples will be seen as so.

I think. I may be wrong ;)

I think this month illustrates my argument about graphics fairly well.
Of the nine entries, seven included graphics in one form or another.

Of those seven, four didn't need the graphic at all (STAM, Raid on Omnitech, Alpha Sector Blues, Cryptic City) as the text described the contents of the graphic perfectly adequately. One other (IPL: Thunder Point) didn't really need the graphics as the missing information would only have taken a line or so of text. And one (Sci-Fi Pulp) was a cheat, as the graphic was used to interpolate a whole lot of additional text into the game description.

Only Stake-Out really needed the graphics, and even there the text adequately described them - I just found the game complicated enough that the graphic helped comprehension.

Maybe other people would like to agree or disagree with these observations?

My entry is on David's "didn't need the graphics" list, and I have to agree with the inclusion. That said, I want to explain why.

I agree, up to a point, with Scurra: those games text included a description of what's on the images. The reason for this, at least in my entry, and probably on others, is that I try to keep the I-can-draw advantadge as slim as possible (though not giving it up for reasons I already mentioned in previous posts), so I write my entry as if it didn't had the illustrations. Thet helps, IMHO, reducing the "one image is worth a thousand words" gain. But for the sake of clarity and to ease the judging process, I prefer to include images, even if they are not fully necesary. But I always try to include at least a basic text description of all the elements and mechanics in the word count.

I agree that Sci-Fi Pulp Adventure made a wrongful use of the images, as they are pure text, and the entry text alone is right on the word limit. The same could be said about the card samples in Cryptic City, regardin word count, but those sample cards have real graphics, that could be considered as an indication of the graphic style the designer wants for the game, hence they help, in some way, to give a better idea of how the game should feel. I know this is arguable. The second graphic in Cryptic City is purely informative and 100% valid to me, even if pobably unnecesary.

Seo

Actually, I disagree with this. I think of the use of images as showing game components, whether they are maps, tokens, or cards. I consider the 800 word limit to be encompassing the rules and how the game works; so if your graphic doesn't include rules but instead shows a sample card, then it's fair game.

Looking at it another way, the graphics should be representative of going through the "stuff" you get in a boxed game that you can look at while reading the rules to get a better understanding of them. In the case of SF.P.A, the entry merely reflects the case of flipping through a few cards while reading the rules, much the same as if looking at an example of a game board.

I thought a bit about this, and I think you might be right, up to some point. In SF.P.A. you can easily ignore the card samples and still get a good idea of how the game is. That is a good point towards leniency. But OTOH it's been agreed before that text included in the images should add to the 800 word limit.

So, while I understand your point, in the end I think David has a very valid point too. Other entries included sample cards text as simple text. Had they used an image for that, they would have had many more words available for the rest of the entry.

I feel indecisive about this. Maybe we should just ask the entrants to limit the images and text in them to the minimum they feel it's required, but not draw a strict limit.

Seo