Hippodice

Those who have gotten to the "final 50" at Hippodice... what did you enter? Is it something you've talked about here, either in a thread, in the GDW, or in your journal?

- Seth

I have mentioned both of mine in my journal entry but hadn't gone into details about either of them really.
"Planning Permission" (which was originally called "Nimby", but I thought that the Germans wouldn't understand the name) was completed almost a year ago, and has had sporadic test runs since which have all been fine, so I decided that it was robust enough to enter.
(Although I find it amusing that Zaiga entered a city building game too - I wonder how we'll each do? :))
"Fire and Ice" (which turns out to be the name of another game released commercially this year so I may have to do something about that) was a game that came to me in a dream; it hasn't been nearly as robustly tested as PP but it somehow felt right (and was quite a different sort of game too - a short abstract multi-player strategy game.)

Does anyone know what are the options for submitting payment (fees and return shipping)? I'm wondering if it needs to be in cash (Euros), or what other choices are available.

You sure don't get a lot of time to get everything together and ready to ship. At least not for anyone having to ship overseas!

David, Rene, and Benedict:

Congratulations for getting to the final round! And to Matthew for coming so close! It's inspiring that so many bgdf folks entered Hippodice and did so well. Best of luck to all!

Leland

I decided to play it safe and just ran down to the American Express office during lunch and picked up some Euros.

Thanks. Sorry to hear you just missed the cut. Makes me feel a bit guilty as I also had two games accepted. But all that really means at this point is that you might need to sharpen your rule writing skills though. I was already thinking that if I got rejected it just means that maybe my games don't "read" real well. But once you hit the play test stage if they don't finish well then it means the rules were fine, the game itself just sucks!

They specify you need to use parcel post and that they won't accept anything from UPS, etc. Seems odd as I've heard the the German PO uses DHL themselves for package delivery. Again, I don't want to go through the trouble of getting the games there to have them rejected for some goofy reason like that!

- Nick

FYI -
I've heard back from Hippodice and currently you need to send cash (Euros) or use something called "Coupon Response International". They are thinking about setting up a Paypal option but it will be a few days before any decision is made.

If you're like me and can't wait that long - it's Euros baby!

- Nick

Their games may have been somewhat similar... I got my rejection back at 14.5! It must have certainly not been what they were looking for... or I didn't submit something correctly. Actually I was not surprised because my rules were very packed and the gameplay, though not "been there, done that", had a familiar feel to it, but I have not seen it in any published games. I was actually hoping to get a bit more feedback than just a number. I am looking forward to creating a game that is more viable for next years competition. I have a few ideas I am working on right now. It was fun getting everything around for this though. Congratulations to those in the finals! :D

A thought just popped up in my head... Any chance someone who's entry made it into the top 50 could post their submission here so that others could get a good idea of what makes a viable entry? I think that would help everyone prepare for next year's competition.

Thanks!

I don't know what the judges were looking for in order to determine which games made it throught to the next round. I don't think anyone other than the organizers knows how the points system works (other than that lower is better). I know it is tough not to get further feedback, but since 150-200 games are usually submitted, and the point of round one is to identify games they want to playtest, I don't think you can really expect anything more.

I did make sure that the document I submitted was proofread for spelling and grammar, and that it made complete sense to someone unfamiliar with the game.

Also, I clearly listed the components and made sure there were (small) pictures of the different components within the text. I did have examples of play throughout the rules, as well as an example of scoring at the end.

My game is about resource management (farmers, villagers, acolytes, grain, land, buildings) in Ancient Egypt. I would classify it as a German-style strategy game (i.e. there is some luck, which is in the form of variable Nile activity and available land each turn). The theme is heavily integrated into the game.

Hi Robin,

Thanks for posting your rulebook and picture of your game. The production value is spectacular, and the gameplay seems simple and elegant.

As for why you didn't make the top 50, I obviously couldn't say, but the conventional wisdom that successful entrants seem to be generating is that rulebook clarity is important. To that end, I admit to having been confused by the rules you posted on your website. I'm not sure what a "transporter" is or what a "terrorist" is. A clear description of the components, or better yet, pictures, would have helped quite a bit. Some gameplay examples would also no doubt have contributed to my ability to understand the game.

So, I'm not sure how much of a difference this would have made in the Hippodice department. As Scurra says, maybe the competition just reflects the 50 games they want to playtest. That's pretty subjective, but maybe that's how it goes. Certainly, that would be a valid way of judging a contest whose aim is to select publishable games -- after all, the games that people are most interested in playing are probably the ones publishers want to be looking at! But certainly it won't reward the 'best" games necessarily, which would be disappointing.

Anyway, I think you have a beautiful game and should definitely keep going forward. It sounds like you have the game pretty fine-tuned, but you're always welcome to put the rules up for discussion in the Game Design Workshop. If nothing else, we could give you suggestions how to tighten those up a bit. And identifying who exactly the publishers are that would be interested in your game might help in determining who you should submit to. Depending on how much time and effort you want to put in, you could always consider self-publishing and selling small runs.

I actually thought you were serious when you said you were submitting a "gooey louie" style of game. Maybe sarcasm just goes right over my head!

Good luck with your game!

-Jeff

I agree with jwarrend that the rulebook could have been a bit clearer. I too was confused and had to read the rulebook a couple of times to try and understand what you meant (I'm still not sure on all the rules).

Like FastLearner I also think the subject isn't very well-chosen. Perhaps you would have been better of leaving it as an abstract.

Finally, it is a two-player abstract and I suspect the Hippodice people are more interested in multiplayer games with a bit more theme. This is something you cannot help, obviously.

This all doesn't mean that it is a bad game, not at all, it could well be brilliant, but apparently your presentation of the game wasn't good enough to convince the jury of that.

- Rene Wiersma

I posted at the same time as Jeff so hadn't read his report, but since both he and Rene noted that the rules were hard to understand I suddenly question my own rules-writing skills. While I agree that they could be quite a bit more clear, I understood the game instantly the first time through.

Weird.

Interestingly enough, the winning games of the last few contests have been pretty varied (all info thanks to Mik at his site and BGG):

2003 Aquadukt - (Various phases, Influence cards, trading, strategic positioning).
The players are developing the aquadukt system in the Early Roman Empire and they will try to acquire the fields most likely to become paricular fertile thanks to the new water way, while at the same time trying to influence the actions of the local Prefect who is in charge of the decisions in that province.

2002 Herscher der Anden - published as Maya - (Tactical card play, building, area influence scoring)
Players take part in the construction of pyramids in centres such as Chichen Iza and Palenque, in order to receive the greatest portion of gold from the Mayan leaders. However, the help of workers is required to quarry and transport the stones required for the pyramids to the building sites.

2001 DinnXX (abstract, tactical)
each player has a number of tokens valued 0-3 which should be used to gain as high a score as possible. A scoring takes place as soon as 3 adjacent spaces has a combined value of 7 or more. The center token is then replaced with a neutral token valued 0-1. When a space contains two neutral tokens can it no longer be used as the central space for scoring purposes. The game is over when all neutral tokens have been used.

2000 Koggen - published as Kogge (economic, pickup and delivery, action point system)
across the web of trade routes, the players try to trade goods as profitably as possible and to build trading offices, known as Kontore (sing. Kontor). The ever-changing routes between the cities don't make life easier for the players vying for victory as best merchant on the Baltic Sea.

1999 Das Kollier - set collection, auctions

Players buy and sell or auction gems. 2 different types of auction mechanic.

1998 Kontor - tile laying, city building, area control
The core mechanism of the game is that each of the 90 or so cards in the game has a unique number on it. Each turn, the players choose a card from their hand and reveal them simultaneously, and the higher-numbered card is placed into the layout (a grid that grows until it fits inside a 7x7 square) first. Cards are either water cards or dock cards. Dock cards form scoring regions, and water cards separate the docks from one another. Each dock card belongs to one of the players, and contributes a certain number of warehouses to the scoring region. There are three colors of warehouse, and a player scores a region (for which one victory point is awarded) by having the greatest majority of warehouses in one color.

And it reinforces a point I made - I suspected that the single page of "examples of play" that I included with my entries made a lot of difference - as a friend observed, seeing a diagram not only helps a gamer "see" the game, but also they start to imagine different strategies, which then reinforces the desire to play the game... (after all, we were given two extra sheets on top of the rules to play with.)

Mind you, I also made a fair effort with one of the games to "sell" it by including a cover sheet that explained why the central mechanic was interesting. As I said, what amuses me is that the other game (which was entered almost as an afterthought) did almost as well...

As William Goldman says, "Nobody knows anything" - and that applies to games just as much as to films.

Anyway, that is all water under the bridge – and I think I agree with the view that other factors apart from unclear rules contributed more to the game’s rejection.

I don't know if you should see it as a "rejection". It sounds, from the other comments, that your game only very narrowly missed the cut. I know you went in to the contest expecting to win, (which puts you in pretty good company, since everyone probably felt that way), but it doesn't really sound like you did "badly" or anything...

I'll comment on your questions below.

1. Does the game offer a new game-playing experience?

This is hard to say without playing. I would say that you have some neat ideas going on here, the most creative being the die that simultaneously determines what piece can move AND creates a mechanism by which a transporter can be searched.

Unfortunately, with respect to gameplay experience, unless I'm missing something, it seems like the game will be fairly deterministic. Do I have this sequence right?

0. The "good" guy puts the die down.
1. The "bad" guy puts a "terrorist" under a "transporter".
2. The "good" guy rolls the die around, forcing the other guy to move.
3. In some situations, the transporters are checked.
4. Either the terrorist is caught, or he makes it through.

Did I miss something crucial? It seems like the only decisions that matter are (a) where will I, the "good guy", put the die, and which face will show? and (b) Based on where the "good guy" put the die, where should I, the bad guy, put my transporters and terrorists?

It seems like the game would be a lot more interesting if the bad guy had some creative control over his moves. Like if he could move sideways to try to avoid being caught. Then you could have a neat element of bluff, or some deduction. As it stands, the "good guy" will just try to move the die in such a way that it will catch the most terrorists. But this is very deterministic -- a good player can probably calculate how to maximally catch the most transporters. In contrast, I'd likely find the game more interesting if I had to base my guessing on something -- based on the way he's moving the Green Anchor transporter, I think he's trying to protect it from the die; how can I move the die to get to that transporter and check it before he makes it through?

Another thing, there is a catastrophic rules ambiguity. You say: At any point in the mission, without warning, and irrespective of the position of the pieces, Customs can 'raid' a transporter (by lifting it) to see if it hides the terrorist. But, you don't say how many times this can be done. Could not the Customs player just use this ability 6 times at the very start of the turn to check all 6 transporters?

It seems a little like "Ghosts!" by Alex Randolph. To be a little blunt, that game is just about as simple as yours, but because it has some strong elements of bluff, it is far more interesting to me. What I personally look for in a game is a high density of decisions. I think your game, with a few simple changes, could really increase in the decision department and could really benefit from that increase.

My personal guess, now that I think I understand the rules, is not that your game wasn't "German" enough for the judges, but that it doesn't feature enough meaningful decisions.

You definitely should check out Ghosts. I wouldn't say the mechanics are identical, but there are some similarities. Any kind of hidden information game is worth looking into -- Stratego, Scotland Yard, Incognito -- all of these will have similar elements, though the games themselves (except Ghosts) have more complexity than yours.

I definitely think that your die mechanic is original and brilliant. I like the "guy hidden under the transporter" as well, I just think the movement execution needs to be made more interesting.

I would probably be willing to pay about $20 for your game. I don't know if it's realistic to produce it in such a way that you can make a profit on that. (Note that I'd probably expect to pay more based on the nice wood components, I'm just saying that if it cost more than $20, I probably wouldn't buy it.)

-Jeff

Hello,

As one of the afore-mentioned friends I entered a tile/secret pattern laying game which scored 8.0 probably due to the lack of play diagrams (*hindsight is always 20/20*). Next year I'll include photographs :wink:

When I helped David with his 'sell page', the main thing I wanted to come across was the brilliant voting mechanism (its results can often be hilariously unexpected). Thus, I do feel that the first round of Hippodice was (in fairness) looking for clear presentation of ideas and concepts. Game terminology is an area worth being aware of too :)

Best of luck to all finalists :)
Dave W.