All,
I just received the following note from Oliver Kuhlwein from the Hippodice club. In it, he addresses some of the concerns that some of us raised, and provides some insight into the Hippodice judging process. Thanks Oliver!
Oliver's note:
I read this thread yesterday and came to the conclusion that there a some
topics that we as the organizing gamers' club need to clarify.
Firstly we don't want you to sell your grandma to afford sending your
prototypes to germany. The reason why we insist on the deadline of 1st of
Dezember is that we want to test the games as long and as thoroughly as
possible. That guarantees a qualified choice and feedback. The date for the
final round is fixed because we have to manage to get as much jury-members from the big publishers as is possible. It's really very difficult to gather about eight hard-working experts around a gaming table at he same weekend.
The other fixed date is the end of the Spiel in Essen. All of our own
deadlines must follow this two basics. At least two of the guys reading the
rules are also editors of the game magazine "Spielerei" and have to do some afterwork when the Spiel closes its doors. When that is done 120 rules have to be read between the 1st of November and the 14th of November. Some rules are over 20 pages thick, the most comprise of 4-8 pages. I myself must also answer all emails regarding the contest. Within these timeline rules sent by mail have to be distributed to the rule readers which live in three different towns. All in all that means that almost every evening when my kids are in bed I'm going to read mails, answer mails, read rules. I had to pass on the mentioned friday where our club met to play games because I had to read the rules. And that's my hobby, I don't get paid for this, like the Ravensburger and Yun-Spiele guys ;).
So we know the deadlines are tight but apply the most pressure on ourselfs. And if it is a question of days for the games to arrive a bit later then email exists, just drop me line as others have done in recent years. The winners of last year even offered drive from Belgium to Germany to hand over their prototype personally as they were said in the post office that their parcel could be late. Of course I emailed them they should just send their prototype by mail. And if you have to choose between 10 days and 45$ and 14 days and 20$ take the latter option and email me about this! But, we imply that you have your prototypes ready to be taken to the post office as soon as they were ordered. When they arrive in germany there are just one to three gaming fridays to distribute them before the holidays begin.
All I wanted to say with this all to long sermon is that we try to act in
your interest. Look forward to next year: Essen is in the middle of october
:).
Second, about scoring. We used almost the same system than last year. Every rule reader will give points to a game individually. These points are based on german marks as we are all familiar with that: You have marks
from 1+ to 6- with where 1+ is best, 6- is worst. Conversion into decimals
is as follows:
1+ = 0,67
1 = 1
1- = 1,33
1-2 = 1,5
2+ = 1,67
2 = 2 and so on.
Your score is the average of all individual points. As the grades 1+, 6-, 6+
and all mark-mark+1 (e.g. 1-2) are extremly unlikely there are 15 degrees
left.
Hello all! I was told March 18th also as the day that the final Hippodice competition would be held. Yes, much excitement in the air--so I'm happy to hear that this might mean that the final competition occurs on the WEEKEND of the 18th and not just that DAY because I can find no results yet anywhere.
Congratulations to Nick on having his title picked up! But I can't get the link to work--can you check it and repost if needed?
Best wishes to everyone in the finals!
Alf Seegert