Comments and Questions on the April 2009 GDS Challenge

As a wannabe Internet Marketer, I totally agree that the description should carry the burden of attracting attention.
How many times have we purchased a game based on the box writeup? (And how many times have we been disappointed by our hasty decision?!)

Besides, the whole premise of the GDS is to pitch an idea, not create fully fleshed out games that can be judged on several criteria. It just happens that many entries have been delightfully detailed, but that's a bonus for the readers :)

Personally, I skim most entries and then go back to read the ones that sounded cool.

Cheers,

Mitch

In a way, that's exactly what happens in the GDS. There was even some dissension about the use of graphics, as some felt that they unfairly aided the entries.

Cheers,

Mitch

I'm sure we will continue this is a separate thread on voting, but this statement is the reason I give for my suggestion. If we can make the voting more like feedback, I think we can get more from it. Ideally I'd like to see a system that has NO voting and only feedback. So at the bottom of each entry, we could come up with four or five meaningful critique points and set a range from poor to good for each. Then each game gets some love.

Or maybe we make the GDS bi-monthly to allow for more time for feedback and design.

We could also be parasites and post the GDS results over at BGG and use the thumbs to vote. GDS Geeklists! Cheeky!!

In the end this sums it up for me as well:

EDIT: I wonder if we can use a service like this:
http://www.polldaddy.com/features/
or any other similar to design what we need. I'm sure there are those more web savvy than I who could give some input on this. Thanks.

EDIT: Just remembered BGG does polls now. I vote to invade!

My only problem with this is you might get people voting on the entries who have not reviewed them or who aren't really serious about reviewing them. Not everyone at BGG is as altruistic as the people at BGDF unfortunately. Also you assume that everyone who is a member here, is a member there.

-Darke

A geeklist GDS would be a worthwhile experiment just to see what would happen. I'm not sure if I made it clear earlier, but I should have prefaced my suggestions with the statement: I don't care who *wins* the GDS. It is really a fun exercise. Even when I don't enter, which is most of the time, I usually jot a sketch of of an idea down. So even if people vote and it is meaningless and I get one constructive comment, that's ok.

The advantage to trying this over at BGG is threefold:
1. Users there tend to contribute a lot of content and their ranks are 1000 times ours, at least. So even with the occasional snarky remarks I tend to find that the designers' forum over there is filled with many helpful souls.
2. We design games not for designers, but for players! Why not release the hounds! Open the GDS to see what kind of feedback we get from our audience.
3. The set up of the geek list allows for a quick response. You can read and comment on what you just read, or not. This may increase feedback. Plus, for those who like a competition, there are those thumbs.

I agree the polls might be a pain. I'm just brainstorming here. But I do feel strongly that a geeklist will be fun to do and that the feedback will be interesting at the very least. We don't have to do it every time.

It's not like they're joining a country club! :)
But yes, good point.

It seems to me that the type of feedback that a focused contest on BGDF will engender will be entirely different from the feedback on any of the forums at BGG. I personally, prefer the more intimate nature of this venue for such unpolished ideas. I would not like my name to become synonymous with half-thought-out ideas on BGG because of contests like this one. If I wished to seek feedback from the BGG forums, I would do it with a far more polished game idea/concept.

Also, there is a bit of a tension in getting detailed feedback vs any at all. If it's a busy week, a user may only have time to vote for a favourite entry, but then a while later they might return and give more specific comments on the entries, or they might not. But if they have to do all that processing before voting, there's a higher chance that they won't vote at all.

You are SO right. I went back and really read through each entry. Except for mine, every one had a really cool aspect that seemed well thought out. I place a premium on readability, but when I stepped back from that and tried to imagine the game ... yep, "meh" turned into "my goodness! This sounds neat!"

I gotta step up next month...

Cheers,

Mitch