Use this thread for any comments, questions, requests for clarity, etc., regarding the May 2014 Challenge in the Game Design Showdown, entitled "I Believe"
-Rich
[GDS] MAY 2014 "I Believe" Comments and Questions
Thu, 05/01/2014 - 04:47
Thu, 05/01/2014 - 11:49
#1
The only 18 cards is a top
The only 18 cards is a top limit, yes? If we use less than 18 that is okay? Because I'm thinking of a mainly dice game (about 12 dice total) which wouldn't need the cards for much more than role selection and/or cheat sheets.
Thu, 05/01/2014 - 13:59
#2
how about paper-and-pencil to
how about paper-and-pencil to keep track the score?
Thu, 05/01/2014 - 18:18
#4
Guest Reviewer
I just updated the main post with this as well, but I want to announce our May guest professional revier (our April one, Seth Jaffe, is very busy and is getting to the April winner's in due time - I apologize for the delay)
This month, we have another Guest Professional to review the winning entry.
Hailing from San Francisco with his fiancé Beth and totes adorbes corgi, Peaches, is GRANT RODIEK. Grant’s logged 9 years as a Producer with Maxis and 4 as a board game designer.
His first major victory, Farmageddon, crashed on to the scene in 2012; receiving a Parent’s Choice Award and helped put Indie-developers on the map. The first expansion is expected this summer, but you can check out a PnP for his and co-designer Joshua Buergel’s new game Wozzle, right now.
Grant frequently drops pearls of design wisdom on his bloat at HyperboleGames.com, which is where you should go - right now.
Mon, 05/05/2014 - 02:20
#5
"Design a game with religion
"Design a game with religion as your theme. I don't care what kind or how you relate it, but shoot for as much depth of theme as you can."
With religious games, the theme is almost always very serious so I instantly thought of the taking it the opposite direction in a playful theme. However, it seems you WANTED to keep the serious religious tone and instead emphasize the challenge of creating interesting and unique matching mechanics with such limited components.
So, based on that, I probably will skip out this month :( Its a shame because I wanted try a dice/card game called "RNGesus and Luckifer: The Dice Gods", a battle between rngels and d3mons to reap the "lost rolls" that are stuck in unknown probability (purgatory). I just really wanted an excuse to shout out "Praise RNGesus!" after a good roll sequence, lol.
Mon, 05/05/2014 - 05:44
#6
Serious doesn't mean not Playful
John Cleese once talked about the difference between seriousness and solemnity in a speech on creativity. A topic like religion can be serious - meaning "important" - without being treated solemnly, or in a "dignified and formal" way.
When I say depth of theme, I mean the game should feel like the theme is part of the game, and not just an excuse to use some mechanics.
Some examples are the relatively new Police Precinct, Battlestar Galactica, and even Werewolf/Mafia.
If you still don't wish to enter this month's GDS, that's fine - but don't let a little thing like "seriousness' stop you!
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 12:09
#7
You must use dices or its
You must use dices or its just a option?
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 13:39
#8
Maximum limit
The cards and dice restriction are upper limits. If you want only 9 cards, or no dice, that's great. Go ahead and ignore the dice!
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 18:00
#9
Just Curious
But wouldn't Greggatron describing his game in such detail remove the anonymous feature of the voting?
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 18:12
#10
I have a game on 512 words.
I have a game on 511 words. Must be so difficult down to 500, ¿I can submit it?
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 20:11
#11
Responses
Fred MacKenzie - Yes, so hopefully he'll rethink the theme a bit if he sends it in. For everyone else, note that this is a small bit but an important overall issue. These entries are anonymous until voting is completed.
Masacroso - It is very difficult to get it down to 500 words sometimes, but it needs to be done or else we get word-creep as higher and higher length entries become accepted.
What others do that can be cut
- This isn't a full rules document, so drop out parts lists. This entry only has a couple components, so it won't be hard.
- Go light on examples of 'card powers' and instead write a statement that explains how the cards will manipulate play in general. One or two examples if you can spare the space.
- Detailed scoring procedures. This invites nit-picking of the rules to see if they're "balanced" or some such nonsense that isn't as relevant at this stage. Be brief with scoring
- Detailed descriptions of each of the six actions a player can do on their turn. Again, this doesn't need to be a complete rules document. Instead consider writing the purpose of each action, to assist the reader in knowing why each is valuable.
Other than trimming those parts, you can do more grammatical editing; removing prepositions where appropriate or just rephrasing something to make it shorter. If you'r not a native English speaker this will be difficult, as sometimes it stretches the vocabulary a bit.
I hope you find some use in those tips, and I look forwards to seeing all the entries in a couple days.
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 20:42
#12
Haha... Thank man and sry for
Haha... Thank man and sry for english. I submited a version of 511 words but I think I can modify it to match the 500 magic number, right?
(If this is the case, as I think, pls tell me how I can re-submit the game ^^).
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 23:27
#13
Link when submitting
Hi,
Yes you can re-submit, but as I'm finding now that if someone doesn't read the instructions on the page that appears after submitting (which tells you to copy the link in order to edit your response) then it's already too late.
Assuming you have the entry saved somewhere you can access it, just submit it again and add to the title *NEW*.
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 23:28
#14
@Fred
I outed myself because
@Fred
I outed myself because I am NOT submitting that idea. The idea of a luck and religion parody with RNGesus vs. Luckifer is a fun theme and the mechanics were interesting but it's not appropriate for the criteria.
Tue, 05/06/2014 - 23:41
#15
Lol, I think is very
@Greggatron: lol, I think is very appropiated :p
My game have a some irony and politic background but I think is not really offensive.
@richdurham: ty, I will submit again with the postfix *NEW*.
Wed, 05/07/2014 - 02:22
#16
Trouble with form editing: Submitted a new one
I saved my form URL when I originally submitted and was able to do some tweaks by going back to that URL the day after. Going back to that URL now I found that everything was blank, so I re-entered the game details and created a new form in the process. It was as if my form editing expired after a few days.
Thu, 05/08/2014 - 14:43
#17
I just noticed that the
I just noticed that the contest rules limit participants to one entry.
I entered two, so I think its only fair to disqualify both my entries.
Entirely my fault for not clicking on the Wiki link and reading everything through, as I should have done.
Sorry
Thu, 05/08/2014 - 15:33
#18
Nah just tell me which
The entries aren't due until the end if today, and until they're posted it makes no difference to me that you sent two. Just send me a PM telling me which one to use and the other will be ignored.
No worries.
Sat, 05/10/2014 - 03:15
#19
Entry Formating
Now that the entries are posted, I want to note some issues some people were having with formatting.
When you take the time to indent all your lines and such, it's not actually recording those. Even if you posted directly to the forum using the spacebar to indent won't work - all formatting needs tags. I always suggest the Markdown code as it's a bit easier than the others.
I suggest a program that writes in Markdown (which is, in cas you don't know, just a more natural shorthand for HTML) or using a webtool like the Markdown Dingus
In other words, I tried to fix some of the entries that had egregious formatting issues that had clearly tried to include some. I can't take the time to do this in the future, with the load of entries that are submitted each month. Please take the time to use formatting tags on your entry and test it before submitting.
Thank you to everyone who entered - I know this was tough one!
Sat, 05/10/2014 - 10:05
#20
I'm sorry
I have never submitted before and have never used markdown before. I tried but apparently didn't get it right. I'll figure it out before next time.
Tue, 05/13/2014 - 17:38
#21
Voting closes in a couple days
By the end of the 15th you should have submitted your votes using the form online here.
You don't need to have an entry in the contest in order to vote, but if you do have an entry you must vote to avoid a -3 point penalty (and of course, you must vote for an entry that isn't your own).
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Yes, the 18 cards is an upper limit, not a minimum. And yes, paper and pencil can be used to help in score keeping so long as it limited to just simple tallying. Violating the essence of that risks angering the spirits that vote on your entry.