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BGDF Game Design Showdown... at Gencon?

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Wed, 04/06/2016 - 21:44
richdurham
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Hi all at BGDF. Exciting events ahead!

Picture this: You’ve assembled a dream team of your designer friends. Together, you enter a room packed with teams ready to blow your mind with their design skillz. There’s some smack talk, some camaraderie, and plenty of design talk. When the event kicks off, you’re given a sealed prototype kit and a couple design restrictions. The second the clock starts ticking all the kits are torn open and brains start to burn.

How can we possibly make a playable game in just a couple hours?
Will it be any good?
Who’s going to pitch it best?

When the buzzer sounds, it’s time to judge! Team members and celebrity judges circle around the room, demoing and rating the games.

Time goes by, and the tension builds. Who is giving the best presentation? Is my game clever enough? Wow - that one is good, I wonder if they’ll win?

When the dust settles we will have a room full games, but only one winner of the Game Design Showdown.

This is happening.

I’m flying in to the US for Gencon this year, and I couldn’t be more excited for this event. Not only is it a LIVE Game Design Showdown, but a great chance for fellow BGDF’ers to get together in person. Make friends, network, and make some great games!

Sign up for this event Gencon! Only room in the contest for the first 24 people, but we won’t anyone from being an audience member :)

Keep this Event ID handy:
WKS1684410

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Wed, 04/06/2016 - 23:22
#1
questccg
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That reminds me...

Of my college days (way back 20+ years ago) when we had "Programming" contests where you would be given five (5) problems to solve "programatically" using any source code that produces the correct results.

The University would HOST the contest and it was a lot of FUN. Having a "box" with unknown contest is akin to these "Programming" contests because you have no clue what problems you will be asked to code.

Same goes for your Design Showdown, designers have no clue what will be made available to them...

Great to hear BGDF is participating in a CON, especially GenCon.

Good Stuff!

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Thu, 04/07/2016 - 18:22
#2
richdurham
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Lots of fun!

Oh totally! Yeah, game jams and prototyping events like this are great for fun. They are also an incredible way to pump out a semi-complete game in a very short amount of time, and get a sense of what it's like to collaborate with other people. It's a lesson (sometimes hard) on how not to be overbearing with your ideas. It's not all about showing how clever you are!

I'll of course keep this thread updated when event registration opens on the 15th of May.

Until then, a question - what kinds of experience do people on BGDF have with jams like these? What did they like about the way it was run, or what would they wish was done differently?

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Fri, 04/08/2016 - 06:46
#3
ElKobold
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I wish you could do it at

I wish you could do it at Essen :)

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Fri, 04/08/2016 - 17:39
#4
andymakespasta
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I'm really curious what you

I'm really curious what you think is the most important "success" condition of this event (for you, the host). Is it:
- churn out creative, fun new games that have potential to become full games?
- meet people, build community, get comfortable with collaboration, have teams and contacts that last years?
- get street cred, show we're really serious and respectable?
- ???
How does this affect how contestants are picked, and how judging will work?

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Fri, 04/08/2016 - 18:09
#5
andymakespasta
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richdurham wrote:**what kinds

richdurham wrote:
**what kinds of experience do people on BGDF have with jams like these? What did they like about the way it was run, or what would they wish was done differently?**

I've done a few hackathons. I've attended in different ways. Don't know if this will be useful, but I'll share some experiences and thoughts.

Once, I just went with friends, ate free food, fooled around, built something quite useless. The whole thing was fun, but underwhelming in the "jam" sense.

Another time, I went prepared with a base prototype that I could "bend" to the theme of the contest. That worked out much better, though I felt dirty afterwards.

I've also seen groups where after the team reaches a decision about what they're going to make, people whose skills don't match with the project sit around twiddling their thumbs, while one or two key people do most of the work.

I've been to an event, where contestants can optionally attend a team finding thingy, where everyone writes their expertise on a sticky note, and mingle (just before the contest proper). Can't say if that was good or bad, but I heard some interesting ideas there.

The whole experience from a contestant's perspective is heavily affected by judging. It feels terrible when the winner is an obvious rip off of something else that the judges didn't know about, or something well polished but doesn't match the theme.

It's nice to have different categories for awards, and more detailed feedback sheets(It's also interesting to see feedback for other groups' projects.)

With fewer teams, you can have on stage demos (not applicable for board game jams maybe.). But in one event I attended, there were dozens of teams, judges had to move through the tables. It was hard to know what other teams were doing, and how they fared. I would have liked to see a bulletin board (or web page, since we were doing a hackathon) after the event that listed a description of each team's thing, and commentary.

Voting based scoring, in my experience, is highly biased towards flashy teams located in good real estate. If you're hidden in a corner, there will simply be fewer people, and it's hard to hold a crowd.

Whew.

Good luck, and god speed.

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Fri, 04/08/2016 - 19:32
#6
richdurham
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Fortunately, not first rodeo

Hi Andy, and thanks for the insight from your hackathon experiences. While sort of analogous, there are some obvious difference with a board game jam than a technical one or even a video-game jam. Namely, the skill sets are a lot more broad, as someone with a psychology background is just as valuable as someone with an IT background. And that doesn't even mention the arts + crafts skills.

To answer your question -

I'm really curious what you think is the most important "success" condition of this event (for you, the host). Is it: - churn out creative, fun new games that have potential to become full games? - meet people, build community, get comfortable with collaboration, have teams and contacts that last years? - get street cred, show we're really serious and respectable? - ??? How does this affect how contestants are picked, and how judging will work?

BGDF is always about creative ideas and collaboration with the community. It's been that way through multiple teams of "managers' over the decade or so of its existence. Success in my eyes will be meeting those BGDF principes. I hope participants not only come with a comfortable team of friends, but through the process, make connections with other designers and teams that they'd want to collaborate with.

The other part, about creative ideas, involves skill building for the participants.

  • Designing to constraints
  • Tightness of prototype pitch
  • Presentation, focusing on the assets (whether that be the game's artistry, mechanical cleverness, or compelling play experience)
  • Writing of the "Pitch" as it is with the GDS. This time with a bit of a sell-sheet bent.

As the subject line says, fortunately this is not my first rodeo running a game jam like this. There is some method to the madness, and hopefully with additional input like Andy's this event can be crafted towards the expectation of the audience.

As for participants, I'm hoping anyone from BGDF signs up so they can meet each other in person. It's not about "winning" the live-GDS, as much as it is learning from the process. IOW, expect plenty of feedback.

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Tue, 05/17/2016 - 06:02
#7
richdurham
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Event is live

last chance for tickets for the live Showdown

After the first day, we are left with only 3 of the 24 tickets remaining - act fast with this link!

If you missed the post over at The Game Crafter, the guest judges are announced, too! Seth Jaffee, JT Smith, and Matt Worden.

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Mon, 05/30/2016 - 18:48
#8
jbship628
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If anyone can't go

There are no tickets left for this event, and I would be interested in attending, so if anyone finds they can't go, or a friend they have a ticket for bails on them, LMK. I'm a party of 1, but I have a few friends I could probably convince too if needed.

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Mon, 05/30/2016 - 21:59
#9
richdurham
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Still come!

No one's going to stop you at the door if you want to come. You won't be able to take part directly in the showdown, but you can still come to meet other BGDFers and see what people come up with!

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