ION Award Game Competition

FYI: Looks like no limit to number of entries, but it's $5 per submission.

Open question for Steve: Can you tell us hat the abstracts are graded on? Specifically, I'm wondering how much weight is placed on prototype quality (Since you want a picture for each game).

I don't know that if I were to be a finalist I would make the trip... is this a concern?

Well if this is true and the market for abstracts being what it is, I'd lose money if I won and got published more than likely. I cannot see the time and plane ticket without a guarantee of either re-compensation or a contract that would exceed the amounts.

The designers presence in these contests is largely about "pimping" their event and adding prestige to it - but there should be a realistic point of view in this somewhere.

In the list of eligibility requirements it states the prototype board game cannot have a government issued copyright. What is the reasoning behind this requirement?

True. I was thinking back to when I knew less about how copyright and patent worked. Perhaps the original poster / contest managers hold this belief.

Regardless, it is an odd limitation to put on the submissions.

The term "abstract" is common in academia and is used to refer to a summary given of a particular written work - typically presented at the beginning - that provides the reader with an understanding of the subjects, methodologies, and conclusions that are contained within the paper. So, submitting an "abstract" in this context has absolutely nothing to do with an "abstract game". It refers to submitting a thorough summary of your game so that one can get an understanding of what your game is all about without having to read the entire rule book.

To be completely fair, I see boardgamers make the mistake of using terms without clarifying them all the time in their game explanations. I'll see someone teaching another player how to play Puerto Rico and they will say "after you have taken a role" without providing the simple clarification that that phrase means you select one of the role cards for yourself (while simultaneously forgetting to clarify that the brown cards off to the side with the pictures on them are what they are referring to with the term "role cards").

The funny thing is it's quite common for people who are really good at a game to be the one's who really suck at explaining it because the terms are so familiar to them it simply doesn't occur to them that those same terms might not be familiar to someone else.

I'm sure anyone here on the site who has written a rule book for a game they have been designing and developing for a long time and then had that rule book read by someone else can attest to the fact that we all make this kind of mistake from time to time.