[Icehouse] Re: Ice Game Design Competition 2007

[Brian Campbell]

On Apr 16, 2007, at 2:34 PM, David Artman wrote:

> I agree with Carlton, however, that a theme competition (where theme
> isn't a purely mechanical requirement, like "use Volcano Caps") isn't
> necessarily restrictive or even likely to result in several identical
> games. Many times, the theming will be simply flavor--much like all  
> the
> "Martian" games, for which martianess certainly is not a mechanical
> element. I'd say the more abstracted the theme terms, the more likely
> folks will latch onto them in wild and interesting ways. Also, the  
> Iron
> Game Chef contest typically offers two sets of four terms, and one  
> picks
> which three terms from ONLY ONE of the sets that one will use. (Plus,
> not all Icehouse games are board games.)

OK, I can see that. I feel like we're going to need to do some  
experimentation with the format of the "themed" contests, to see what  
really works for people. I'd really like to have a few that have just  
minimal restrictions, like Treehouse set, Martian Coasters, or the  
like, just to be able to recognize the games that complement the  
current product offerings, but I'll also try out more of an Iron Game  
Chef style competition. I feel like if I do three contests this year,  
one of each type (open, single restriction, Iron Game Chef), we can  
test the waters and see what works, and settle on a particular set of  
formats next year. Also, I should stop calling them "themed"  
contests, since it's not really theme I'm talking about, but any sort  
of restriction in general, whether it be theme, mechanics,  
components, etc. Maybe "restricted" competitions? That sounds too  
negative; I'd rather have a positive term that indicates that the  
point is to inspire people.

> As for award logos/graphics, I would just put out a call for  
> submissions
> and then let folks vote on their favorites. I'd recommend keeping them
> around 100px x 100px, so they aren't too obtrusive. Of course, someone
> has to (permanently!) host them, for them to show on the (broken)  
> wiki.

I can host any graphics necessary for the competition on my own  
domain (or we may be able to host it on the icehousegames.com domain,  
which was used for the previous contests). I'm not sure we need to  
have a contest or voting for these; I'm not sure if we'll get all  
that many people doing graphics, it may be easier to just find  
someone good and have them do the graphics.

> I'd might be nice to also have a 10px x 10px version of each, for  
> adding
> to links to the games, as opposed to the large graphic, which should
> only be used on the game's main page.

Yep, this sounds like a good plan; 16x16 px graphics may also be OK,  
though they won't fit quite the same into text.

> RE: 1 game per person may be entered in each of the two contests -  
> I see
> why you'd want that (avoid spamming fifty lame games, trying to get a
> win), but it also seems less "open." Brian's "voter self-correcting"
> notion will tend to make someone lose, who spams games: voters won't
> slog through five games from one designer, if the first couple are  
> poor
> quality.

Yeah, I agree. Why would someone want to submit more than 1 or 2  
games per contest? It means that at most one of them can win, as  
opposed to the possibility of all winning if you submit them to  
different contests, and it may make people get sick of your games.

> RE: entry for the 2nd contest of the year closes prior to  
> announcing the
> winner of the previous contest - That sort of clashes with the idea of
> "can resubmit" for open and themed: how could I know I should resubmit
> if I don't know if I've won or lost, yet? Surely, a game can't *win*
> both contests, right? What were you really wanting from this?

I'm thinking that maybe the rule would be that you could submit your  
game to one themed contest and one open contest.

> Finally, I wonder if we might consider having more than one
> winner/winning category, for each competition? Have folks rank  
> games in
> the following Awards:
> * Most Fun To Play
> * Most Innovative
> * Best Presentation
> * Grand Champion

I was thinking about this, but I don't think that given the number of  
games we've seen in prior contests, that there will be enough games  
to really support this many categories. How about if we hold off on  
this until we've seen how many entrants we're getting. If we  
regularly get 30 entrants, categories would be great. If we regularly  
get 5-10, you really just want to have one winner.

> WHEN we gonna open submissions?

I'm going to open submissions as soon as I get all, or at least most,  
of the details worked out, hopefully in the next week or so.

Things I need to work out:
1) Wait for some more discussion here on the list to make sure  
everyone who wants gets a fair say
2) Write up the rules, and post them on the wiki
3) Either post the rules again on the old IGDC web page, or just link  
to the wiki from there
4) Work out the schedule of contests for this year, so people will  
know what's coming up.

> WHERE will submissions have to go--wiki, e-mail to organizer, wiki +
> notify organizer, wiki with the [[Category:2007Contest]] tag?
> HOW long between start and end--when does submission acceptance end  
> and
> voting begin?

For the first contest, I plan to have a relatively short submission  
period (1-2 weeks); I mainly want to get some of the backlog from the  
long period with no contest cleared out. For later contests,  
especially the restricted and Iron Game Chef style contests, I feel  
like a submission period of a month, or maybe even a bit more, would  
probably be good, to give people enough time to design and playtest  
games that fit the criteria.

> WHAT are admissible games--I am curious if a derivative game would be
> admitted, like Ikkozendo?

I feel like I'd want to have a guideline that games should be new  
games, rather than just minor variants, but that still leaves a lot  
open for interpretation (like Ikkozendo, which would be in the grey  
area). For that grey area, I'd say just leave it up to the voters; I  
won't reject a submission because it's too small a change, but voters  
might not be thrilled to play a rehashed older game. The only actual  
rule would be that the original game must be appropriately credited  
in the derivative, and if the derivative is close enough, the author  
of the derivative must have permission of the author of the original.