Re: [piecepack] Design Contest Winner Announcement

["Rob LeGood" <rflegood@...>]

Wow!  First off, thanks!  I checked the website at work, during the day, and
was pleasantly shocked to see that New City won the Changing Landscapes
competition.  And I'm positive that my co-workers didn't at all get sick of
me, introducing myself, as an 'awarding winning game designer' throughout
the day. :)

Well, since I've been lurking for awhile, and am pretty unknown, let me
introduce myself to everyone.  My name is Rob, and I'm a 31 year old
internet developer from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. (About an hour from
Toronto)  My hobbies are theatre (acting, directing, etc.,) and, of course,
german games. I enjoy long walks on the beach, puppy dogs, and... uh,
nevermind.  I've been collecting games for a long time, and every chance I
get, I invite people over to my place for Games Days.

Of the people I'd like to thank, the biggest thanks goes to Jonathan
Dietrich.  He introduced me to the whole piecepack system, encouraged me to
enter the contest, helped with playtesting and gave me my very own JCD
piecepack for my birthday!  I'd also like to thank the play-testers;
especially Sean, Dave and the rest of the Waterloo Gamers.  Big thanks also
to Michael and Karol (hmmm... perhaps my last name does sound better as
Logwood:)) for putting this together; I'm sure I'll feel the pain, very,
very soon.  Lastly, thanks to everyone for your kind words about the game.
I had a lot of fun creating it and I hope you have just as much playing it.

The next contest will be up soon, and I look forward to judging the 4th
piecepack competition. (And Michael - feel free to hang on to the trophy
cloth as long as you'd like; you deserve some quality time with it!)

Jonathan and I are already planning on having a piecepack Games Day to play
the contest entries with our friends.  Can't wait!  If any of you are close
to me, drop me a line and I'll add you to the invite list.

Rob.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Schoessow" <mschoessow@...>
To: <piecepack@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, March 03, 2003 9:29 AM
Subject: [piecepack] Design Contest Winner Announcement


> The winner of the Third Piecepack Game Design Competition is,....
>
>                NEW CITY  by Rob LeGood
>
> Congratulations Rob!
>
>
> Runner up was ICEFLOE by Tim Schutz, and the game that most elegantly fit
> the Changing Landscapes theme was clearly SAN ANDREAS by James Kyle.
>
> Choosing the winner was not too difficult and all the play-testers who
tried
> New City agreed that it should probably win. This is not to say that there
> weren't other excellent games; there were, and choosing the runner up took
a
> bit more thought.
>
> Of the sixteen games submitted, two were purely abstract (although one had
> an attached theme), five involved the memory of hidden information, three
> were German-style family strategy games, two were racing games, and three
> involved auction/voting type elements. One game was strictly 2-player,
while
> the others were variously either 2-4, 3-4 or 4-player. Most of the games
> included some sort of luck element, either via a die or through blind tile
> selection. Interestingly, three games had themes involving icebergs or
> frozen lakes. Five games had themes dealing with kingdoms or royalty. Only
> one game was clearly themeless. All in all, it was a nice selection. In
> terms of play-quality there was also a fairly wide spread, with some games
> feeling thoroughly dialed in while others would benefit from further
> play-testing and tweaking.
>
> New City is German-style game of city building. As with many German games,
> it is played in "rounds", with various actions (including an auction, a
> district-building phase, an improvement-building phase, an income
collection
> phase, etc.) taking place in order each round. It displays the typical
> elements of an excellent game; there are difficult decisions almost every
> turn and there is a lot of player interaction on a couple of different
> levels. The game also has good depth and excellent clarity, as well as the
> right sort of randomizing element to insure good re-playability. As with
> many excellent games of this genre, thoughtful play is well rewarded, and
in
> my opinion the balance between luck and skill is just where it should be
> with enough luck to keep things interesting but not so much that a skilled
> player will be unjustly robbed of a deserved victory. Rob lists the game
as
> strictly 4-player, but we happily discovered at one point (when there were
> only two of us present and we wanted to play New City again) that it plays
> very well with two players if each player takes two oppositely positioned
> city quarters and then at the end of the game scores only the income of
his
> or her lower scoring quarter. The rules to New City are also well written,
> with a nice dose of wry humor. I do have one very minor criticism. The
> scoring track, although workable, is inconvenient compared to just using
> some coins to keep track of income, and after the first game we always
used
> coins for money.
>
> IceFloe is another game that displayed balance and polish, and was also
> surprisingly fun to play considering that it's pretty abstract in nature.
I
> don't mean to imply anything against abstract games (which I'm a big fan
of)
> but usually I think of them as providing "satisfaction" rather than "fun".
> The heart of this game is a clever secret voting mechanism for elimination
> of part of the board each round of turns. Two critical rules really make
> this work well;  firstly, there is always one player (called the
> torch-bearer) who oversees the vote and in the case of a tie the
> torch-bearer gets to decide the outcome. This leads to some very
interesting
> bluffing, temporary alliances, etc. It all feels rather Knizian in some
> ways. Secondly, table-talk is regulated. Talking is allowed but only in
> generalities, with the utterance of names, numbers, colors, etc. being
> sharply proscribed, with violators losing voting rights for one round.
> Altogether it's a highly enjoyable game. Thanks Tim! One last thing; the
> rules suggest that the torch-bearer be identified by an actual burning
item
> such as a candle that can be passed to the next player between rounds.
This
> is essential for proper enjoyment of the game. We used one of those giant
> stand-alone candles (3" dia. by 8" high) and it was very satisfying to
have
> the torch passed to you at the beginning of a round.
>
> San Andreas is a fairly quick game that probably falls into the category
of
> "filler", perfect at the beginning or end of a game evening. It's a great
> little game (and extra-interesting for those of us living on the
California
> coast) using tiles arrayed to form a map of California, with pieces
tilting
> or shifting in response to earthquakes during the game. Players are scored
> on towns they place, with the ones near the coast being more lucrative, IF
> they make it to the end of the game without being buried (literally) or
> falling into the ocean. Good fun.
>
> In addition to New City, IceFloe, and San Andreas, there were a number of
> other games that I particularly liked for various reasons. Decay was the
> only purely abstract game and it is based on a tile placement/array system
> different from anything I've seen before. If you like abstracts and want
to
> try something different, give it a try. Froggy Bottom is an unassuming
> little game that is quite enjoyable. It's the only 2-player game in the
> group and is a racing game (in the game theory sense) with a memory
element.
> It's also a quick play so it's another nice filler. King's Cottage is
clever
> game with a number of unique ideas. It also has a major memory aspect, and
> this makes it feel like a lot of work to play for people like me (my
memory
> isn't so hot), but I found it to be fun just the same. The theme
(competing
> craft houses and builders constructing and furnishing a cottage for the
> king) is particularly well done. The game works well for 2-4 players but
it
> is a game with a fairly high luck element so mileage may vary on that
> account.
>
>
> Let me describe how the timing worked with the game judging and author
> identities, just to answer some questions that would otherwise come in
over
> the next few days. FIRST I sent my choice for winner, runner-up, etc. to
> Karol in her capacity as contest administrator, and THEN she sent me a
> cross-listing of authors names and game titles so I could include author
> names in this posting. Thus I did not know author identities until after I
> had decided the winners.
>
> I want to give special thanks to Karol at Mesomorph Games for the huge
> amount of work she has done, including organization, proof-reading, and
> tracking down answers to my questions to the authors. I think that for
> future contests we should probably re-think how these aspects of the
contest
> work because it's an unreasonable amount of effort to ask of one person.
> Thanks Karol for making everything work smoothly!
>
> I also want to thank Lisa, Reinhard, Gabi, Shay, Wei-Hwa, Arik, Barry, and
> Santiago for playing the games with me and contributing their opinions and
> insights.
>
> I will be contacting Rob concerning the prize etc., and if any other of
the
> game authors are interested in the play-testers' opinions and comments
about
> their games, feel free to e-mail me privately
(mschoessow@...).
>
> The rules for all sixteen games are posted at the piecepack.org site.
Karol
> asked me to pass on to the authors that if they have any questions about
the
> rules for their games as posted on the piecepack.org site they should send
> e-mails to submissions@.... and put the game name as the
subject.
> Authors will now also have an opportunity to make changes to their rules
> sets before they are added to the rules CD.
>
> Once again, congratulations to the winning authors and thanks to all who
> participated. I encourage you, and all piecepack enthusiasts, to
participate
> in the next competition!
>
> -Mike
>
>
>
>
>
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