Re: piecepack Design Competitions

["Matt Worden" <Brykovian@...>]

mschoessow wrote:
> The 
> design contests have been a great success, and have given us all 
> some of the best piecepack games which otherwise would, in all 
> likelyhood, never have been designed. 

Agreed.  Contests = good!

> A shrewdly chosen 
> theme can serve to inspire or focus the designers without unduly 
> constraining them.

Agreed.  Themes = good!

> An example of a restrictive theme to my way of thinking 
> would be that all games must be some form of combat game. A lot of 
> people are not particularly interested in combat games, so some 
> might not enter the contest who otherwise would. Also, a combat 
> theme is a natural and common theme in games so such a theme would 
> not particularly serve to inspire anything new.

Disagreed ... I think that picking a "genre" or "type" of game, or 
even that it should include some particular type of mechanic (in a 
way, that's what the changing landscapes contest was about) would 
still be legitimate.  Perhaps a "combat game" theme would keep some 
folks away ... but I would argue that any type of theming may keep 
some people away.  I, for example, stayed away from the history 
repeats itself contest, because I didn't feel any inspiration from 
it.  I think it was a good contest -- just not my kind of thing.  So, 
I don't think having a contest for "resource management" or "combat" 
or "exploration/discovery" type games would overly restrict the 
designers ... it would change the subset of designers interested in 
the contest.

> To insure a good level of participation, it is important that the 
> competition announcement be widely distributed. I also like to see 
> international participation, and there has been some in the past.

Agreed.  Large/Wide/Diverse Field of Designers = good!

> Starting with the third competition, the names of the authors have 
> been kept secret from the judges until after the winning entry has 
> been chosen. This was Ron Hale-Evan's idea, and I endorse it. The 
> piecepack community is still a pretty close-knit group, so it is 
> likely that the judge and some of the entrants will know each 
other, 
> and perhaps even have awarded each other prizes in past 
> competitions. Hiding the authors helps guard against unintentional 
> biases, and speaking as a past judge, I can say that for me it also 
> reduced the pressure of judging. 

Agreed.  Judging "blind" on designers = good!

> In the past two contests, the time period between the announcement 
> of the competition and the last day for submissions was longer than 
> in the first two competitions, and I think that was good. Game 
> design, not to mention play-testing, takes a lot of time, and I 
feel 
> that, in general, the longer period results in a bigger percentage 
> of good games. 

Agreed.  More time = good!

> The hardest working person during these past three competitions has 
> certainly been Karol, and I want to thank her for her dedication.

Agreed.  Karol = good! ;-D

> All of my comments above are intended to encourage additional 
> comments within the group. The competitions have, as I said, been a 
> great success so far, but it behooves us to keep trying to improve 
> them.

Agreed.  Thanks for this topic, Mike.  I think it was ... well, 
good! ;-)

-Matt