Rehi, congrats, thanks, apologies, miscellanea

[Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe@...>]

Hi crimefighters--

I'm way overdue on congratulating the winners of the Group Projects
Competition: Jeb Havens & Ian Schreiber, for The "In" Crowd.  I also
want to congratulate runners-up Jim Adams & Amy Enge; Jonathan
Dietrich, Ken MacKeigan & Julie Taylor; and Brad Johnson & Phillip
Lerche.  I also want to thank Karol for all the hard work of
administering the contest, and Clark Rodeffer for judging it.  Clark,
you have certainly raised the bar in terms of critiques from the
judge!

I also want to give heartfelt thanks to Dave and Karol of Mesomorph
Games for not only placing their Pawn Saucers expansion into the
public domain, but even publishing their specification.  I am trying
to think of a way to include them in a new piecepack game.

I'm sorry I've been out of touch with the piecepack community
recently.  Most of my time has been occupied with writing the fifth
article in my Game Systems series for _The Games Journal_, and a
sizeable new project that I'm not ready to announce.  The thing that
has been taking most of the rest of my time is a new piecepack game,
which I will probably enter into an upcoming competition.

Speaking of competitions, does anyone think that they've gotten a
little clunky lately?  I'd rather see "broken" games released the day
of the contest with some notes in email (from the judge, or from the
authors) on how to fix them, than have to wait a month or two for the
"perfect" game, because no game is ever perfect.  They have a saying
in the Linux world: "Release early, release often".  I do think that
that applies here in spades (or suns, moons, crowns, and arms, if you
prefer).

About the wiki: Karol has reported some broken links on the
TaxonomyOfPiecepackGames pages.  I know that this has recently
undergone a major revamp.  Is anyone else having problems?  It works
fine for me.

Best wishes to all.

Ron

p.s. Mike Schoessow, I owe you an email.  You sent it to me 1
November, and the election drove it from my mind.  Maybe in a couple
of days.  I have a wicked cold tonight, and every cranny of my body is
filled with ick.  I am indeed a yucky lung man.

-- 
   Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@... ... http://ron.ludism.org/
       Center for Ludic Synergy, Seattle Cosmic Game Night,
Kennexions Glass Bead Game & Positive Revolution FAQ: http://www.ludism.org/
           My brains are pink -- you can see 'em work!