Re: Rehi, congrats, thanks, apologies, miscellanea

["mschoessow" <mikeschoessow@...>]

--- In piecepack@yahoogroups.com, Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe@l...> wrote:
> 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. 


I eagerly await the fifth article. This series of articles is how I 
found out about piecepack! Game designers especially should 
definitely read the whole series. It's excellent.



> 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. 


I agree. See my earlier post on this within the past week. A file 
folder holding all the contest games for one month (for example) 
just after the winner announcement would be very good. This would 
allow everyone to see the games "as they were submitted", which 
should be of some interest, but would not leave "old" versions out 
there indefinitely. 

On a related subject: in most past competitions (but not in this 
most recent one seemingly) some of the submitted games were clearly 
broken, and I don't think it's a good thing for such games to be put 
up at piecepack.org. That being the case, I don't really like the 
system of automatically adding all contest games permanently to the 
games list (or to the rules disk for that matter--having broken 
games on ther can't be god for Mesomorph). In fact, having broken 
games posted is not in the interests of any of us. Understand that 
I'm not talking about cases where there is a difference of opinion; 
some games are indisputably broken. Perhaps we could implement a 
proceedure where, after all games are made available in "as is" form 
following the close of a competition, they are only added to 
piecepack.org after the author requests this OR the judges of the 
competition authorizes it (keeping in mind that the games are in the 
public domain). I realize this may be a touchy subject and I don't 
want to trample over anybody's sensibilities. Comments?


-Mike


> 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@l... ... 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!