Re: [piecepack] Re: Piecepack Design Contest

["Mike Schoessow" <mikeschoessow@...>]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: sshum2003 
  To: piecepack@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 9:01 AM
  Subject: [piecepack] Re: Piecepack Design Contest



  --- In piecepack@yahoogroups.com, "mschoessow" <mikeschoessow@c...> 
  wrote:
  >> 
  >> I think we need to decide what to do about the design contest. It is 
  >> quite evident that the winners of the last contest are not interested 
  >> in being involved in the next one. It's possible I'm wrong about that 
  >> but I'm not willing to wait in silence any longer hoping. 
  >> 
  >> So, the question is, what happens next? Let's have some posts about 
  >> this. What do people think? One way or another, I'm determined that 
  >> the design competitions are not going to end at this time! 
  >> 
  >> -Mike

  >I thought that they were waiting until after Mesomorph Games contest 
  >was over, but could not find a post indicating such is the case.

  I suppose that's possible but I believe it is just speculation at this point. A couple months ago I asked Karol what was going on with the contests. She told me that following the previous contest the winners had indicated that they would be willing to define and judge the next one (and I seem to recall that being posted here as well) and she suggested I post my query to the group. I did that, specifically asking the winners to respond. That was quite a while ago. Since they have been silent, I assume they have likely changed their mind and do not plan to be involved in the next contest. I have no problem with the winner(s) of a contest not working on the next one, but it would be good to know for sure what's happening one way or the other. As I mentioned, I'm tired of waiting in the dark.
  I agree that it would be best to coordinate the timing of the next and all future piecepack game design contests with the present and future expansion piecepack game design contests (assuming there will be future expansion contests). If there are going to be more expansion piecepack contests then I think the best way to go is to stagger the timing. This will have two advantages. Firstly, it will allow the time between the rules posting (announcement of new theme) and the submission deadline to be longer, giving more time for quality design. Secondly, it will allow a reasonable amount of time for judging (if we keep getting 10-20 entries, judging is always going to take longer than it did earlier when we were only seeing 5-10 entries, so we might as well plan for that rather than always needing to announce a delay in the results). Even with the extra time allowed for design and judging, with two overlapping staggered contests the time between contests should be similar to or even slightly less than it was in the past. In a situation like this it's all good; more time for designing, more time for judging, as many or more games per year as before, and just as many opportunities to enter games in contests as before. 


  >Perhaps we could open the judging up to the "Bests" since there was no 
  >declared single 1st runner up.  Priority give in order of their scores 
  >for those that wish to judge.  Perhaps excluding those that have judged 
  >before, to give those who have not judge a chance first. 

  I'm fine with either of those ideas. I would be willing to organize the next contest (define a theme and judge the entries) along with my brother Steve if it came down to that, but I would also be perfectly happy to have someone else judge. Regarding the idea of disallowing former judges from judging, I don't have a problem with that short term, but long term it will mean that an ever-growing group of the most enthusiastic game designers(all of whom have themselves designed winning games) will be excluded and that could be a problem if piecepack group membership doesn't continue to grow in a healthy way into the indefinite future. I think the most important thing is that whoever agrees to do the judging is enthusiastic and eager, as opposed to someone reluctantly agreeing to judge because nobody else wants to. Reluctant judges will probably not put the time into it that the designers deserve.
   
  Regarding Leo's ideas (separate post) for a piecepack graphics design contest or one requiring games based on re-themed tiles, I don't have a problem with this if someone wants to organize it. There are many fascinating possibilities for suits, some of which have been posted here over the years, and if suits are customized for a particular game, it opens up opportunities for greater theme attachment in non-abstract games, which is good. On the other hand it's also true that it moves things incrementally further away from the basic idea behind piecepack, which is to provide a set of generic board game bits that can be used to play many games, as a deck of cards is to board games. I suggest that this would be a good topic for more discussion. For example, how about a piecepack set that comes with multiple sets of peal-off / stick-on graphics so customers can choose which theme they want? A contest and group-wide voting could be organized for deciding which graphics sets to include. Just a thought.

  I disgree (implying no disrespect of sshum2003's opinion) with the sentimate implied by "...yet another game rule design contest". I, for one, eagerly look forward to each new batch of games. I'll admit that I also look forward to being able to enter my own designs :-). Whatever else happens, I want the standard piecepack game design competition to continue, and I hope many others want this too.

  -Mike