Re: [piecepack] Anonymity, definition of standard piecepack equipment, and my work is worth nothing!

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

OK, this is my second message in this thread. Detailed answers are inline below.

> On 9/4/06, Porter235 <porter235@...> wrote:
> > On Monday 04 September 2006 02:13, Ron Hale-Evans wrote:
> > > ### Anonymity ###
> > >
> > > As I've become familiar with the work of the designers in the
> > > piecepack community, I've learned to tell some people's games a
> > > light-year away because of their graphic design, clip art, writing
> > > style, and so on. Because of this phenomenon, true anonymity has been
> > > hard to achieve. I'd like to try some new procedures in this contest
> > > that I hope will help alleviate these problems.
> > >
> > > 4. **Ports Illustrated**: Illustrations are optional, but if you use
> > >    them, they _must_ be _photos of standard piecepack equipment_, such
> > >    as the Mesomorph editions or the printable versions of the same
> > >    available from [Piecepack.org][3]. In the contest version of your
> > >    game, you may not use line art or one of the several sets of
> > >    piecepack clip art available.  You _may_ replace the photos with
> > >    clip art in the final version.
> > >
> > > 6. Make sure your photos look good in black and white, since they will
> > >    probably be printed that way.
> > >
> >
> > OK. I understand the spirit with which these rules were created but I am
> > personally very hurt by their inclusion in the ruleset.

Well, I'm glad that you understand the reason for the Anonymity rules,
so we have something to start with. I hope my last message and this
message will make the rules seem less hurtful.

I am probably going to post a second version of the rules, with no
real rule changes, but some important clarifications like the ones in
this message.

> > I am someone who has spent an unbelievable number of hours designing a
> > complete set of piecepack graphics for 8 suits in a style that is
> > specifically designed for black and white printing! I have made all of those
> > files available to the community. I have made a font available to the
> > community to make it easy to include said style in their game designs. (Not
> > to mention that I am in the process of creating another 4 suits in the same
> > style!)
> >
> > I have spent HUGE numbers of hours building multiple real life sets using said
> > style.
> >
> > I have spent hours upon hours creating a VASSAL module for piecepack that
> > makes it possible to play piecepack games ONLINE, and very easy to create
> > screenshots of board positions.

These things you've done are wonderful. I appreciate them a lot, and I
admire you for them. I certainly couldn't have done them myself.

As I mentioned above, I do consider the JCD Piecepack to be standard
piecepack equipment. Enough said, since we now understand each other
on this issue.

> > I have spent hours makin' my games pretty, which, last time I checked, is a
> > part of what makes games enjoyable and attractive, and now I am told I can't!

You _can_ make your games pretty! The plain text version is for
anonymity's sake during the contest only. After the contest, go nuts
with the graphic design of your ruleset. Anonymity rule 4 makes this
explicit: "In the contest version of your game, you may not use line
art or one of the several sets of piecepack clip art available. You
_may_ replace the photos with clip art in the final version."

It's important to understand the distinction between the contest
version (plain text with Markdown, photos, converted to HTML) and the
final version for submission to Piecepack.org (let's say PDF with JCD
Piecepack font characters and Vassal screenshots). In fact, since
you're the author of the game, I couldn't stop you from making the
final version pretty even if I wanted to. The version that most people
will see, _forever_, is the version that goes up on the games page at
Piecepack.org: your final version. The only people who'll see the
plain version are me, Meredith, and possibly the playtesters.

> > Also worth note is neither this nor any other contest in the past has
> > mentioned that you can not submit a game that you have already released to
> > piecepack.org... My game Triactor is a good match for this competition, and
> > even if I do reformat the rules to meet your requirements you will still know
> > it was mine, because you have seen it already!

I don't really understand your problem here, Jonathan. Could you
please clarify it?

> > Also you mention "writing-style" as one of the things that make someone
> > identifiable. How are you dealing with this?

I'm not going to make any explicit rules about it; I just wanted to
make people conscious of it. One reason is that I don't want to squash
the marvellous creativity and individuality of people in the piecepack
community. Another is that such a rule would be completely
unenforceable.

For example, in my games, especially ones I work on with Marty, such
as KidSprout Jumboree and Epic Funhouse, I use a particular style of
sarcastic humour that I think could be pretty readily identified. When
I submitted Piecepack Letterbox to the Mesomorph Games competition, I
was very conscious of this, and was careful not to write in that
style. (It also would have been completely inappropriate for the
game.) I also made my contest submission in plain vanilla HTML, which
was in fact generated from a Markdown document. It might be fun,
though, for piecepack designers to try to imitate one another's styles
in this contest, or to break out and write in a completely new style.

> > If I am going to compete in this competition, I will either have to spend $$$
> > to get a "standard" piecepack, or spend hours and hours more creating yet
> > another set, which will not look right with the sets I already have spent
> > tons of time creating.

Well, I've already said JCD Piecepacks are considered standard, so no
problem there. But for anyone who has a distinctive handmade
piecepack, I'll quote the contest rules again -- drat, I see I took
that sentence out in the hope of shortening the rules, which were
beginning to be as long as the International Chess Federation's.

Anyway, what I originally said was that if you don't already have a
standard piecepack, you don't have to make one. _You just have to make
something that looks OK to the camera._ This could be as simple as
printing some of the PDFs from the following two pages on standard
letter-sized paper, cutting out the (possibly small) subset of
components you need to illustrate your game, and snapping photos of
the suitably-arranged cutouts. It's no harder than paper dolls,
really. I won't hold the fact that the cutouts don't cast shadows like
a real wooden piecepack against anyone, either. As I've said, people
can always make their rulesets pretty later.

http://www.piecepack.org/Printable.html
http://www.piecepack.org/PrintableExpansions.html

I hope I've answered some of the harder questions about anonymity in
this contest now. If anyone has any other questions about the contest
that won't "give the game away", please post them here; otherwise,
feel free to mail questions to The Eradicator at piecepack7@....

Ron

--
   Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@... ... http://ron.ludism.org/
Mind Performance Hacks book: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindperfhks/
	   Center for Ludic Synergy: http://www.ludism.org/
(revilous life proving aye the death of ronaldses when winpower wine has
		   bucked the kick on poor won man)