Re: [piecepack] Re: ANNOUNCING THE 7th PIECEPACK GAME DESIGN COMPETITION: Good Portsmanship

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

Hello all,

Mike Schoessow and Michael Van Biesbrouck brought up some good points
about the contest rules a few days ago, and here is the response I
promised. I can't address every point they brought up in detail
because I am leaving for the other side of the country tomorrow to
visit a newly minted nephew. :-) I will have some email access over
the next week, but unless I'm lucky, it will be limited to reading
email and sometimes posting short responses.

So, the story so far: the contest rules have been loosened so that the
JCD Piecepack is considered standard equipment (it already was, but I
didn't say so explicitly), and entrants can use the piecepack Vassal
module for making screenshots for purposes of illustration. Mike and
Michael would like some more easements in the rules, for example
allowing the use of pennies and nickels for economic games.

I am inclined to agree with Mike and Michael on this one. Michael
rightly notes that this is not a contest about synergy between games.
I would also point out that this is a _piecepack_ contest, and
specifically, it's about porting games to the piecepack (and Michael
is right again that there is supposed to be some challenge to it). If
I commissioned you to translate a German book (Eurogame) into English
(piecepack) for me, and you translated it into a mixture of English
(piecepack) and Mandarin Chinese (some other game or game system), I
would be very disappointed.

I am inclined to say that a _limited_ number (the fewer, the better)
of everyday items such as pennies and nickels, pen and paper,
wristwatch or stopwatch, paper bag, even a candle (as in Ice Floe) are
within the bounds of the contest, but incorporating equipment from
other games or game systems, such as Icehouse pieces, Chess pieces,
percentile dice, and so on, will disqualify the game. If you need 1700
special printed chits so you can port Advanced Squad Leader to the
piecepack, maybe that's not an appropriate game to port -- for this
contest.

Anonymity: Mike reasons that some piecepack authors can be recognised
by their writing style, not just by their graphic design, so limiting
the fonts and graphics in a game submission would not solve the
problem of being able to recognise authors. My response: it's not a
binary situation. Everyone knows the expression "it's better than
nothing". It's not a question of complete anonymity or complete
openness. There can be more anonymity, or less anonymity. I want this
contest to have more anonymity rather than less.

Mike writes, "I suppose the argument is that the group 'long
time members' might be inclined, as judges, to vote for each other's
games..." Quite the contrary! I will be as unbiased as I can, but I
suspect I'm more inclined to favour _new_ designers' games. So, the
more anonymous previous competition winners can make their games,
including writing style, the more likely I (probably) am (all else
being equal) to favour their games. Anonymity simply levels things.

As for someone in my group being able to figure out the rules and
teach a game to me, so that I can't see the author's name, graphic
style, or writing style, there is no one in any of the groups I play
with who can or would perform that function for me. Even if I could
find someone, it would complicate the situation and probably lengthen
the judging period -- and no one wants that, I feel sure. :-)

Rules formatting: I selected the least restrictive, most generic
format I could think of: plain text. Entrants can optionally mark up
their documents with _emphasis_ and so on -- or not, and Meredith will
add formatting for them -- and in return they will receive a nice HTML
document that can be slurped up into Microsoft Word (most designers'
preferred word processor and layout program, as far as I can tell) via
the HTML import feature, and then fine-tuned with the appropriate
fonts and graphics. If the authors used Vassal, or shot decent photos,
they won't even have to come up with new illustrations for the final
version.

So, I'll try to get these rules easements and clarifications up by the
end of the week (no earlier than the 20th or so). In the meantime, I
would consider it a great favour if someone would link some of the
relevant messages in this thread to the GoodPortsmanship page on the
wiki, so that people who don't read this list have a reasonable chance
of seeing them.

Thanks, and if there's any more discussion, I'll read it and comment
when I can, but I hope we can mostly move on to creating great contest
entries. :-)

Game on!

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)