Game Design Showdown 1 Results!

On Wednesday, February 4, 2004, we held our very first BGDF Game Design Showdown. Played as part of a live chat, the Game Design Showdown is a competitive version of Rick Heli's Spotlight On Games Game Design Challenge.

The showdown consists of four to six rounds of design challenges. During each round the players are challenged to design a game based on a theme and one-to-three mechanisms. To make it even more fun, both a tight time limit and a tight text-length limit are imposed. Designs are submitted to the moderator and are then anonymously displayed for voting. Both the participants and the other chat attendees are invited to vote for their favorite design.

In a one-mechanism challenge the winner receives two points, with two mechanisms the winner receives three points, and with three mechanisms the winner receives four points. In the case of a vote tie if the winners receive more than one vote each then they all get the points, less one (1, 2, or 3 points).

An amazing amount of creativity is displayed, both in rapidly producing a variety of fun design concepts and in finding entertaining ways to describe them. Round 4 was particularly amazing, with a very difficult challenge that inspired six completely different and incredibly inventive games. This first Showdown was so much fun that this will surely be just the first of an at-least-monthly event.

Here are the challenges and the entries:

Round: 1
Time Available: 5 minutes
Length Limit: 1 chat entry box, about 230 characters
Challenge Theme: Computer/Internet
Challenge Mechanisms: Modular Board

Entry 1: Name: SysAdmin. Objective: Gain the loyalty of the most users. Game: players are SysAdmins, building and maintaining a company network of computers (the modular components). Cards represent user requirements. -- Joe_Huber

Entry 2: Messages need to be routed from one network to another. Players play Routers to make the shortest linkage, but be careful as others can use your routers too. Some routers have different routing protocols, and messages only last # of hops -- Torrent

Entry 3: "Domain Goldrush" Tiles with parts of domain names. Connect (with limits) to other tiles (e.g. a name can connect to .com but not to .uk directly) Players may claim a full domain, but limited markers. Score by multiplying tiles in domain. -- Scurra

Entry 4: OS Writer: You're employee at MS trying to insert as many bugs as possible into your section of the OS. Have to get the bugs in while avoiding the other players detecting your bugs. Carcassonne style tiles, most of with innocent code blocks but a few have bugs. Play tile face down in contact with the other tiles in play. Option of putting a marker on any tile in play. At end player with the most markers on bugs wins. -- Oracle

Entry 5: Board is made of tiles of colored computers and one way circuits. Pawns are packets of data. Players are secretly assigned colors. Players can spend action points to move data packets along circuits or to move/rotate circuits. Points are scored to colors for entering computers. colors are revealed at end of game. -- doho123

Entry 6: WHAT'S IN A DOMAIN NAME? - a game of making and selling domain names to businesses. Each player will have five "name cards" in their hand to combine and create dom. names. These are tiles laid down a la Scrabble, to make names (eg: "Radical"+"Llamas"). -- Deviant

Winner: Tie between Entry 2, by Torrent, and Entry 4, by Oracle. Both players receive 1 point.

Round: 2
Time Available: 5 minutes
Length Limit: 1 chat entry box, about 230 characters
Challenge Theme: Ancient Egypt
Challenge Mechanisms: Memory

Entry 1: Name: The Mummy Escapes. Game: Players try to get their mummy to escape first. Each player has a board with a set of identical facedown tiles; each turn you go until you hit a mummy hunter - or escape! -- Joe_Huber

Entry 2: Players are grave robbers who hide parts of mummy in ancient pyramids when the museum police come around. Now you must find the parts that are yours before the others cans -- doho123

Entry 3: Solitaire game: You are Reiner Knizia. Cards are revealed and you must remember the ones that have nothing at all to do with Egypt to use in your next game, to be called "Pharaoh"... -- Scurra

Entry 4: Too Many Mummies: Pharaohs are mummified, but not labeled. Based on the stuff that was put in the sarcophagus. At the beginning, players must figure out which mummy is which. Number and type of offering is important bit. Cards give info. -- Torrent

Entry 5: All players draw artifacts of different Egyptian gods. They place these in temple rooms of varying sizes. Each room can only repres. one god. Whoever leads in points for cards in each room takes room. Remember what everyone has to win. -- Deviant

Entry 6: Pyramid builder. Take turns putting the top card from a stack on a pyramid board (face down after all have seen it). If they think it's been seen before, they try to pick the copy from the pyramid and keep both if they match. -- Oracle

Winner: Again a tie between Torrent with Entry 4, and Oracle, with Entry 6. Both players again receive 1 point.

Round: 3
Time Available: 5 minutes
Length Limit: 2 chat entry boxes, about 460 characters
Challenge Theme: Dogs
Challenge Mechanisms: Roll and Move, Event Card Interaction

Entry 1: Going to the Vet. Players are family dogs trying to avoid the trip to the vet. Last dog still "intact" at the end of the round sires puppies. These are the dogs used in the next round. Event cards are used to modify die rolls, and may be used on other players to affect their final spaces. Cards are played "blind"... -- Scurra

Entry 2: Name: Lady & the Tramp. Game: 2 Player game; one player plays the dogcatcher, one Tramp. Both roll for movement, but both also use event cards affecting movement (setting excluded zones, changing the die roll, and so on). -- Joe_Huber

Entry 3: The players control dogs which have to attack the evil neighborhood cat. Play is on a chessboard. Players roll 1d6 and move that far in any straight line. If they land on the cat they attack it and get a card. The cards describe how to move the cat to a new location and give 1-3 points. The first player to 1 points wins. -- Oracle

Entry 4: Players control sets of dogs at a humane shelter. Prospective owners roll and move to look at dogs in cages, players use cards to adjust owners' temperaments and cage positions owners select 1 to 3 dogs from each cage based on certain card criteria. Player with most dogs adopted wins. -- doho123

Entry 5: Mailmen circulate a small town or neighborhood in a predetermined pattern. Players play dogs that score points in their little doggie club for biting or chasing a mailman. On your turn you roll 2 dice, 1 is for your dog pawn, one is for a MM (mailman) pawn- there is 1 mm for each player, you score for getting MM, but lose points when "your" MM gets got! When you "get" a MM, you collect a piece of mail (event card), for later use. They allow MM to avoid bites and stuff. -- sedjtroll

Entry 6: YE SCURVY SEA DOGS! - As an English "sea dog", sink the Spanish Armada! Game board of tiles. Currents flow in or out in all 4 tile directions. Roll dice to move, but moving against current costs more move points. To sink ships, you must present broadsides to the target (to fire cannon). Use event cards to change current (roll tiles), catch Spaniards in storms (move them), bribe (take over ship), etc. Sink or be sunk! -- Deviant

Entry 7: Chase your Tale: Dogs run about a neighborhood. A hand of event cards dictate way points in the area that you must reach. "Sniff the Telephone Poll" They can also be used to confuse and mislead other dogs. Draw-one play-one for cards, so you have a group of places to go. Timing based around an afternoon. -- Torrent

Entry 8: Parklife: Players walk around a park (linear cases with a few branches). They must gather ingredients & tools for a picnic and have their picnic in one of the hot picnic spot (different spots = different points). Dogs are scattered around the park. Avoid the pitbulls and get puppies for extra points. -- hpox

Winner: Entry 5, giving Sedjtroll 3 points.

Round: 4
Time Available: 10 minutes
Length Limit: 3 chat entry boxes, about 700 characters
Challenge Theme: Spain
Challenge Mechanisms: Voting, Pick-up and Deliver, Trivia

Entry 1: "No-one Expects..." The Inquisition are in town. Players need to locate the safe-house. A player asks a trivia question. All the players write down an answer (the Inquisitor writes down the correct answer). All answers are given and players vote for the correct one. If the Inquisition wins, all other pawn move backwards. If a player wins, they move their pawn forwards. Spaces on board have tokens that need to be collected. A player whose pawn reaches the safehouse without enough tokens can't get in. -- Scurra

Entry 2: Pirateer is a game wherein players represent pirates. By demonstrating their knowledge of pirate trivia, they earn votes for control of the ship. By attacking the Spanish Armada, players can collect goods to sell. The player earning the most doubloons wins! -- Joe_Huber

Entry 3: Don Quixote de La Mancha runs errands/missions/deliveries across an old map of Spain. No player controls Quixote per se, rather they are a tribunal who commission the errands. Which errand to send Quixote on is decided by vote of the group. Once a player wins a vote, that player must answer a trivia question which relates to the errand in order for Don Quixote to complete it. The errands are printed on cards, as are the trivia questions. The object of the game is to be the player whose votes Quixote wins the most of... that is to say end up with the most completed errands. The voting: Each round, each player will reveal 1 Errand card and must vote. No one may vote for their own card. -- sedjtroll

Entry 4: Book Hunter; You are searching for a book in Spain. Players have cards in their hands giving them an idea where they might possibly get more clues about the book they are searching. Each player want a different book. In group, everyone votes where is the next destination. Draw Trivia cards about that destination (with true/false or choices), player get a new pickup & delivery card for each good answer. When arriving at a new destination (by voting) players with the delivery cards can unload them for more clues. Once a player have enough clue about where the book is, they will try to get to that destination and before the trivia call that they found the book. Thus winning the game if the book was really there! -- hpox

Entry 5: "BUT I DON'T EVEN LIKE GAZPACHO!" - it's summer in Madrid, and that means it's time for the annual Gazpacho tasting contest! Players are chefs trying to make the best soup, by drawing cards to add to their soup or sabotage another player. Soups are graded based on different criteria (temp., spiciness, etc) by the Gazpacho King. But his preferences are a mystery. Each player has one clue, and can gather others by answering trivia questions about Spain, Spanish, and soup. Each turn, draw two soup cards. Play one card in a pot (yours or another player's), and give another to the next player. -- Deviant

Entry 6: You're on the support staff in the Barcelona Olympics. You have to pick up athletes at village and deliver them to the venues on time. Because the security passes are too easy to forge, you have to answer a trivia question about the Olympics as you make each drop-off to prove who you are. The answers don't have to be right, and players vote on whether or not the current player is bluffing -- Oracle

Entry 7: Follows the history of the Spanish empire. Two boards empire and home country. Players are princes of the home country. Each 'Era' players must vote in chambers for demands, this dictates what cargo will be in demand and thus score points. Some stuff must be imported from abroad and some from within the country. The Demands cards are shuffled in sets of 4 or 5 where each set represents the reign of a king of Spain. The trivia is in the idea that the board and empire change over time. Some things will be available and others won't. Sometimes you must even give troops. Affecting the home country board will give you more or fewer votes in chambers as vassals are traded between princes. -- Torrent

Winner: Another tie, this time between Scurra's Entry 1 and Oracle's Entry 6. Both players scored 3 points.

Final Scores: The final scores were Torrent 2, Sedjtroll 3, Scurra 3, and Oracle 5, making Oracle the winner!

As a prize Oracle receives the BGDF title "Game Design Showdown Trophy Winner," and the matching trophy graphic next to all of his forum posts:

I'll be sure to announce the next Showdown with plenty of advance notice. Congratulations to all of the participants, you all came up with some truly amazing ideas!

-- Matthew