:-) I had hoped for a better placement. Congrats to the winners. To give a morale buff to my fellow looser I will say it was a very fun story on Loot&Wrenches.

Overall there was super entries for this challenge.

I did not vote for either Cabinet Affairs or Broken Unicorn. Here are my comments.

I like CA for the idea of playing one card face down on the bills and one card face up. I think it sounds like it could be a great game - Im wondering if it is to easy to guess what others will play. I find it interesting that this game as some of other entries is about "claiming the throne". And another point which I wasn't so fond of is that many entires the team loosed all together. So if it is going bad for you - wouldn't you try to drag all down?

Thumbs up on Bronken unicorn for the philosophy cards. Great idea to have a halfway split. It seems like there was not words enough. How i philosophy promoted?. Why is the malfunctions bad for you?

my two cents.

Congratulations, Diluce! Well done. And thanks, everyone who voted for Broken Unicorn. Hook, sorry yours didn't fare better. There were a lot of good entries.

Obviously at this point I'm elaborating past what we could fit in the submission. But to answer your questions:

1. The malfunctions cause problems if they aren't resolved (it's an old ship, after all), but if they are fixed, a new room and potential place to put workers opens up.

2. The idea of the philosophies is that one of the worker actions is to put your philosophy tokens in the bag, and this would help your party win along the way. It's meant to simulate the consolidating of power in the small community of people on the ship. Does that answer your question?

Thanks for the votes - I'm honoured and super excited to get such a response for my first entry! Cabinet Affairs was a theme that I had jotted down, but this month's contest gave me the impetus to actually formulate a game.

To answer some of the responses... I see a lot of the play occurring in the meta game - especially as the cards players lay face down can be of varying values. So you know that a player would support a bill, but you don't know by how much, so deciding which cards you play to negate their influence is the bluffing/negotiation factor.

I also tried to mitigate that 'I'm losing so everyone should lose' aspect with the shared deck, which makes it a bit easier for players to influence their own riding without interference from other players. How that would work in practice with especially vindictive people though... I don't know.

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For Broken Unicorn - The story was great. I can see the game developing a life of its own and each play bringing out different dynamics. I would love to see a longer write-up as it seems to have lots going on.

Cabinet Affairs have many interesting mechanics, and even though I don't really like political games, I gave this game the gold medal, since it was very well thought out, and contained interesting mechanics. The idea of a shared deck to be able to draw from if you want, but also having a private deck of your own is is great. The game also fit the theme of the competition. Besides, I think real life politics is a bit like this: if you have the backing of big business, you have to make sure they like what you do as a politician, or else you might loose that backing. Yeah, real life sucks sometimes, but not this game!

Broken Unicorn did not get my vote, even though it was also well thought out and fit the theme (except for the voidists; that idea goes against the spirit of the competition IMHO). I just found it too complicated, sort of. I also did not like the 30 second timer at all, I am sorry to say. I hate stress in real life, and see no point in artificially creating it when having a relaxing time playing board games. Also, the repairing mechanic seems off to me. To draw a random room card and then fix it to gain its benefit is strange, and goes against the idea of the crew having been on a spaceship so long. Shouldn't they know every room on the ship already, and be able to prioritize from among all the broken rooms? However, on a positive note, I liked that the game changes half way through.

Cabinet Affairs
I thought the idea of working together in the party while trying to manuever yourself into position for the top job was a great idea :). it seemed like a good game overall, and if there’s any group that pretend to cooperate while scheming to stab each other in the back then it’s politicians. I wasn’t quite sure why cards were played face-down on the bill - are they ever revealed? I think this detail might have made it clearer how players could use competitive strategies.

Broken Unicorn
This had some similarities to "The Tribe" submission - but in the future instead of the past. The theme was appropriate and fit with the brief. I wasn’t sure about the cult aspect since the game could do without it - just being a generation ship with a new leader and different plans (give-up, go to nearest planet, continue as planned, colonise an asteroid field etc.). I'd be interested to see how else the cult aspect was woven in. The ability for the acting-brigadier to give a speech seemed to fit really well with the theme, and in general it seemed like a lot of thought had gone into the design beyond what would fit in the word limit. It my got my Gold Medal.

As a side note, I got my formatting all wrong and only just found the template at the bottom of the guidance page: http://www.bgdf.com/node/27. Might be of use to anyone else that missed it.

Things I liked: I think this game hit the overall theme very well, and as other people have said, the mix of personal and shared resources is a nice touch. I think the changing ratios of the various players' popularity in the different cards would foster a lot of competition.

Things that didn't work for me: The theme for this one didn't appeal to me very much--this is entirely personal, so not really a critique. It was also unclear to me how the PM's popularity would go down or be in danger. Also, is there a potential game-breaking mechanic in being able to drive up your riding popularity by playing cards there? What if someone JUST spent cards doing that?

I hope you continue developing the game, Diluce!

The Show Must Go On

I loved the premise of this but it just needed a touch more of scary clowns. This was my vote for the silver medal. There could be a ton of flavor in this game. I am seeing both Carnivàle and this past season of American Horror Story as great examples of that offbeat circus atmosphere that could make this a very special instead of the plain Ringling Bros feel.

Minions!

So the game is called Minions! but you play the Overlords. I would expect minions vying to overthrow the overlord and become the next overlord at the expense of the other minions. This one ended up in the middle of the pack for me but I feel there some decent potential for a fun/funny game here.

Again I say great job!

=M=

Broken Unicorn

Theme: I’m afraid I’m going to sound like a broken record on theme, since my response to this one is similar to my response to Cabinet Affairs. Players don't get to choose their 'philosophy.' I would rather your philosophy be ‘earned’ through player actions. It’s okay to be philosophically destructive in an RPG, but I would prefer it be a strategy choice instead of a random draw. This is a lot like the ‘traitor’ mechanic.

Having said that, everything else here is great. Nice flavor and setting. Sounds a lot like a science fiction novel I once read. This is a rich game environment.

Mechanics:

-Limited and interdependent resources are a very interesting mechanic with a lot of potential to build tension and elevate the importance of strategy.

-Constant problems are great. This creates an element of suspense and anticipation where players are wincing as they turn over a card. Love it.

-Changing leadership could work, but it doesn’t add much in a 2-player game. I’m neutral on this one. The ‘Acting Brigadier’ is free to help a friend or to boost an underdog, but seems to have too much power. The AB powers can also be used to attack, so it does add a layer of strategy, but it can also be a bit arbitrary. In 2-player mode, that power automatically toggles between the two players, making bribes/auctioning irrelevant.

-Limited Communication doesn’t look like a good idea to me, and is prone to abuse depending on the personalities of the players. It seems like a difficult mechanic as well. If you don’t have a worker in the board room, do you have to leave the physical room? Put in ear plugs?

It looks like a 2-player game would be problematic. If both players are not in the same party, then whoever wins the party election wins the game, making resource collection irrelevant. If they happen to be in the same party, then the election is irrelevant and the whole game is about resources. I rate 2-player playability as pretty important to me, so I would have to see the special 2-player rules to rate it, but mechanics would clearly have to change.

Impression: Great theme. Some possible weaknesses in mechanics. You might have to create additional rules to limit player exploitation, as well as accommodate different numbers of players. Player politics, negotiation, traitors, bluffing, and timed actions are all pretty much at the bottom of game mechanics that I like. It’s an interesting ‘hook’ of an opener, but I wouldn’t look twice at this game in a store. Don’t take that as an insult. It’s just not my kind of game.

Grats on second place!

The Show Must Go On
It seems like there would be interesting decisions and strategy. Although it does seem like the type of game that you would need to play at least once before you get a good idea what those strategies are. Similar to my own design this uses blind bidding; which I think overcomes the cooperative-competitive stalemate: “You play your card”, “No, you play your card”. It got my Silver Medal.

Minions
Everyone loves minions, but I’m a little conflicted about the use of licences. There’s always that balance between a good game and remaining faithful to the original theme. This design swung more towards being a good game - e.g. ‘real’ minions don’t work for competing overlords (unless that’s in the new movie), they just work for one person en masse. However, the mechanic of attracting support was very interesting. The option for cooperation or short-term personal game seemed an interesting choice, but I didn’t understand the justification behind cooperation leading to more resources - weakening law enforcement to make it easier to pillage?

The Show must go on! The theme for this game appeals to me, but the mechanics section was baffling -- I read it several times and just couldn't wrap my mind around how the game worked. I think part of my confusion springs from the idea that the Ringmaster wants the show to fail, and then shouts "THE SHOW MUST GO ON."

Minions! I tried to shake off the idea that this was using the DESPICABLE ME minions, but it certainly evokes them. I like this game idea a lot -- the notion that changing reputation brings all the minions to the yard is great, and I like the idea that if any of the overlords lacks rent money, they all lose. It's a funny add-on that also evokes incompetent overlords like those in the DR HORRIBLE world.

Well I could not vote for either of these although I was intrigued by the snippets of gameplay I saw here.

A Lasting Mark

I think that this idea attempts to shed some light on a time in history when the white european settlers pushed out the native americans and forced them westward. And in turn backed various tribes against one another. I do not think that what I am seeing in this idea approaches the teachable moment that we see in games like Freedom the Underground Railroad.

The Native Americans did in fact have wars or skirmishes with one another but I'm struggling to see how they are forced together against the European settlement. They were fragmented and this never happened. And I don't think that it does history justice in this case to make an alternate history where the Native Americans could stave off the Europeans.

I believe there is a great bit of history here to tell and would love to see this reworked. My wife who is part Cherokee said that she would also like to see the idea developed but the way it was presented was not something she would like to see.

Metal and Honor

This one left me scratching my head. I couldn't figure out how this fit the spirit of the contest. How were the soldiers being forced to work together? Was it because they were just a bunch of kids that were drafted to fight in a war together who would not have normally can ever come together for any other reason?

Then there is the racist stereotypes in the opening paragraph. "Charlie" and "Gook. These two terms are from two different war's "Korea" and "Viet Nam" and quite simply put these these terms are racist.

With a few minor tweaks to move this towards the rules of this competition and rework of that opening paragraph this one could easily have been in my top five.

...

I hope that didn't seem like a rant. I feel like there was some great ideas here and an attempt to tackle some very difficult subjects. I commend both of you for what you were able to accomplish here. For me these fell just a little short.

=M=

I think maybe MarkJ knows more about the native american history than me - but when I read the entry I really loved it. To me the theme fitted the challenge of the month perfectly. I imagine how Indian tribes sometimes allied against the white man - even if they also fought each other. I think it sounds like it could be a really good game - Its not really described how to fight europeans - but I think it would be good if there was a personal gain by attacking them. The best part I think is that you sacrifice goods to add attack value. Maybe if you move out of the way from one european another tribe well get in trouble. It got my Silver vote.

Metal of honor was also one of my favourites - it has a nice humorous layer to it. This was a really fun idea for a seemingly light but fun game. To me it seems like players healths will follow each other quite close? Is it not an advantage to be the last (highest ranked) player each turn?.I think it could be cool if the players each reveal an enemy card to simulate that the enemies are coming from all directions - Then it could be a strategy to let the leading player bleed a little before aiding him ..well described game so simple that I could follow along - as a sidenote I think it might a good idea not to complicate the game concepts too much . This almost got my vote - but i think there was too little strategy in the idea.

This one just struck me as being really fun and engaging. The mechanics sounded interesting and the description of the everything left me wanting to read more. I gave Minions! my gold this month. It was my favorite of all the entries, including my own.

I think you probably needed another 500 words to really convey what you were going for with the game. I would love to see the subject covered in a meaningful way and think that you should consider developing the game further even if you change the game mechanics from what what was presented here.

Thanks debiant

=M=

Minions: It sounds like there’s a lot going on here, and I like it – the adjusting economy and limited resources seems really interesting. Your presentation of the idea is excellent, and I like that there’s a precarious balance between personal and group goals. I got a pretty good idea of what the board and cards could look like just by your description, and the slightly wacky theme is fun. The only reason I didn’t vote for this one is that I felt like the cooperative aspect could be a bit stronger; cooperating with other players seems more like a limiting/guiding factor than the centerpiece, like tenuous alliances rather than forced collaboration. But, this absolutely makes sense for a game of evil overlords, and I would love to play this.

Thanks for all those who provided feedback for The Show Must Go On! A lot of people I shared this with before submitting it liked the theme a lot, but clarity on the mechanics was one of my biggest hurdles -- it tended to be kind of hit or miss, which seems to have been the case here as well. Some clarification...

Thanks for the vote, Hook! I did like the element of having everyone win or lose together, but didn't want it to be totally game-ending, so having it go in rounds was my compromise. Each round does tend to be the Ringmaster against everyone else, in addition to whoever they want to share the blame/responsibility as the Main Attraction. Which brings up the next point...

Everyone wants the show to succeed (or else nobody wins any points that round), and the Ringmaster and Main Attraction both additionally lose points for a failed show; essentially, they should want to see it succeed more than anyone else. Being able to shout, "The Show Must Go On!" is the Ringmaster and the Main Attraction's safeguard, in case the other players make it completely impossible to win, even if nobody tried to fake out with their 0 Fame card. Everyone ultimately wants the show to succeed with as little effort on their own part as possible, so that they can score whatever Fame they don't bid.

My biggest regret was not going more in-depth about the special abilities for each role. The Juggler, for example, might be able to take X Action cards from another player, and then return X cards back to them; the Magician would be able to exchange their scored Fame cards with another players' once during the entire game. So, in that way, everyone has some small way of nudging things in their favor.