November 2011 Game Design Showdown - "Oceans Elevens"

Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown. Note that voting rules are slightly changed this month (see below). All other restrictions (800 words, three small images) remain in place.

Results are in!

Congratulations to the winner, Brian Andrew (Argebie) with his entry Pistols and Planks. He received eight total medals, four of them gold, the highest number for both counts, for a total medal score of 32 points. DogBoy's Commutiny on the Bounty took second with four medals, three of them gold, for 19 points. Full results are posted in the Critiques thread. All BGDFers (and particularly the participants) are encouraged to post critiques of the game submissions there.

Special Guest Host: Dave Dobson (dobnarr)

Direct your questions and comments to the Comments Thread.

Submissions: Completed Thursday, November 10

Click here to see the nine entries.

Voting: Thursday, November 10 to Thursday, November 17

VOTING IS NOW OPEN.

Submit your top three picks to dobnarr. Be sure to read about the changes in voting this month below:

Showdown Voting Change:

For this month only, I'm trying out a new voting mechanism for the Showdown. Rules are as follows:

• Instead of allocating six votes, each voter instead awards three medals to the three submissions he/she considers the best entries, allocating them as 1st place Gold, 2nd Silver, and 3rd Bronze. When awarding medals, voters should take into account showdown rules and the theme and mechanic limitations in addition to game design.

• For purposes of winning the showdown, Gold counts as 6 points, Silver 3 points, Bronze 1 point. Highest total points from all medals received wins the showdown.

• Contestants are strongly encouraged to vote. Contestants cannot award medals to their own submitted games. Contestants who enter a game in the showdown but don't vote for other games are awarded an Arsenic medal worth negative ten points to balance out the ten points they failed to grant to competitors.

October 2011 Game Design Showdown - "Rest In Peace"

Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown.

The votes are in, and we have a winner!

The October installment of the Game Design Showdown is now over.

This month we had 10 entrants, but only 7 voters. I think it would be cool (and maybe even more fair) if each entrant took the time to vote on the entries. Please keep that in mind - if you expect other participants to read and vote on your entry, do them the favor of reading and voting on theirs.

This month's winner, with 7 votes, is Graveyard Shift by Ilta (Isaiah Tanenbaum)! A close second, with 5 votes, is Zombie Ball by dobnarr (Dave Dobson).

Grave Spotting, Attack of the really long game title, Dorn Bones, and Bone Pile each received 4 votes. Good job everyone! The Critiques Thread is now open for business!

Main Design Requirements:

• Theme (or Setting) Restriction: Final resting place (or... "Dying to get in").
  In honor of Halloween, this month's games should be about or set in a final resting place - mortuaries, graveyards, catacombs, shallow graves, whatever you like.

• Mechanics Restriction: "Dorn tower" or "Mancala".
  A neat mechanism I haven't seen used in a while is the "Dorn tower" - a mechanism used by Rudiger Dorn in several of his games: Genoa, Louis XIV and Goa to name a few. This mechanism is pretty similar to the main mechanism in Mancala. For a better description of this mechanism you may want to check out reviews of those games if you're not already familiar with them.

Apparently I (a) had a bad link in the GDS thread, and (b) failed to unlock the critiques thread when I tried to...

Both of those errors have been fixed now.

Also, becuase of Gen Con and other basic business, I was late to post this month's and last month's GDS challenges. I fear this may have contributed to low participation, and I apologize for that. You can expect the September GDS to go up on the 1st or 2nd (Thursday or Friday) as per the new schedule!

Thanks,
Seth

First of all, I would like to apologize for failing to post a Game Design Showdown on 6/31 before leaving town for 2 weeks. I will be posting the July showdown in a few minutes, and we'll have through next Wednesday (7/20) to submit an entry. Voting will run through the following Wednesday (7/27), and then August's GDS will begin on 8/1.

Sorry for the delay, hopefully you're all itching to participate!

And for those interested, Seattle was beautiful last week, and Protospiel was a lot of fun (and very constructive I think).

- Seth