Hey all! I'm in charge of board gaming at RinCon this year (Oct 8-10, 2010) and I'm going to make sure there's a robust prototype testing/game design element at the con!

July 2010 Game Design Showdown - "My Summer Vacation"

Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown.

Votes are in, and the winner is...

Sand Castles by dobnarr with 9 votes!

Congratulations!

June 2010 Game Design Showdown - "Slippery Slope"

Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown.

This Challenge is now OVER. Congratulations to this months winner, Gentoo, with 15 votes! Runners up are Alma Mater with 12 votes, and League of Artistic Wizards with 10 votes.

With 11 entries and 64 total votes I think this was a successful Showdown! I look forward to reading the critiques thread.

May 2010 Game Design Showdown - "Home Improvement"

Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown.

This Challenge has been completed.

Congratulations to the winner of this month's Game Design Showdown with 8 votes:

• "Real Estate Madness" by Simon Stump (simons)

Congratulations to the runners up as well, tied at 6 votes apiece:

• "Mansion" by Dave Dobson (dobnarr)
• "Cul de Sac" by Richard Durham

Main Design Requirements:

• Theme Restriction: Home Improvement.

There's a thread on BGG I wanted to make sure everyone saw. Rio Grande Games is sponsoring a game design contest in which each finalist will have the opportunity to sit down with Jay Tummelson face to face and pitch their game. Last year he agreed to publish 4 of the entries!

Even if your entry doesn't win, the opportunity to get direct feedback from a publisher is pretty good, especially considering there appears to be no or very little cost to enter.

There WILL be a Game Design Showdown for May, and it will be posted later this week... so get those creative juices flowing! Watch for the GDS thread for details, but here's a teaser for you: the showdown challenge will revolve around home renovation/remodeling.

- Seth

Game Design Showdown

April 2010 Challenge - "The REAL Risk Game"

THIS CHALLENGE HAS BEEN COMPLETED.
Congratulations to the winner of this month's tight fight for the Game Design Showdown victory:
- Entry #2: "Drunken Strippers Ahead" by Dave Dobson (dobnarr). 22 votes (5, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3)

March 2010 Game Design Showdown - "Back to work, Slacker!"

This Challenge has been completed.
Congratulations to the winner of this month's Game Design Showdown with 8 votes:
- "Rebuilding Jerusalem" by Piqsid (David Pontier)
Congratulations to the runner up with 6 votes:
- "Apocolypse Colony" by Glimok (Aaron Armstrong)
CRITIQUES: Post constructive critiques and commentary about the entries to this Challenge in the Critiques Thread.

Voting on the March 2010 Game Design Showdown is now closed!

• Voting: Through Thursday, 25-March-2010.
• Voting Format: Each person has 6 votes to distribute any way they choose among the GDS entries with the following restrictions:
• • You may not assign any votes to your own entry!
• • You may not assign more than 3 votes to any single entry.
• • You need not assign all 6 votes.

In addition, any entry using this month's Bonus theme will receive an additional 2 votes.

Game Design Showdown

February 2010 Challenge - "iBoardgame - there's an AP for that!"

This Challenge has been completed.

Congratulations to the winner of this month's Game Design Showdown with 14 votes:

• "DeathCurl" by ilta (Isaiah Tanenbaum)

Oddly, we've had a tie for 2nd two months in a row now... and with 7 votes each again! Congratulations to the runners up:

• "Torrent Pirates" by oicu12b12 (Matt Saunders)
• "iTook" by last month's winner simons

CRITIQUES: Post constructive critiques and commentary about the entries to this Challenge in the Critiques Thread.

Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown are here: GDS details.

Voting for the The February GDS is now open closed!
Each person has 6 votes to distribute any way they choose among the GDS entries with the following restrictions:

• You may not assign any votes to your own entry!
• You may not assign more than 3 votes to any single entry.
• You need not assign all 6 votes.

In addition, any entry using this month's Bonus theme will receive an additional 2 votes.

Main Design Requirements:

• Component Restriction: Apple recently revealed their new product - a device which is supposed to bridge the game between laptops and smart phones. In a bid to capture as much of the media market as possible, they have come out with the iPad, a device designed to make media consumption easy and fun. Apple has always been on the cutting edge of user interface, as evidenced from the original Mac GUI (which Microsoft ripped off for Windows) to the magical interface of the iPhone, and every step along the way. Their new iPad is no exception.

For this month's GDS there is a strict component restriction. The game must use an iPad as a central or shared board, and must use iPhones (or iPad Touch) as player boards. It's up to you how exactly these components are used, but no other components can be added. That's not as big a restriction as it may sound though, as either of those devices can do things like roll dice, or display tokens of all shapes and sizes - or for the purpose of the GDS you can assume they do. Also assume that the devices can be made to link up such that virtual items can be moved from one screen to another with the flick of a finger.

Clarification: The fact that the player boards are separate from and independent of the central board should be significant!

Game Design Showdown

January 2010 Challenge - "Which way did he go?!?"

This Challenge has been completed.

Congratulations to the winner of this month's Game Design Showdown with 11 votes:

• "Monster Island" by simons

Congratulations to the runners up as well with 7 votes each:

• "Asteroid Mining" by Seo
• "Cave of the Old Fat Dragon" by last month's winner Don Jon

CRITIQUES: Post constructive critiques and commentary about the entries to this Challenge in the Critiques Thread.

Please Read: Details on entering the Game Design Showdown are here: GDS details.

Main Design Requirements:

• BOARD game: Many games nowadays don't use a central board. This challenge requires the use of a central board. You are to create a game where geography of the board matters.

• Route Planning: A major concern in the game should be route planning. That is not to say it must be the only concern, but a significant part of the game should revolve around planning a route in some way, and therefore interacting with the geography on the board, which as we already know, matters.

• Deduction: A deduction mechanism shall be present in some form in the game. It's your job to decide how or in what manner.