Does anyone else have a Hippodice submission this year? I'm just curious to see what I'm up against and want to share experiences.
I got mine emailed in on Monday. Three weeks ago I was trying to get my game Rise of Timbuktu playtested some more that I had been working on for months, when I got sick and stayed home for a couple of days. I had time to kill, and thought I'd streamline my existing game to make it use less pieces, to make it more manufacturer friendly (I got in the top ten in the last two Hippodice competitions I entered, but the publishers who picked them up didn't do anything with them). So I started hacking away, thinking I'd submit my Timbuktu game, and only this paired down version as an afterthought. As I worked on it I got more and more excited about it (that's typical of me though), and pretty soon I had what I thought was a great little game. I got it playtested a couple of times and my playtesters agreed this was really good. It has dice at it's core, like it's progenitor, and I have a couple of dice-haters in my group, so I switched to 4 sided dice and made one of the facings wild, so cut down on the randomness and made an interesting decision of what to do with the wild dice. I re-themed it and titled it "Builders of Babel". The only criticism I have of it now is that it uses three different types of scoring. However, they are based on three different conditions, so making them more consistent would not work well in my opinion. I use the Dungeon Lords defense; That game is wonky as all get-out, but people seem to really like it (not me so much).
So anyhow, any posts in the spirit of comradery going into Hippodice would be appreciated.
Yort
Those games sound cool and look good. I especially like Horde. Maybe not looking like an amateur has held you back with Hippodice, since they want unpublished people to enter. Your site shows games that are already out. Believe me I'd rather be in your shoes, but my unprofessional proto and rules might be an advantage for me.