Whew, made my own deadline.
Folks, I know this is long, but I wanted to cover everything. There's
a section for what you absolutely need to know, and one for stuff you
probably just want to know.
There's also an HTML version at
<http://www.ludism.org/piecepack/pp7.html> if you'd prefer to read
that.
Game on!
Ron
*************************************************************
ANNOUNCING THE 7th PIECEPACK GAME DESIGN COMPETITION
=====================================================
**Contest theme**: _Good Portsmanship._ In the spirit of free and open
source software and culture, every entry must be a
translation, or "port", of an existing game to the
piecepack. While this may seem like a mechanical
exercise at first glance. there is plenty of room
for the game designer's talents. Read on...
**Judge**: Ron Hale-Evans, the Port Authority (<rwhe@...>)
**Mediator**: Meredith Hale, The Eradicator! (<piecepack7@...>)
**Contest Start**: Sunday, 3 September 2006.
**Deadline**: Sunday, 3 December 2006, 11:59:59 PM Pacific Time.
What you need to know
---------------------
This section contains the minimum information you need to enter
the contest.
### Porting ###
Porting non-free programs to free operating systems or just free
versions is a venerable tradition in the free software world.
Consider OpenOffice.org, which is a port of the proprietary Microsoft
Office application suite, the free and popular Firefox web browser, or
GNU/Linux, which is a rewrite of the proprietary Unix operating
system. Entrants to this contest will be doing a similar thing with
table games and the piecepack.
1. All submissions in this contest must be a port of another game to
the piecepack. The game selected may be a game from another game
system such as [Icehouse][1] or a standard deck of cards, or it may
be a "dedicated" game with its own custom board, cards, or other
bits, such as [Carcassonne][2].
2. Your game _must_ be playable with _only_ the standard piecepack,
the
Playing Cards expansion, and/or the 4 Seasons Expansion, although
you may use any number of these three sets. Pen and paper may also
be used, but only to keep score.
3. Using the piecepack must add value to your port in some way. See
**Example** for an example of how porting a game to the piecepack
changed it in an interesting way.
4. The port may not be trivial: there must be some intrinsic challenge
to porting the game. For example, given the existence of the
Playing Cards Expansion, some (but not all) card games would be
very easy to port to the piecepack; these would not "score" very
highly with respect to this criterion.
5. Please see the **Legal notes** section. All entries should follow
these guidelines.
You will be doing the piecepack community and gamers in general a
service if you port an out-of-print game. However, these are not
necessarily preferred.
Noncompeting entries are also welcome and may ignore the **Anonymity**
rules. If you have an idea for a quick, simple port of a game to the
piecepack, write it up and make it a noncompeting entry. You'll help
increase the diversity of piecepack games.
### Submissions ###
1. Entries should be sent to The Eradicator (Meredith Hale) at
<piecepack7@...>.
2. Submit your game with the Subject line of your email in the form
"Subject: Contest: {Entry Title}", for example, "Contest:
ChessPieceFace". This makes it much easier to go back to authors
with questions later.
3. Include the names and e-mail addresses of any co-authors. The
author who submits the game will be considered the main contact.
4. All submissions _must_ include the following header information
as the first few lines of the rules:
{Title}
A Good Portsmanship game for the piecepack by {Author's Name}
Based on {Original Game} by {Original Game's Author} **OR**
Based on {Original Game} (Traditional)
Version {Number}, {Date}
Copyright 2006, {Author's Name}
{Number of} players, {Number of} minutes
Equipment: {Equipment Needed}
5. Each submission _must_ be freely redistributable or it cannot be
included on [Piecepack.org][3] and therefore will be
_disqualified_. However, authors may retain copyright. Specific
licensing information should be indicated at the _end of the
document_. See examples of licensing on the games posted at
[Piecepack.org][3].
6. Please proofread your ruleset before you submit it. Use
standard piecepack terminology and include any definitions of
terminology specific to the individual game. Please use the
[glossary at Piecepack.org][4] or the
[glossary at the Piecepack Wiki][5].
7. While authors are encouraged to submit their games as early as
feasible, it's OK to send updates based on playtesting until the
deadline. However, please try to submit games in a relatively
finished form.
* Please send in a complete version of the game ruleset if changes
are made.
* Highlighting changes will make it easier for the Port Authority
to see them.
8. The Eradicator will not judge content, only remove identifiable
text, fix text markup (see below), and check that all authors have
complied with the contest rules.
### Anonymity ###
As I've become familiar with the work of the designers in the
piecepack community, I've learned to tell some people's games a
light-year away because of their graphic design, clip art, writing
style, and so on. Because of this phenomenon, true anonymity has been
hard to achieve. I'd like to try some new procedures in this contest
that I hope will help alleviate these problems.
1. All entries must be submitted in plain text (ASCII) format.
Preferably, people will use the [Markdown][6] human-readable markup
language in which this very document is written. If you can't
figure out Markdown, don't worry; just do your best and send a
plain text document without Markdown.
2. If the submission meets the contest requirements, The Eradicator
will strip it of all authors' names, email addresses, and other
identifying information, and then validate the Markdown, fixing it
or marking up the document from scratch if necessary.
3. Next, The Eradicator will convert the entry to HTML and send it to
the Port Authority. The Port Authority will confirm receipt and The
Eradicator will pass confirmation along to the main contact. If the
submission does not meet requirements, then the main contact will
be notified. (For your information, here is an [HTML version][7]
generated automatically from this Markdown document.)
4. **Ports Illustrated**: Illustrations are optional, but if you use
them, they _must_ be _photos of standard piecepack equipment_, such
as the Mesomorph editions or the printable versions of the same
available from [Piecepack.org][3]. In the contest version of your
game, you may not use line art or one of the several sets of
piecepack clip art available. You _may_ replace the photos with
clip art in the final version.
5. You _may_ mark up your photos with lines, circles, arrows, and so
on, as with the photos in the [Alien City][8] PDF rules.
6. Make sure your photos look good in black and white, since they will
probably be printed that way.
7. File types permitted for photos include PNG, JPG, and GIF (PNG is
preferred). Illustrations should be named figure01.png,
figure02.jpg, and so on. Markdown allows embedded images; if you
can't figure this out, just say something like "Figure 5 goes here"
and The Eradicator will fix it before sending it to the Port
Authority.
### Judging ###
1. Judging will be subjective and based largely on how fun the game
seems to the Port Authority. Factors such as the following will be
considered, but ultimately it will be the completely subjective
opinion of the Port Authority that decides the winning entry.
* intrinsic challenge of the port
* ingenuity in shoehorning a game into the piecepack
* clever twists (something extra!)
* improvements on the original game
* emergent features (see **Example**)
* retheming
* clever titles
* humour
* integrity of final game
* balance of skill and luck
* clarity and completeness of rules
* time it takes to play
* replay value
* good taste in deciding which game to port
* overall "piecepackiness"
### Contest end ###
1. The winning entry will be announced as soon as it has been
selected.
2. After the announcement, the Port Authority will send feedback on
all entries to The Eradicator, who will send a copy of the feedback
to each of the authors.
* Authors are strongly encouraged to make any revisions to their
rulesets based on this or other feedback they have received since
submitting the entry, and then send an updated version to The
Eradicator.
* If the authors do not wish to make changes, then the main contact
should send a note to The Eradicator giving permission to post
the ruleset "as submitted".
* Authors are strongly encouraged to return the final version to
The
Eradicator as soon as possible after they receive feedback.
3. Following the close of the competition, after the authors either
give permission to post their rulesets as submitted or send in
updated versions, submitted games will be sent to the
[Piecepack.org][3] maintainers to be added to the games page
(a.k.a. The Big Board).
Additional information
----------------------
You don't need to know the following information to enter the contest,
but you probably want to.
### Sponsors and prizes ###
1. [Mesomorph Games][9]: Winner's choice of one Mesomorph Games
product.
2. [Enginuity Games][10]: A copy of their [Spicy Dice][11] game
system.
Incidentally, Enginuity is currently running the second Spicy Dice
game design contest with a deadline of 30 June 2008 and a prize of
$1000 plus publication in the next Spicy Dice rulebook.
3. [Live Oak Games][12]: A copy of their [SiegeStones][13] game
system.
Live Oak recently ran their own game design contest for
SiegeStones.
4. [Winged Elephant Designs][14]: Winner's choice of one Winged
Elephant
Designs [gamer's T-shirt or other item][15], customised with a
message about the Good Portsmanship contest. WED may have some new
piecepack designs soon to choose from as well.
5. [Ron Hale-Evans][16]: A Good Portsmanship certificate suitable for
framing or pinning to the wall
6. [Piecepack.org][3]: Custody of the [Piecepack Trophy Cloth][17], a
card table tablecloth with a color piecepack suit emblem
embroidered on each side. The Trophy Cloth passes from the winner
of one contest to the winner of the next, with each signing and
dating the cloth before passing it on at the close of the next
competition.
The winner also receives the opportunity to define and judge the
next piecepack game design competition and arrange for the prizes.
However, agreement to this is not a requirement for entry, and the
winner may decline or suggest another judge.
### Legal notes ###
1. If porting proprietary games makes you uncomfortable, feel free to
port a traditional game from the public domain. _No preference will
be given to ports of proprietary games over ports of public domain
ones, or vice versa._ **Example:** All else being equal, a port of
[Carcassonne][2] will _not_ be preferred to a port of Chess.
2. You _may_ port a copyrighted game, but _not_ a patented one.
Copyright covers only the _expression_ of a game, such as the
graphical artwork, the text of the rules, and so on. Patents cover
the _idea_ behind a game, so porting a patented game is illegal,
because the idea would stay the same.
3. If you port a copyrighted game, you _must_ completely rewrite the
rules in your own words. The original text of the rules is covered
by the copyright, so it is illegal to copy it and simply change a
few words to apply to the piecepack (besides, that wouldn't be a
very good port).
### Example ###
Here is an example of what I would consider a good port, and how you
can do creative game design while porting an existing game.
[Spam-O-Rama][18] by Clark Rodeffer was an entry in the
[recent Mesomorph Games design contest][19], but could have been an
entry in this one as well. Clark writes,
"[Clans][20] is one of my favorite short filler games from one of my
favorite contemporary game designers, Leo Colovini. Spam-O-Rama began
as a piecepack adaptation of Clans but gradually diverged from that
path."
What's interesting to me about Spam-O-Rama is how it had to become a
different game from Clans because of both the constraints and features
of the piecepack. I haven't confirmed this with Clark, but after
playing it, I imagine some of his design decisions ran something like
this:
1. Piecepack tiles were used for the Spam-O-Rama board, rather than
the custom-printed board that Clans uses. Clark did create a custom
scoreboard, but pen and paper would have served almost as well.
2. Since the scoring mechanism of Clans is highly dependent on its
special game board, a somewhat different scoring mechanism had to
be found. Adding together the coin and tile values was a natural
decision, given the structure of the piecepack.
3. Because players need to see the suit of the coins in play, the
coins have to be played face-down, which hides their values.
4. Because coins are flat, it's natural to stack them when they're
grouped together on tiles, hiding all coins in the stack except for
the top one.
5. Because of the last two facts, a strong memory element emerges in
Spam-O-Rama that is not present in Clans: players must remember
both the values of coins they placed on the board and which suits
each stack of coins contains. Failure to do so could mean the
difference between victory and defeat.
Thus, Spam-O-Rama (or at least my hypothetical reconstruction of
Clark's design process) is a good example of how making very simple
and natural design decisions when porting a game to the piecepack can
lead to interesting _emergent properties_ that were not in the
original design.
### Suggested reading ###
_Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language_ by Douglas
R. Hofstadter (Basic Books, 1998). Despite the French title, this
book about translation by the author of _Goedel, Escher, Bach_ is in
English. If you read nothing else while preparing for this contest, I
urge you to read Chapter 7 of this book, especially Hofstadter's
detailed discussion of [chesh][21]: a port of Chess from a square
board
to a hexagonal one.
_Mind Performance Hacks: Tips & Tools for Overclocking Your Brain_ by
Ron Hale-Evans (O'Reilly Media, 2006). Yep, this is my book. You
don't have to buy it or even read it to enter or win the
contest. However, I do recommend you check out Hack #25, "Think
Analogically", which talks about analogical game design in more detail
than I can go into in these already lengthy contest rules. Note that
you can get a [free 14-day trial from Safari][22], read the book
online, and print out Hack #25 or whatever else you find useful.
### About the administrators ###
[Ron Hale-Evans][16] (the Port Authority) won the first public
piecepack game design competition, [Time Marches On][23], with his
wife
[Marty Hale-Evans][24]. They co-authored the winning game
[KidSprout Jumboree][25]. He also recently won the
[first Mesomorph Games piecepack game design competition][19]
with his game [Piecepack Letterbox][26]. Thus, because it had been
two years since the close of the sixth public competition,
Group Projects, Ron wrote the winners of that competition for
permission to run the seventh. With their blessing and the blessing
of the sixth competition's judge, Ron assumed the mantle of Port
Authority.
Meredith Hale (The Eradicator) is the Education Manager at the Museum
of Glass by day, gamer and graduate student in Library & Information
Science by night. She's been playing board games for as long as she
can remember, ever since the buzzer from Operation scared her and made
her cry. Being the sister of Marty and Ron Hale-Evans further
encourages the gaming, along with participation in the excellent
[Seattle Cosmic][27] game group, where she met her fiance, Kisa. She
has playtested many piecepack games and has designed and made a "Four
Elements" piecepack set for Kisa. She can't wait to see what everyone
comes up with.
### Questions ###
Questions and comments are always welcome. Please send your questions
to The Eradicator <piecepack7@...>, who will forward them to the
Port Authority. Likewise, if necessary, the Port Authority may send
questions to the ruleset authors via The Eradicator.
All entrants are encouraged to join the [piecepack mailing list][28]
immediately if they have not already done so.
Good luck, good luck! Porting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good luck till it be morrow.
--William Shakespiece (wait, that sounds naughty...)
[1]: http://icehousegames.org/wiki/
[2]: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/822
[3]: http://www.piecepack.org
[4]: http://www.piecepack.org/Glossary.html
[5]: http://www.ludism.org/ppwiki/PiecepackGlossary
[6]: http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/
[7]: http://www.ludism.org/piecepack/pp7.html
[8]: http://www.piecepack.org/rules/AlienCity.pdf
[9]: http://www.mesomorph.com/
[10]: http://www.enginuity.com/
[11]: http://www.enginuity.com/spicydice.htm
[12]: http://www.liveoakgames.com/
[13]: http://siegestones.liveoakgames.com/
[14]: http://www.wingedelephant.com
[15]: http://www.cafepress.com/wingedelephant
[16]: http://ron.ludism.org
[17]: http://www.ludism.org/ppwiki/TrophyCloth
[18]: http://www.ludism.org/ppwiki/Spam_2dO_2dRama
[19]: http://www.ludism.org/ppwiki/MesomorphGamesContest1
[20]: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/4636
[21]: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5867/chesh.html
[22]: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindperfhks/
[23]: http://www.ludism.org/ppwiki/TimeMarchesOn
[24]: http://www.martynet.org
[25]: http://www.piecepack.org/rules/KidsproutJumboree.pdf
[26]: http://www.ludism.org/ppwiki/PiecepackLetterbox
[27]: http://www.ludism.org/scwiki
[28]: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/piecepack/
--
Ron Hale-Evans ... rwhe@... ... http://ron.ludism.org/
Mind Performance Hacks book: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/
mindperfhks/
Center for Ludic Synergy: http://www.ludism.org/
(revilous life proving aye the death of ronaldses when winpower
wine has
bucked the kick on poor won man)
Yahoo! Groups Links