The Forge Archives

John: Kick ass.

The rest of us: Kick slightly less ass.  We're a game designin' force to be reckoned with.

I don't have anything substantive to say yet cuz I haven't read y'all my competitors' games.

Mike, how did you choose the 4 theme ingredient words?

-Vincent

(Obligitory link to the original thread.)

Yeah...I agree. Congratulations to all participants. I followed the thread with a great deal of interest. The scope and quality of the entries blew me away, as did the drama of the contest. That's why I was online at 1 a.m. EST on a weeknight and could attest to the Forge downtime. I was watching for surprise late entries.

(The only prior online event I followed this closely was a charity auction of celebrity designed recliner chairs on eBay. Strange event to follow, eh? But it was a blast. Each chair was unique. It was like a competition among the designers for the most fanatical customer interest.)

Mike, how did you choose the 4 theme ingredient words?

And how did you choose Gamism?

Paul

I chose the terms I chose pseudo-randomly. I think that several of them may have actaully been used in previous IGC competitions. But they were just what I thought of as I typed. That said, I think they were words that I thought could be incorporated into a neat game. I recall some IGC setups where the terms were really random. Which seemed to damage the ability of eople to come up with something. I was actually in a small way inspired by the Iron Chef show, in that they are always given an igredient that can be made into something. The idea is not who can make any dish from dung, but who can take salmon and make the best dish from it.

As far as the Gamism, I just felt that it was time to look at some Gamist designs. Further, I think that Gamism is conducive to tight designs in some ways. The realm of the game can easliy be limited artificially without damaging the usefulness of the game. Much harder in Sim, for instance (or rather such designs would be more avant guard).

The choice to ask for a GNS mode at all comes from my penchant for parellelism. On Iron Chef, you have three Chefs, Asian, French, and Italian (IIRC). Anyhow, I think it's cool to be able to have someone be the Iron Game Chef - Simulationist or whatever.

For this parallel to really be extended, the next competition would pit just one competitor selected by the Chairman who would then call out an Iron Game Chef. But that would require more than one officially, and would put that designer on the spot, etc. I think it just works better to leave the competitions open, and to award a title to the next designer to win. So, if there were another Gamist competition decalred, and John did not defend it successfully (or at all), then the title would just be transfered to the new winner.

Or that's how I envisioned it.

That all said, I'm not sure how often we could do these and get such good results. I'd personally let it go a while before doing another. That said, I have no real authority on this. Someone else interested in doing one should talk to Ron and/or Clinton.

Mike

yes, the competition was amazing. thanx for letting me have the honor of competing!

I was a little startled when I noticed two other people developing numerology-based game mechanics. I didn't think anyone else would try it, because of the obvious problems with that approach; I almost gave up myself. I started with an idea of calculating the value of the character's full name, realized this would be too intimidating, and came up with the monogram idea to simplify it all.

Hiya,

My moderator-thought on this exercise is to let it be like Profiling - maybe once every four months or so. I'm also thinking of designating Mike Holmes as the only "permissible" leader, unless people are unhappy with such a draconian pronouncement. My thoughts on that (at the moment) are that he has a great model which minimizes the "on the spot" problem, and that he brings the right mix of critical squinting and humor to the process. But I'm willing to modify that idea based on people's reactions.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: RonMy thoughts on that (at the moment) are that [Mike Holmes] has a great model which minimizes the "on the spot" problem, and that he brings the right mix of critical squinting and humor to the process.

But does he have the wardrobe?

QuoteBut does he have the wardrobe?

Are you kidding? You should see what he wears to Gaming Night at his house! He makes Chairman Kaga look like a frumpy housewife. Plus, Mike plays a mean guitar, as seen (& heard) at GenCon.

And I have to say, as a fan of surrealist & symbolist art, "Court of the 9 Chambers" rocks my freakin' world. I can't wait to play it.

Quote from: joshua neff
And I have to say, as a fan of surrealist & symbolist art, "Court of the 9 Chambers" rocks my freakin' world. I can't wait to play it.

neither can I!

be sure to post details in Actual Play. I could really use the help. my plan is to get at least two playtest results for the basic system before working on the advanced ideas and variants. the rough idea of what I want to add for the final product is:

[*] fleshed out rules for adding a GM, including ways to drift the game
    whichever direction you prefer;
[*]additional strategies, such as the Louis Wain option;
[*]sound instead of image-based motifs (everyone is an avant-garde composer in the '60-'70s);
[*]realistic rules: the "dreamworld" is a metaphor for shared culture (everyone is in advertising);
[*]fantastic rules: working magic with motifs, like A O Spare.
[/list:u]

but -- as I keep promising myself -- I need to stop thinking about this stuff for a few days. I practically lived and breathed Co9C for the last week. I went to an art gallery last saturday and was judging how powerful the various artists would be in the Noösphere.

Congratulations to all who entered.  The games produced in that limited amount of time are amazing.

Still ... I wish somebody had gone with "court" as a verb in sense of to romance.  I imagine a kind of "Out of Africa" thing but with numerology.  To bad I didn't think of it earlier....

Quote from: crowquillStill ... I wish somebody had gone with "court" as a verb in sense of to romance.  I imagine a kind of "Out of Africa" thing but with numerology.  To bad I didn't think of it earlier....

So...what's stopping you now?

Quote from: greyormSo...what's stopping you now?

Heh.  Well, the idea is definitely percolating away.  But that's along with at least a dozen other games I want to run really soon now.