This will teach me to run a contest and try to start grad school in the same month. My deepest apologies for flaking out over the past week, but things have gotten crazy on my end.

Make your One Month submissions to this thread, same rules as before!

NAME / HANDLE
GAME
LINK
DESCRIPTION (140 characters)
AWARDS

Folks who are resubmitting must have played and revised their game in the meantime.

The One Month submission date is supposedly in the next 15 minutes, but that’s insane considering the short notice, so I’ll give you folks until 11:59:59 on this coming Sunday, Oct 4th.

Check it out. There’s a handful of new games and several updated versions of previously submitted games. I’ve also finally updated the contest blog a bit to make note of the progress we’ve made, linking to the Venerable Masterlist and previous submission guidelines.

Coming soon are the One Month submission guidelines and a new surprise challenge that you don’t even have to do anything to enter!

The submission guidelines for Week Two are exactly the same as Week One. However, note that folks who’ve already submitted their games can only resubmit their games for more medals if they have played and revised their games since their last submission.

The Week Two deadline is Monday night at 11:59:59pm (or by whenever I wake up the next morning).

Reply to this post with the following info:

- Your NAME(S) and/or handle(s)
- The name of your GAME
- A LINK to a place where folks can read / download / acquire it
- An elevator PITCH with a maximum length of 140 characters (NOT words; includes spaces)
- A list of all the MEDALS you’re claiming for this submission period
- Optional: 1-2 people who were of major HELP

So, for example, here’s an imaginary submission for a game I didn’t actually write:

Jonathan Walton & Sam Totman
Carrying On Through the Flames to Eternity
http://plays-well.com/foreverweride.pdf

For the dream of undying glory, the Heroes of All Time ride valiant steeds to victory over the Burning Fields of Despair.

One Week, Two Weeks, Fleur-De-Lis, Star, A/V, Heritage (remix of Polaris, GC2004), Flatland, Save Water (co-written).

Special thanks to Herman Li and ZP Theart.

If you don’t end up making this deadline, there will be another one coming more than two weeks later, at the end of the month.

The master list of Week One winners is up here, listing the 12 games that have been submitted so far and their medals in an easy-to-navigate chart.

Let me know if you spot any errors. Personally, I think Tony Dowler is missing at least 2 medals, since some are readily apparent from his game’s description, but he only asked for 1 medal, so that’s what he got!

Good luck with the upcoming weekend! Next submisson date is this coming Monday night at 11:59:59pm! Week Two, baby! Woohoo!

(Those who have already submitted games: note that you must have played and revised your game to resubmit it for additional medals.)

Here’s how you submit your game, if you’ve got a draft finished before Monday at midnight (for whatever time zone you’re in).

Reply to this post with the following info:

- Your NAME(S) and/or handle(s)
- The name of your GAME
- A LINK to a place where folks can read / download / acquire it
- An elevator PITCH with a maximum length of 140 characters (NOT words; includes spaces)
- A list of all the MEDALS you’re claiming for this submission period
- Optional: 1-2 people who were of major HELP

So, for example, here’s an imaginary submission for a game I didn’t actually write:

Jonathan Walton / Jaywalt
5000 Megawatts of P-Funk Power II: Dr. Funkenstein’s Boogielicious Revenge
http://plays-well.com/gottagetuptogetdown.pdf

The clones of the late Doctor Funkenstein attempt to assemble a very funky machine that will “tear the roof off the sucka.”

One Week, Intrigue, Dividers, Star, Al Gore, A/V, Brevity, Zombies

Special thanks to George Clinton and Bootsy Collins.

If you don’t end up making this deadline, there will be another one coming 7 days later.

Yes, the Brevity Award is a demisemiquaver rest. That’s the best I could come up with.

I figured out a work-around that doesn’t even need SQL-hacking. How cool is that? I still have to manually add some folks to the Freshman Mixer, but everything seems to be coming through the Combobulator.

Everybody should be good to go, now. Let me know if anyone continues to have problems.

I’m trying to manually enter new feeds into MySQL, but I’ve never really hacked SQL much before, so wish me luck. Apparently this hangup is a known problem with FeedWordPress, but one that was supposed to have been fixed two updates ago.

In the meantime, check out these new Game Chef blogs and help support folks until I can get the Combobulator to accept their feeds:

- http://dragavangameschef.wordpress.com
- http://dogdaygames.blogspot.com
- http://nuts-playtest.blogspot.com
- http://www.whereismypowerring.org/wordpress/?cat=10
- http://jtarkpalmerwritings.weebly.com/new-blog.html
- http://madunkieg.wordpress.com/feed/
- http://abstrusemute.wordpress.com/

Hey Chefs,

Unfortunately I just encountered a little error with the Combobulator, where it’s refusing to add new feeds to the aggregator. Consequently, I’m not able to add newcomers to the Combobulator for the time being, which sucks, but I’m trying to figure out a way to either fix the error or work around it. Hopefully I’ll have a solution for you in 24 hours. My apologies and I hope this does not at all discourage folks from continuing with their games and posting to their blogs. Rest assured that everyone’s posts will eventually be shared.

Jonathan

Welcome to Game Chef 2009! I already posted ways in which you can connect with other participants. This post gives the actual guidelines for writing your game and submitting it so other folks can check it out and play it.

CAMPAIGN MEDALS

The basic instructions for Game Chef are super simple: write and submit a game.

Write whatever kind of game you like, of whatever length, for however many players, about whatever subject, using whatever rules. If you write a complete draft of a game and submit it to this website in the next 365 days, you win Game Chef. Everything else is optional.

You can earn one or more of the following “campaign medals” for submitting a playable draft of your game by the specified deadline:

	Submit your game within One Week (on or before Monday Sept 7).
	Submit your game within Two Weeks (on or before Monday Sept 14).
	Submit your game within One Month (on or before Wed Sept 30).
	Submit your game within One Year (during or before Game Chef 2010).

If you’ve already earned a medal for a previous submission, you can only earn a medal for a later submission if you’ve played and substantially revised your game since the last submission. You have to determine for yourself what that means exactly and whether to resubmit your game for another medal. Participating chefs are encouraged to use these submission dates as milestones, interpreting them as they like (for example, I might do something like “basic playtest draft, revised draft, alpha, beta”).

More information about how to submit completed drafts of games will be posted near the end of the first week of the challenge (the weekend of Sept 5-6).

IDENTIFICATION BADGES

Traditionally, Game Chef has had both an official “theme” and “ingredients” to help inspire folks in the design process and provide a bit of cohesiveness to each year’s challenge. This year, chefs can earn “identification badges” for their submitted games by incorporating the theme and one or more of the 4 special ingredients. Note that you don’t have to try for any identification badges, necessarily, though I strongly recommend trying for at least 2-3.

Theme Badge

Include the theme: INTRIGUE.

Ingredient Badges

	Include the ingredient: FLEUR-DE-LIS.
	Include the ingredient: DIVIDERS.
	Include the ingredient: SEABIRD.
	Include the ingredient: STAR.

SERVICE MEDALS

When you submit your game, you can nominate 1-2 other chefs for “service medals.” These chefs should be those who provided significant assistance and support that helped you complete your game or made your game much better than it otherwise would have been. These service medals are tacked on to those chefs’ hardware collections, ideally earning more attention for those designers and their games.

Someone else mentions you as being especially helpful during GC2009.

SPECIAL DISTINCTIONS

Over the years there have been a number of additional special requirements that have been a part of the Game Chef, beginning in 2005. “Special distinctions” are additional medals that pay homage to this tradition. Chefs can attempt to incorporate any number of these requirements into their designs, earning medals for doing so, but I would advise against attempting to earn more than 2-3 special distinctions, simply because your game with drift further towards wackyland.

The Albert Arnold Gore Jr. Award for Invention in Contemporary Game Design

Design your game to be played over the internet or cell phones.

The A. G. Bell A/V Award

Submit your game as an audio or video file.

Brevity Award

Keep the rules of your game to 4 pages or less.

The Cerberus Award

Make a game for three players.

The Dressed to Impress Award

I (Jonathan) arbitrarily give this award to the prettiest games.

The Gabriele Reinsch Discus Appreciation Award

Make a game that requires a custom-printed CafePress (or other POD) object besides a book or booklet.

P.S. This award is named after Ms. Reinsch, holder of the current world record in discus (76.80m), because it would have originally required the rules of the game to fit on a custom-printed frisbee. Unfortunately, CafePress doesn’t print frisbees anymore. Very sad.

The Holmes-Kitkowski Heritage Award

Dramatically re-envision a previous Game Chef entry by someone else.

Note that, if your game is sufficiently derivative, you might need the permission of the original author to do any number of things with it, even though you wrote it! To avoid later difficulties, you might consider contacting the author of the original game before proceeding too far. Most will be thrilled you are inspired by their game.

The Lombardi Trophy

Make a game about sports or a game that requires physical athleticism.

The Royal Academy of Flatland Award

Make a board game.

The Save Water, Bathe With a Friend Award

Submit a game collaboratively created by two or more chefs.

The Sorensen-Nixon Class of 2001 Memorial Award

Set your game in the year 2001.

The Wm. Appleby-Jenkins Chair of Archaeological and Zombiological Sciences

Make a game in which the main protagonists are zombies.