This year, Game Chef took place simultaneously in four languages: French, Italian, Portuguese, and English. Each of those language communities chose a 2013 winner.
After the winners were announced, all four were translated into a shared tongue, and an international committee of judges set to reading them. Finally, a 2013 World Champion is ready to be announced.
The four games were:
- Paper Tigers, a satirical game about political campaigning and untrustworthy finger puppets. English winner.
- Pulse, a game about traveling through time ripples to investigate the circumstances that led up to a single moment. Brazilian winner. (note: start on the last past, read backward.)
- inabsentia, a game about a single person returning to earth long after the human race left and other creatures took over. Italian winner.
- The Little Emotions Hunters, a game about children scouting for feelings and emotions in the countryside, and bringing them back to the emotionless adults who need them. French winner.
All four of these games are amazing and exciting. They each bring something compelling to the table. But our secret international judging cabal has finally settled on a world champion…
Pulse
I’m so excited to try it, and get into some cerebral time-skipping investigations!
Game Chef 
September 9th, 2013 at 10:53 pm
YEAH! WINNER!!
The thing I like the most about GameChef is that we can create something bizarre without having to finish a product, think about selling or what people will think about it. When I finished Pulse I was completely sure it didn’t work. The first playtest came some weeks after the deadline, and the game worked. A few adjustments, and it got better. Then I won the brazilian phase… now the world!
It’s totally awesome! Thanks a LOT!
September 9th, 2013 at 10:55 pm
Hurrah for the winner(s)! ;-)
September 12th, 2013 at 9:17 am
I’m confused. PULSE looks like an interesting game- I’m guessing it’s about how one person’s actions have rippling effects on the others around them- but how do you play? Where are the rules? Am I missing something and, if so, what?
September 12th, 2013 at 11:37 am
Yeah… I wasn’t really sure if the game worked even as I was writing it for GameChef. But after the Brazilian finals I got to playtest it a lot, and surprisingly it actually worked prety well!
The game is rather simple, actually. The game does not have characters, game master, character sheets… In reeeeally quick explanation, going over all the rules, the game narrows down to this: players are time investigators looking to a map of ripples of past events. They ask questions about the scenes they create, and then the others give their versions about it. The story is told backwards, and then scenes they created previously start getting more sense as they go deeper and deeper in each individual detail of each scene.
The last pdf version is available to download at http://encho.com.br/games/pulse-byencho-v03-english.pdf