New Record: 97 Games

Congratulations, folks! I think everybody’s listed now.

Next up: making sure all the links work and assigning peer-reviewers. Hopefully that’ll be done sometime tomorrow! (In future years, we might think about instituting a “submit only your best game” policy, due to the complications created by submitting multiple games. It boosts our “numbers,” but slows down the admin and reviewing process considerably. Still, I am super impressed with everyone who submitted more than one game. Hats off to you!)

Getting Organized

Hi Chefs! Congratulations to everyone who managed to finish a draft of their game, and major props to those who competed, but couldn’t quite pull something together. Hopefully this was an enjoyable and valuable experience for everyone involved. We beat last year’s record for participation with flying colors and may be close to beating the all-time record, thanks to the help of our Italian friends, but I still need to double-check that.

On the admin side, it’s going to take at least 24 hours to get organized before we can begin the peer-review process. I think all the English-language games have been posted on the submissions page by now (let me know if your game doesn’t appear!) but I was waiting on a few translations for the Italian games and need to still post at least half of those.

Also, it will take some reordering of the submissions to ensure that nobody is assigned to peer-review their own game. If you have submitted multiple games under different names (like one as yourself and one under a pseudonym) PLEASE LET ME KNOW so I can avoid potential issues. Email me (jaywalt, gmail) and we’ll work something out. Or, if you don’t want to reveal yourself to me, just stay silent, take the risk, and just make sure to not vote for your own game.

More info coming, after we make sure that all the games are in and registered for peer-review.

Bring It On Home

Since today is officially Thursday in most parts of the world, that means we’re over the hump of the week and it’s time to think about really nailing the remainder of your game down and prepping it for submission. Five days are down, and there are only four to go (Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday).

Some advice as we approach the end:

1) Submit whatever you have, even if you’re not totally satisfied with it. That way, you at least get to be a part of peer-review, both having other people look at your game and reviewing the work of your fellows. That’s an important part of Game Chef, even if you end up not continuing to work on your game (and, as multiple folks have noted, the natural result of any game design effort is abandonment; so there’s no shame in giving it your best shot and then turning to a new project).

2) If you have a chance to play your game before submitting it, definitely take advantage of it. Honestly, it’s amazing what putting your game in front of real people does for both you and the game. Ideally, you want a sympathetic audience — one that engages with the game’s premise and is compassionate and supportive about the game not being finished (some people tend to think playtesters should be hard-nosed and critical, but I’ve rarely found that helpful myself) — but, really, almost any audience is better than no audience. Sometimes it’s just not feasible (I probably won’t get to playtest my games, honestly), but it can be hugely helpful.

3) Don’t worry overly much about shoehorning in all the ingredients you want to use. They are the inspiration and the structure, but once your game starts coming together, you need to follow what the game is about and where it leads you. If it ends up that your game doesn’t use 4 ingredients (as the rules demand), that’s okay. Just note that your game is disqualified from winning and submit it anyway, since you’re welcome to participate in peer-review even if you can’t win. That said, if you can make the ingredients work and still be true to the needs of your game, do that.

4) Step up and make the hard design choices that you’ve been putting off until now. Things that you’ve left vague because you’re not sure about them… nail those down. Sometimes this requires thinking small and simple instead of complex. Don’t invent some long, detailed set of mechanics when you can just use something straightforward instead. This isn’t the last time you’ll ever get to work on the game! The important part right now, to quote the immortal Tim Gunn, is to make it work for now.

I’m excited to see all these chickens come home to roost, and I hope you’re excited about seeing what your fellow chefs have cooked up!

Anonymity

Hi chefs! I’ve just updated the submission guidelines to make it clear that it’s okay to submit your game anonymously. Just make up a new handle so we have some “name” to declare the winner, in the event that you win (though, of course, you don’t even have to reveal your identity in that case, if you don’t want to).

Apologies for not making that clear in the beginning, but this feels like the right policy for Game Chef and will likely be the case in future competitions as well. (Heck, we might even go back to requiring anonymity during the contest, as we did in 2007 or 2008, I forget which).

Obviously, those of you who have begun publicly discussing your design process may not be able to be fully anonymous, but it’s probably fair to say that most people aren’t following all the threads and posts out there, so you would probably still get partial benefits if you decided to go that route.

Next year, hopefully Joe can do a better job of making all this explicit from the beginning.

My Game: Sorting Through the Ingredients

Hey, so I’m going to blog a little bit about trying to design something for Game Chef 2012. It’ll only be occasionally, as I don’t want to take too much spotlight or be distracting, but I thought it might help some folks who are feeling stuck or unsure how to proceed.