Mostly Game

The “Themed Rummy Design Contest” over at BGG just completed. There were 24 designs entered by the Dec 7, 2009 deadline, including three from me (Wu Xing Rummy, Nobles of Venice, and Cold War Rummy) and one from Brian (WW2 in Europe Rummy). Preliminary judges graded the games and chose nine finalists, announced in January, including CWR and WW2. These finalists were then sent to Mike Fitzgerald, a well-known and respected game designer (in gaming circles, anyway) of many card and board games, as the final judge.

Yesterday, the contest sponsor, Cate108 on BGG, announced the results. Mike (and his playtest team?) graded the games on four criteria — rules (10 points), concept (10 points), creative elements (40 points) and gameplay (40 points). Brian’s WW2 game finished ninth overall and my CWR game finished second overall. The top three were actually very close in points:

WILD KINGDOM = 70 points total

• Rules = 7, Concept = 8, Creative elements = 30, Game play = 25

COLD WAR RUMMY = 68 points total

• Rules = 8, Concept = 10, Creative elements = 25, Game play = 25

GASTON GAME = 66 points total

• Rules = 8, Concept = 8, Creative elements = 30, Game play = 20*
• * GASTON GAME would get more points as a game to be played with small children, which is its target audience. This ranking is as a game between adults

I emailed Mike just to say thanks for judging the contest and got a nice reply back from him:

Thank you for letting me see one of your designs. Very creative and playable. I love Twilight Struggle as well but would never have been able to come up with a card game like you did.

I also received very good feedback on all three of my games from my first round judge, Sean Ross (of the Game Artisans of Canada). I will probably tweak all of them eventually, but for now I’m focusing on CWR as it is my favorite game of the bunch and had the best feedback from multiple sources. In fact, I already took some suggestions from Sean and have ordered 21 replacement cards from Artscow for updated cards in the next version. I plan to playtest them here and then send them to Dan’s gang down in Austin for more external playtesting.

Oh, this contest also had awards. My second place finish was worth $30 and 70 GG (geekgold, a virtual currency on BGG). This brings my lifetime design income to $280:

• 4GxG Project = $100 for a winning mechanic.
• Small World contest = $150 for a winning special power.
• Rummy contest = $30 for second place.

Not that I’ll ever make much at this, but I like to think this offsets some of the costs of paper, cardstock, ink, blades, bits and components, etc. I’m excited about working CWR up to the point of publication, be that via a publisher or a POD/self-published route (being ideal for that as a card game).

For those following my ongoing saga as a contest entrant in Stride Gum’s “Rename the gum” contest, you know that I would eventually receive a box of gum packaged with my proposed name, Permamint. This finally arrived yesterday: one box of 12 packs of 14 pieces of Permamint gum. Woot!

I’m debating if I want save a pack for posterity. It seems weird — saving a pack of gum. We already opened one because Ryan can’t stay away from gum — “I think they added extra mint!” he said in approval. (I don’t think there was actually any formula change from Nonstop Mint to my custom Permamint.)

Anyway, it feels like a good year for my contest efforts. A dozen packs of gum and a dozen copies of a Small World expansion (plus $150) — oh, I also won a $30 gift certificate to an online retailer of my choice, from a little giveaway contest someone ran over on BGG.

Maybe I need to buy more lottery tickets this year…

You know, having more than one blog is giving me existential headaches, at least in terms of writing. I have this personal blog, which has no real theme, and then I also share a game design blog with Brian over at Royal Steamwork Society (RSS). I’ve even jumped on the Facebook bandwagon not too long ago, which is sort of a miniblog, really. When I have something I want to share, sometimes I don’t know where to put it, heh.

Take, for example, a recent contest run by publisher Days of Wonder for their game Small World. Looking back, I see I only posted about that over on RSS and not here. Anyway, they officially announced the winners today and I am pleased to announce that I am one of them! They awarded 3 grand prizes, 1 special prize, and 9 secondary prizes, and I am a recipient of one of the secondary prizes for my special power “Historian.” The prize itself is $150 and 12 copies of the mini-expansion containing my idea, but really, the thrill of seeing my name in print and getting emails and phone calls from CEO Eric Hautemont is worth way more, haha.

Now if we could just get a full game published in the near future, we’d be rocking.

Stride Gum held the drawing for the winners of $25,000 each and I was not one of the lucky five. Bummer.

I’m still curious to see which name they end up choosing for their gum. I believe InfiMint was in the lead and Permamint was in third place at the time they closed the voting. I still like Permamint the best of the top ten.

We are also sending you – and all the other folks who submitted the same names as the finalists (because yes, it seems great STRIDE® minds thought alike) – custom packs of Nonstop Mint™ featuring one of the ten final names that most resemble yours. Those custom packs (there will be 12-packs of Stride gum in a box) will be ready in about six-to-eight weeks.

That’s from a second email I received from Stride. That would be cool to get some Permamint packs of gum, even if I don’t win anything else. Of course, $25K would be cooler.

/me crosses fingers.

Thank you for your interest and enthusiasm around our Rename Nonstop Mint™ contest. We appreciate your participation, but we had a technical glitch in connection with the selection of the finalists and therefore, had to close the voting and the contest. We are really sorry about this, especially after we saw such energy for the contest, from you and all our STRIDE® fans.

We are still going to give away great stuff and money – and more than you thought. We will be conducting a drawing among all those who submitted names, and five people randomly selected each will get $25,000. Yup, you read that right – everybody who entered a name has a shot. Stay tuned, and we will reveal those people shortly.

Because you took the time to participate, we would love to offer you a coupon for a free pack of STRIDE® gum*.

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, and now I have a chance to win cash still, woo! I think everyone who voted also got an email similar to this with a coupon for a free pack of gum.

I’ve since discovered that duplicate entries only count for the first one received, and that the ten finalists were all notified of the fact. Thus, that’s not my Permamint up for voting, it is someone elses.

Bummer.

A month or so ago, Stride Gum ran a contest to rename one of their flavors. They weren’t too happy with Nonstop Mint (rightly so, I might add). Anyway, the voting has just opened up and one of my entries is in the top ten: PERMAMINT.

http://www.stridegum.com/#/nonstopmint/

So, go register and vote for me*, please! (Limit one vote per person.) I can’t remember what the top prize is, something like $1000 or a pack of gum. Anyway, it doesn’t matter – vote me up! I was in third place when I voted.

* – at least, I hope it’s me. I don’t know what happens if more than one person submits the same name. Hopefully it’s not first come, first served (or if it is, mine was first, heh).