I've never won a design contest or even placed very highly in one, but it's still sometimes fun to enter them. I like the Board Game Workshop design contest in an odd way. The first round is to make a 2 minute video describing your game, and a bunch of judges rate it and provide feedback on it. Now I have no video-making skills and generally find this kind of thing annoying as a contest requirement. And 2 minutes isn't nearly enough to say very much more than the really basic gist of a game and one or two compelling things about it.
But I think it's at least useful as a bellwether for whether your game presents well. Are the things you're saying about it resonating with the people hearing the pitch, or should you be talking more about other things?
Here's the video I submitted. It's a cell phone camera video and is obviously not that great. I spent just a few minutes shooting it.
But to my pleasant surprise, the judges' feedback on the video interacted with the game and was helpful for thinking about what came through clearly and what may have been confusing. That will probably be useful in thinking about how to start pitching the game when the time comes. I think for most of the judges, the idea of what Collusion is trying to do, even based just on my short description, made sense and had some appeal.
Here's the feedback (judges names' stripped out for anonymity's sake):
Judge 1
Scores
Innovation: 4
Elegance: 4
Excitement: 4
Presentation: 3
Overall: 4
Score: 19
Feedback: Positives: I really like the way in which you are forced to cooperate with others to achieve goals. The idea that other players have the same goal as me really forces some level of cooperation, as part of my strategy aligns with theirs and from what I can tell my victory is contingent on convincing them our mutual success is worth the votes.
Concerns: I would like to see how this inter-connectivity plays out. Will all my goals perfectly match up with every other player, or will I have some that are mine only? With some level of negotiation present, this game may tend to become very group-dependent like many other social deduction games. Is there a way to design it so that it does not fall into the same trap? I really like the idea of everyone voting on other projects that will either help them or encourage another player to return the favor in order for you to complete one of your goals.
Comments on the explanation: I realize you only have a couple minutes here, but from the video I do not see how moving on the barony track affects which barony is selected to activate. From the video it sounds like it's down to the one with the most discs. I watched a couple times to see if I could grasp the correlation and I'm just not sure with the information provided.
I think this game idea is good, and hopefully it has some legs and can get the attention of a publisher. Good luck with your design!
Word Count: 261 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 2 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 4 Presentation: 4 Overall: 4 Score: 21
Feedback: A game that I need multiple support just to make my actions?? YES, SIR, I WANT THAT GAME!
It's amazing that just one solid idea can sell a game to someone (at least to me). For some reason I would prefer these kind of games remain in the up to 60' bracket, probably because of my previous bad experience with Diplomacy games dragging for hours. But still, 60'-90' seems very reasonable and I really wish to learn more in the second round!
Good luck!
Word Count: 82 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 3 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 5 Presentation: 5 Overall: 5 Score: 24
Feedback: I really like how you have setup the cards that results in the formation of natural alineces with other players. What I would like you to study is to track to make sure the game does not get decided by specific distribution of the cards. The game is meant to be about who is the best at working with lots of people, not about the card distribution. So really making sure there is no winning card combination is critical for keeping your audience happy with your game.
Word Count: 87 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 4 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 5 Excitement: 5 Presentation: 5 Overall: 5 Score: 25
Feedback: I want to play this game now. Right now. This really hits all the buttons for me. I know I'm working from limited information because of the briefness of the video, but it seems that you've built a very solid set of gameplay mechanisms, founded by straightforward rules, and spiced up with the cooperative/competitive nature of the goals and support tokens. Off the cuff, I don't really see anything that strikes me as problematical, though I do want to see the full rulebook so I have a clearer understanding of how it all works together. Really hoping to see this in Round Two so that can happen! Thank you for entering it.
Word Count: 112 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 5 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 3 Elegance: 2 Excitement: 2 Presentation: 4 Overall: 3 Score: 14
Feedback: Cutthroat cooperation, an interesting idea. Not sure how well it will play out and if there is a need for it. Couldn't tell a lot from the video about the gameplay. Be interested to see how this progresses.
Word Count: 38 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 6 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 3 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 4 Overall: 3 Score: 16
Feedback: I feel like the 3 actions might be a bit clunky. The proposing actions bit sounds different, but I think the experience might vary a bit much depending on who you are playing with. I think I want less things to have to remember to do. I feel like the main bit of this game is the collusion part, but now I think I want to see you honed in more of the collusion aspect of it. But I do think you have something there.
Word Count: 85 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 7 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 5 Presentation: 5 Overall: 5 Score: 24
Feedback: This looks awesome! I love the concept of a mixed cooperative/competitive game. You need to help others so that they help you and the goals intertwine. Very clever. I hope to see this in the market!!! Good job. Solid.
Word Count: 39 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 8 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 4 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 4 Overall: 3 Score: 17
Feedback: I think your game sounds pretty fun and I'd be willing to give it a try, even though I don't tend to gravitate towards games you'd consider "cerebral." I do like your competitive co-op mechanic and I'm interested to see how that plays out. In your pitch, I definitely would've liked to hear more about the theme rather than just "fictional realm." I know your game is in prototype but the theme appears to be a bit lacking. Is it a fantasy setting? i.e., orcs, goblins, knights? Are we settlers like in Catan? If you can next time, give more about the theme of your game and also maybe some specific examples of what kind of Actions you can propose on your turn. That might help entice me more to play the game. Otherwise, decent presentation.
Word Count: 136 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 9 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 4 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 4 Presentation: 4 Overall: 4 Score: 19
Feedback: Collusion seems like my type of thought-provoking game. I love the pre-planning aspect and the forced teamwork required to succeed. The idea of barons working together to accomplish their political agendas, yet coordinate efforts to actually carry out their wishes is an interesting design choice, and I honestly love it! As far as some suggestions go, I would suggest displaying the way actions are carried out once the majority has chosen one. In the brief video, I was unable to clearly differentiate between territories and baronies on the board. It would be nice to see the distinction clearer and to learn how a barony grows. I know an in-depth overview would help me understand these items better and I am excited to see the progress of Collusion in the next few months. Great job presenting your design! I am very interested in following Collusion to completion!
Word Count: 146 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 10 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 5 Excitement: 4 Presentation: 5 Overall: 4 Score: 23
Feedback: Looks like a very elegant and interesting turn mechanic system. I'm a fan of the play length and the common goals. I'd encourage you to sound more enthusiastic when pitching :) Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Word Count: 38 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 11 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 4 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 3 Overall: 4 Score: 18
Feedback: The main mechanic of this game sounds engaging. Executing a turn is clear, even if there is a lot of decision space during that turn.
IΓÇÖm a little unclear on a few things that might be helpful to clarify when pitching the game. How does a player control and grow a Barony, and how does that score? Do players have their own pieces on the board, or is everything on the board community pieces? Are goals all public knowledge (using the word private or public would help)?
A few initial thoughts that may or may not relate to the game:
-My impression is that this game would be more effective as a quicker game. IΓÇÖm guessing that behavior dynamics might become fairly set after a while each game and feel drawn out or have a clear winner decided.
-If goals are assigned randomly, IΓÇÖm wondering if there is a situation where a group of players gets a stronger advantage, as they can continually team up. If not in game already, maybe it is worth including something as a catchup mechanic or that shifts power around that a player can accomplish on their own, such as become the tiebreaker or having a game piece that hinders certain actions on the board.
-There should probably be some intermediate scoring in this game. Scoring more before the end of the game can reward players, encourage more diverse gameplay, give a better sense of progress, and switch up alliances more. It can also give a better sense of how players are doing. Related to this, maybe some of the scoring is done through secret goals so players are not encouraged to math out the game state. Perhaps goals are revealed or are added over time.
-There should probably be some rule structure for player discussion to keep things tighter. Possibly, players can only talk directly with whoeverΓÇÖs turn it currently is and not each other.
Thank you for your submission, best regards.
Word Count: 322 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 12 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 2 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 2 Presentation: 4 Overall: 2 Score: 13
Feedback: Not my personal cup of tea, but that's not really a criticism of the game, just an explanation for the scores. I think you did a good job explaining the flow of the game, though some context around which actions are available or how they work (even an example) might have been helpful for clarifying what's going on in the game for me. Either way, interesting concept.
Word Count: 67 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 13 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 2 Elegance: 2 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 2 Overall: 2 Score: 11
Feedback: Open information semi-cooperative - very interesting. Check you audio volume, its somewhat low. Additionally, when recording for viewers, go horizontal. Something with this depth usually has some flavor - give that to us! Your excitement will make us excited about the game as well. A title card with the basics at the beginning or end might be helpful as well. Best of Luck!
Word Count: 63 ---------------------------------------------
Feedback Count: 13 Average of Innovation: 3.9230769 Average of Elegance: 3.5384614 Average of Excitement: 3.6153846 Average of Presentation: 4.0 Average of Overall: 3.6923077 Final Score: 18.769232
---------------------------------------------
Feedback: Positives: I really like the way in which you are forced to cooperate with others to achieve goals. The idea that other players have the same goal as me really forces some level of cooperation, as part of my strategy aligns with theirs and from what I can tell my victory is contingent on convincing them our mutual success is worth the votes.
Concerns: I would like to see how this inter-connectivity plays out. Will all my goals perfectly match up with every other player, or will I have some that are mine only? With some level of negotiation present, this game may tend to become very group-dependent like many other social deduction games. Is there a way to design it so that it does not fall into the same trap? I really like the idea of everyone voting on other projects that will either help them or encourage another player to return the favor in order for you to complete one of your goals.
Comments on the explanation: I realize you only have a couple minutes here, but from the video I do not see how moving on the barony track affects which barony is selected to activate. From the video it sounds like it's down to the one with the most discs. I watched a couple times to see if I could grasp the correlation and I'm just not sure with the information provided.
I think this game idea is good, and hopefully it has some legs and can get the attention of a publisher. Good luck with your design!
Word Count: 261 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 2 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 4 Presentation: 4 Overall: 4 Score: 21
Feedback: A game that I need multiple support just to make my actions?? YES, SIR, I WANT THAT GAME!
It's amazing that just one solid idea can sell a game to someone (at least to me). For some reason I would prefer these kind of games remain in the up to 60' bracket, probably because of my previous bad experience with Diplomacy games dragging for hours. But still, 60'-90' seems very reasonable and I really wish to learn more in the second round!
Good luck!
Word Count: 82 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 3 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 5 Presentation: 5 Overall: 5 Score: 24
Feedback: I really like how you have setup the cards that results in the formation of natural alineces with other players. What I would like you to study is to track to make sure the game does not get decided by specific distribution of the cards. The game is meant to be about who is the best at working with lots of people, not about the card distribution. So really making sure there is no winning card combination is critical for keeping your audience happy with your game.
Word Count: 87 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 4 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 5 Excitement: 5 Presentation: 5 Overall: 5 Score: 25
Feedback: I want to play this game now. Right now. This really hits all the buttons for me. I know I'm working from limited information because of the briefness of the video, but it seems that you've built a very solid set of gameplay mechanisms, founded by straightforward rules, and spiced up with the cooperative/competitive nature of the goals and support tokens. Off the cuff, I don't really see anything that strikes me as problematical, though I do want to see the full rulebook so I have a clearer understanding of how it all works together. Really hoping to see this in Round Two so that can happen! Thank you for entering it.
Word Count: 112 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 5 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 3 Elegance: 2 Excitement: 2 Presentation: 4 Overall: 3 Score: 14
Feedback: Cutthroat cooperation, an interesting idea. Not sure how well it will play out and if there is a need for it. Couldn't tell a lot from the video about the gameplay. Be interested to see how this progresses.
Word Count: 38 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 6 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 3 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 4 Overall: 3 Score: 16
Feedback: I feel like the 3 actions might be a bit clunky. The proposing actions bit sounds different, but I think the experience might vary a bit much depending on who you are playing with. I think I want less things to have to remember to do. I feel like the main bit of this game is the collusion part, but now I think I want to see you honed in more of the collusion aspect of it. But I do think you have something there.
Word Count: 85 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 7 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 5 Presentation: 5 Overall: 5 Score: 24
Feedback: This looks awesome! I love the concept of a mixed cooperative/competitive game. You need to help others so that they help you and the goals intertwine. Very clever. I hope to see this in the market!!! Good job. Solid.
Word Count: 39 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 8 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 4 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 4 Overall: 3 Score: 17
Feedback: I think your game sounds pretty fun and I'd be willing to give it a try, even though I don't tend to gravitate towards games you'd consider "cerebral." I do like your competitive co-op mechanic and I'm interested to see how that plays out. In your pitch, I definitely would've liked to hear more about the theme rather than just "fictional realm." I know your game is in prototype but the theme appears to be a bit lacking. Is it a fantasy setting? i.e., orcs, goblins, knights? Are we settlers like in Catan? If you can next time, give more about the theme of your game and also maybe some specific examples of what kind of Actions you can propose on your turn. That might help entice me more to play the game. Otherwise, decent presentation.
Word Count: 136 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 9 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 4 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 4 Presentation: 4 Overall: 4 Score: 19
Feedback: Collusion seems like my type of thought-provoking game. I love the pre-planning aspect and the forced teamwork required to succeed. The idea of barons working together to accomplish their political agendas, yet coordinate efforts to actually carry out their wishes is an interesting design choice, and I honestly love it! As far as some suggestions go, I would suggest displaying the way actions are carried out once the majority has chosen one. In the brief video, I was unable to clearly differentiate between territories and baronies on the board. It would be nice to see the distinction clearer and to learn how a barony grows. I know an in-depth overview would help me understand these items better and I am excited to see the progress of Collusion in the next few months. Great job presenting your design! I am very interested in following Collusion to completion!
Word Count: 146 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 10 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 5 Elegance: 5 Excitement: 4 Presentation: 5 Overall: 4 Score: 23
Feedback: Looks like a very elegant and interesting turn mechanic system. I'm a fan of the play length and the common goals. I'd encourage you to sound more enthusiastic when pitching :) Looking forward to seeing where this goes.
Word Count: 38 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 11 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 4 Elegance: 4 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 3 Overall: 4 Score: 18
Feedback: The main mechanic of this game sounds engaging. Executing a turn is clear, even if there is a lot of decision space during that turn.
IΓÇÖm a little unclear on a few things that might be helpful to clarify when pitching the game. How does a player control and grow a Barony, and how does that score? Do players have their own pieces on the board, or is everything on the board community pieces? Are goals all public knowledge (using the word private or public would help)?
A few initial thoughts that may or may not relate to the game:
-My impression is that this game would be more effective as a quicker game. IΓÇÖm guessing that behavior dynamics might become fairly set after a while each game and feel drawn out or have a clear winner decided.
-If goals are assigned randomly, IΓÇÖm wondering if there is a situation where a group of players gets a stronger advantage, as they can continually team up. If not in game already, maybe it is worth including something as a catchup mechanic or that shifts power around that a player can accomplish on their own, such as become the tiebreaker or having a game piece that hinders certain actions on the board.
-There should probably be some intermediate scoring in this game. Scoring more before the end of the game can reward players, encourage more diverse gameplay, give a better sense of progress, and switch up alliances more. It can also give a better sense of how players are doing. Related to this, maybe some of the scoring is done through secret goals so players are not encouraged to math out the game state. Perhaps goals are revealed or are added over time.
-There should probably be some rule structure for player discussion to keep things tighter. Possibly, players can only talk directly with whoeverΓÇÖs turn it currently is and not each other.
Thank you for your submission, best regards.
Word Count: 322 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 12 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 2 Elegance: 3 Excitement: 2 Presentation: 4 Overall: 2 Score: 13
Feedback: Not my personal cup of tea, but that's not really a criticism of the game, just an explanation for the scores. I think you did a good job explaining the flow of the game, though some context around which actions are available or how they work (even an example) might have been helpful for clarifying what's going on in the game for me. Either way, interesting concept.
Word Count: 67 ---------------------------------------------
Judge 13 Game: Collusion
Scores Innovation: 2 Elegance: 2 Excitement: 3 Presentation: 2 Overall: 2 Score: 11
Feedback: Open information semi-cooperative - very interesting. Check you audio volume, its somewhat low. Additionally, when recording for viewers, go horizontal. Something with this depth usually has some flavor - give that to us! Your excitement will make us excited about the game as well. A title card with the basics at the beginning or end might be helpful as well. Best of Luck!
Word Count: 63 ---------------------------------------------
Feedback Count: 13 Average of Innovation: 3.9230769 Average of Elegance: 3.5384614 Average of Excitement: 3.6153846 Average of Presentation: 4.0 Average of Overall: 3.6923077 Final Score: 18.769232
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