Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

Joe Joyce said
I'd like to thank everybody who participated...

And I would like to thank all the judges for their time and effort with special thanks to Joe for holding things together and guiding the competition to its conclusion.

And the Winner is:

Pentauranga by Graeme Neatham.

Second through fourth are:

Disintegration Chess by Gary Gifford

Quake [the orthochess piece version] by Abdul-Rahman Sibahi

Half-Shogi by Charles Gilman.

Congratulations, Graeme, Gary, Abdul-Rahman, and Charles. The 4 finalists here stood out in a very interesting field. Kudos to Graeme, whose game stood out among the finalists. An excellent job.

The games were judged on a number of criteria: playability, depth of play, ease of play, originality, presentation of rules and game... and a bunch of subjective stuff, too. Some games not here were very close, but missed because the judges felt they had flaws just a bit worse than the ones that made the finals. Decision and clarity were important here. We found at least one game that missed because the beginning was weak, or the middle had weak play, or the end was weak, possibly with mating issues. 

No entry is perfect; the winner is difficult to play until you have had some practice, and you want movement illustrations in front of you. Nonetheless, in spite of the almost fatal flaw, we found this game to be the most creative and deepest of the entries because the clever board and piece geometries give the game the feel of a 'full-size' board, something that no other entry matches. Gary's game is the most imaginative in the pieces and overall rules, with 3 exploding kings per side and a new piece. Abdul-Rahman has a nice work-around on the size restriction in Quake [but his rules could be better]. Charles seems to have achieved the often-elusive goal of elegant simplicity in Half-Shogi, which has a little more to it than meets the eye. But at the end of the day, geometry won. 

I'd like to thank everybody who participated. Even the misses were often very interesting ideas, and always fun to look at. Some deserve more work. [Okay, there might be one or two that deserve a lot more work; pushing the pieces around a bit even if you don't actually playtest is an excellent idea. :-) ] We felt simple changes in a number of games would improve them. Of course, it's easy to say that in hindsight, with a couple dozen other examples handy, and 2 or 3 people working together. I agree it's also unavoidably subjective, even though we try to be objective. Other people would surely order the entries differently. We did lean against very strong pieces in the judging; that is a question of taste. We felt small boards and great power don't mix well. You may not agree - but then, next contest, you may help judge, please! ;-) I will cheerfully let others share the blame for 'overlooking that masterpiece!' But I invite any and all comments, criticisms, or suggestions on these results or a next contest.

Joe

Update:

There are 4 finalists in this contest. They are, in alphabetical order:

Disintegration Chess - Gary K Gifford

Half Shogi - Charles Gilman

Pentauranga - Graeme C Neatham

Quake - Abdul-Rahman Sibahi

Final results will be forthcoming reasonably soon. I must thank Jeremy Good for assistance in the beginning, but especially I thank Jiangying Ji for helping with the bulk of the playtesting. 

Thank you all for participating. The games are quite varied and many are very good. The finalists all show good play value and compelling ideas. We enjoyed doing the judging during the entire time. 

Joe

Thanks, Doug, for asking. This gives me an opportunity to once again ask for someone to assist in playing and judging the games. 

Jeremy Good, Greg Strong and I were the judges. Jeremy and I got together in December to play a couple games. Greg didn't make it then, and neither Greg nor Jeremy is currently active. So I briefly recruited Jianying Ji, who was in the NY metro area a couple months ago, to play some more games.
 
Currently, half the games have been playtested. Of those games, there is one clear leader. The designer is someone with whom I correspond. Problem 1 for being the lone judge. Not being able to play chess against myself is problem 2. 

The other half need to be playtested. I am planning on trying to talk one or two brothers into being the vic... um, playtesters when we get together for our annual summer long weekend party in a month. This will be quite tricky, and may involve incidental beer on the boards, but currently this is my best hope for getting help judging. I have other, less likely ideas...

I appeal to everyone in the NY metro area. If anyone is willing to playtest some games, please contact me - email address is in my person info. 

Finally, if I cannot recruit anyone, I will playtest [which is different than playing] each game, and come up with a decision in some months, probably about the end of the year. Wish I could give you a better answer, but at least it's honest. And I guarantee you the next contest I get involved in will be judged differently [most likely by the contestants, as this will encourage participation in the judging].

T. T. T.

Put up in a place

where it's easy to see

the cryptic admonishment

T. T. T.

When you feel how depressingly

slowly you climb,

it's well to remember that

Things Take Time.

Piet Hein

While iT Takes Two To Tango, ThaT wasn'T my inTenT...
Ohhh, smooth, Jeremy, smoooth! Now people are gonna wonder, especially when they find out I've agreed to be a judge for this contest, and that's why both my entries are non-competing. Now I gotta explain that I've been happily married for 36 years, and, after that long, who could say that with a straight face? Thanks, dude! When the three of us judges get together to play the games for a weekend, you get the air mattress in the basement...