At
episode that's
ends. Hello and welcome to building the game,
a documentary podcast today is Monday, July seventh.
And you'll listening seen it episodes, 632.
As always, I am your host, Jason
Here today joined by
first time guest,
second time this quarter. I know. I made
that up.
Game designer Awesome person, We have Joe Ke
here. Hello, Joe Ke.
Hey. How's was it going? It's going great.
It's great to have you here.
I'm happy to be here.
I it's funny because today, I was supposed
to send you, like, all this stuff, and
I didn't it because III had said to
you... I was like, I thought you'd already
been the podcast
before because I talked to you with the
discord all the time. I was like, no.
This is your first time time on here.
So, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. III
didn't wanna be a pest, but I was
like, I should know how long we're gonna
be here and what time show.
Yeah. We have for anyone who's not been
on the show who's listening, we have this
whole cool guest guide we can send.
And I try and send it every time,
And it's mostly met for people,
especially people who are not, have never been
in the discord because they don't always, you
know, they don't always know much, I mean,
it could be somebody I invited. I was
never listened to the show.
But, yeah, I realized there are still some
critical pieces of information
if you've not been on the show even
if you know everyone. So
Yeah.
Well, it's good to have you here though.
It's good to be able to hang out
with you officially on an episode.
You are
when did you... You join the discord
feels like you're 1 of those people where
I I remember saying you another person,
Joe just joined, but I feel like they've
been here forever because they just get it.
Yeah.
I think it was after
Pro spiel online, shout out, Heather. Yep. Always...
It's always sudden...
Like, maybe August of last year? Mh.
So maybe that 1, I think it was,
like, my second Produce spiel online, and I
was like, well, I keep seeing this name,
and I'm in Bm g. I'm I'm 1
of the... Mh. The moderators there now. But
at the time,
Jamie was always bringing up this show
and telling people to listen sounds like the
this episode or that episode.
So also thank you to Jamie for bringing
it up enough times, because it's 1 of
those things where it's, like,
you know, someone tells you to do something
once. Mh. You don't do it. You just
don't do it. It at least if you're
me.
Especially if it's joining a discord. I feel
like Right... Oh, join this. I'm like, okay.
Yeah. And then if I hear from someone
else, I'm like, okay. Maybe I'll join that
discord. But that's yeah. Yeah.
So, yeah. That's that's how I that's how
I found out about it and how I
eventually joined.
Awesome. Awesome. And
You've been
how long we been designing games for.
I think I started in
20 16 or 20 17? Cool. I need
been a while. I just wasn't sure exactly
how long. I took a 4 year break
at some point. I mean, maybe we'll talk
about that on another
episode True at some point. But I guess
the very short version of it is I
worked at As day, had to sign a
non compete.
So that's 1 of the reasons. Yeah. But
there were other
there were other reasons why it was
fine signing the non compete at that time.
Right. Right. Yeah.
Yeah. That would be something interesting to chat
about sometime time if you were up for
it. Yep.
But not today, because today, we have a
whole other topic we're gonna share that's right.
So
Yeah. I can, you know, normally, I let
the guest introduce the topic.
Are you good with that?
Yeah. Sure. Oh. Yeah.
So we're gonna talk about,
different design contests and deadlines that exist for
for game designers.
And
a whole slew of things that go with
that,
I guess, I'm not... I'm not gonna give
it all away right now. But Right. Right.
Right. Maybe is sometimes, like,
using them as motivation or maybe helping you
figure out ahead of time,
if 1 is or isn't for you. Right.
Right. Right. Yeah. And, you know,
historically, I have entered a lot of contests
in the past. It's been a while.
And
you, you know, some of the stuff you
brought up in this list of ideas you
sent to me around this topic.
I find really interesting because we... You, you
had actually pointed out that most of our
episodes around contests have been specific around
Oh, do this contest or do that contest.
Here's how it works out.
And and certainly, you're gonna mention some different
things,
But... But, yeah, kind of that idea of,
you know, how do I weigh if if
contest is right for me, You know, how
do I figure out
why it's gonna be good or you know,
should I be doing this 1 or a
different 1? And
and I like that idea a lot because,
you know,
I I think that 1 of the the
biggest things that can happen with designers is
you can just kind of go whole hog
and just start entering every contest possible. Right?
Because. I did I did that. I did
that. I did approve it too. I'm not
necessarily gonna be recommending that. Yeah. Right. Hopefully.
Hopefully, my experience can help people figure out
which ones are right for them? Right. Right.
Yeah. Yeah. And and I think how to
assess. Right? How to... How give them the
tools to figure that out for themselves, you
know, And Right. Yeah. Well should we... Let's
start there. Yeah. Sure. Sure.
So
you hear about a contest. Mh.
And there's there's a couple of ways that
you can find out about them.
So in break my game, there is an
opportunities channel.
Mh, that
has a bunch of different opportunities, but Usually,
they are design contests,
and that'll have the link and some other
information from it. Mh.
And there are other...
Game design resources that will also
have a list of contests.
Mh.
We have a channel artist discord that people
Right.
And so you hear about a contest and
you think, oh, maybe 1 of my games
should go in that.
While, first first thing you should think about
is if that contest
requires it to be a new game designed
just for that contest.
U So if so,
don't submit your existing game,
make Right. If you're going to do that
1, make a game that fits the criteria,
but we'll we'll talk about that later. That's...
The main ones, I think it for that
are, like, the game crafter ones. It needs
to be a new a new game. And
I think usually the Bg g contest.
Need to be a new game, but I
I don't know. So the ones that I've
done need to be a new game on
Pg g. But... Right. Let's... I wanna kinda
define that real quick. Because, like, with Game
crafter, that's pretty easy to define. You can
have a game that's been sitting around for
10 years. Game crafter doesn't know. But if
you've put it on Game crafter before Yeah.
Then that's a no go. And clearly, they're
doing that because
otherwise, everyone would just continually enter the same
games and contests,
Right. And, obviously,
their
motivation for contests,
a lot of that revolves around, you know,
getting people to create more content for them.
Right? Yeah. Because that's...
Well there's nothing wrong with that. Like, that's
that's fine. If you wanna be a part
of that, that's totally fine. I don't think
that's a bad thing.
But that is obviously a motivation for that.
Right? It is a business choice to do
that.
So I think that,
that makes sense. But, like, with Bg g,
like, what is...
Are they looking for games that aren't listed?
Like, what?
Yeah. I think similar that... Similarly, they use
their own system.
Mh. So I'll I'll preface this with... I
don't really use Bg g for anything. Other
than to, like,
check
if a name of a game already exists.
Yeah. Yeah. Like, that's my primary use of
it. And then if I'm playing a game
and I have questions,
usually,
whenever I search will... Show me a link
on there.
Right. But. Yeah. So they have, like, work
in progress threads that you can make for
a game. Mh. And so
they use that as their own
definition for it. So, like, I created my
snacking print and play game,
where it's, like a 2 player
facing off game where you eat
where you eat the pieces because they're snacks,
For the 2 player print and play contest,
and it it was, like,
was due this February was, like, the
deadline,
and so you had to have made the
work and progress thread
after
last April or something. Okay. Which, of course,
as not ABG user.
Like, I made rowdy years ago, I wouldn't
have had
work in progress thread for it, but it
was a new design.
And and that actually does kind of line
up though, like,
I didn't make that design
for that contest, but it met all the
criteria for that contest. Right Right.
And was actually new enough to count. Right?
So it was, like, in December, I was...
I thought I need to make a game
where people use cheese cards as pieces.
And then we're correct. How could you do
wrong about that? I know. Yeah. It still
needs testing.
But... Yeah. So
that's that's how the Bg g.
Okay. Okay. Ones work for checking if it's
valid.
Sorry. A bit of an aside. I just
was curious. Yeah.
Yeah.
So
what else were we were we talking about
before that?
Yeah. So just the cost and benefits
yeah. You know, what's... What are the, you
know, things to look out for. I mean,
1 thing I would throw out there from
my perspective is,
I would certainly, if it was a new
contest.
Like, I would certainly, in order new to
me. Right?
I might do some Googling and try and
find out some history about the contest. Yeah.
Look at past winners
probably asking our discord about it. You know,
I would I would reach out to the
community to try and get a feel if
it was
the type of contest that I wanted to
to be part of. Right? Like, I think
that's... You know, and I know there's a
bunch of other things along with that. Like,
all the other stuff to talk about that
we'll decide if you should do a specific
contest. But I'm talking about, like, just doing
your initial, like, vetting of, is this a
contest that I think I want to
do. Right? Who's running it? Have they done
past ones? Have those past ones been been,
like, like, they've
never worked out or something, you know?
I mean, we've... We've seen larger companies put
things out and then stuff does that go
well with it. So like, when you look
at that, Like, I wanna know some of
that information. So that's just some practical information
that I certainly would look for if I
was doing that.
Yeah. And I'd say, like, for my
myself,
if I couldn't find that
information,
now, like,
now, Joe would not
apply for it. Like, I... Even if I
had... Even if I thought it was gonna
be the easiest thing to just submit something
I wouldn't even bother if I couldn't find,
like, what am I gonna get out of
this? Right. Right. And for me, personally,
I think the most valuable thing I can
get out of most
contests is
Feedback. Mh.
So if there are judges or a community
feedback
type portion.
That's the thing I'm usually looking for.
So...
But other other things that there might be,
there might be a prize.
Mh.
But you do need to realize that if
there is a prize,
there's probably a bunch of other people that
just submitted something because there's a prize. I
mean, depending on what it is.
But
there's there's other things that people could
give as a price like
publication.
But please
note that even on
the ones from a publisher, like,
if it's...
It will always say we might publish the
winner Yeah. Right? And it won't say we
will publish the winners. So there's no guarantee
that any of the games so that gets
submitted
get published.
I've only seen... I think once or twice,
I've seen contest where they've said, we will
publish the winner. Right. And those were smaller
companies with smaller games, and they can get
away with that. Right? Yeah. They're like, the
best one's not the best. They still could
develop it themselves if they wanted to. Right?
Right. They could change a bunch of stuff
about the game. Yeah.
And then 1 other thing I think I've
seen on a contest or at least I
wrote this in my notes is that they
might offer to help pitch
the game if it... Sure. If... Sure. I
could see that. Yeah. Certainly, the prestige of
winning some contests
can be a door opener a right there.
Right? Yes. So Some when contests are just
so well known. Yeah. That there are also
just publishers paying attention to it or other
Right. Other players,
or... Yeah. I mean, even just gamers might
be. Yeah. Paying attention to it. For sure
and reaching out.
But yeah.
2... So 2 more things that popped up
in my head is when you're weighing the
cost... Like, the actual cost. Right? Like... Yeah.
We haven't even gotten there. Yeah. I was
just thinking about the costs of, like, you
know, the cost benefits of doing a contest?
Right? Yeah. Is there an entry fee?
If there is, why is there an entry
fee? Right? I'm not against entry fees, like,
if Yeah. It's... Because... I mean, contests aren't
free to run. Right? So, like, you know,
if you do a contest,
sometimes
a low entry fee
is just enough to ensure it like,
people who are serious about it will enter
it. Right? Yeah. And usually,
or at least in some that I've seen.
Mh. If you are serious about it and
you cannot pay that fee there will be
some way to waive it. Yep. Like I
just and I think there should be Yes.
Yeah Yeah. I just, you know, I know
that what I've seen open contest where it's
just, like, anyone can submit, you can submit
more than 1 game. That's how companies end
up with 500 submissions Yeah. That they're never
going to get through. Right? Right.
And that's bad for everyone because it's bad
for the company. It's gonna... They're not gonna
do what they said. It's gonna look bad
for them. It's also, like, it's not good
for their customers see that it's awful for
the designers who put the work in.
And I think the other thing is
what are the limitations placed on the game
once it's been, like, that you submit. Like,
I guess, or
it's not just, like, whether, like, certainly some
contest or, like, you can't.
Like, you know,
if you submit this to us, you can't
pitch this somewhere else. Like, but that's that's
pretty not... Like, that's if, like, specific publishers,
Like, if you pitch this to us,
you can't do anything with it until we
decline it, basically. Right? Or we offer you
something. I... I saw that once on a
contest quite a while ago. Certainly, there are
contests though that say, hey,
don't try and pitch this while. You're in
the contest, which is fair.
But, you know, the other thing I think
to ask around that is is it so
highly specific
that
in the end,
you know, like, if it's like, hey,
we're
skittles,
you need to make a game that is
super skittles
I mean taste the rainbow. Right? I mean,
there's, like, so plenty of things you could
do with that. But what I... If it's
a hyper specific thing. Right? And you, like,
create the game for that, that you could
never use... Oh, I know it'd be great...
Like, you have to use these specific cards
Right? That are, like, part of another game.
Right? It it's okay to do that. But
if you do that,
understanding that that game is not gonna go
anywhere else if it doesn't do anything with
this contest without without Yeah. Really big changes.
And so I think that is
it's... I don't think it's a it's a
reason not to do it. I think it
is a reason not to do it. That's
not something you want to do. Does that
make sense? Yeah. And I just wanna jump
in there. I know, I think a lot
of the people in the community don't know
about the new sponsor skittles.
So
I just wanna make sure that
really clear. The skittles contest is good with
the cards that Each card has a skit
on it, and you can lick them, and
they taste like skittles. That contest is good.
Make a game for it, pay them 50
bucks to get in.
And I know you can't pitch it to
anyone else because nobody has the rights to
those cards, but skittles is a good sponsor.
And we do get a kickback from everyone
that Enters. So and every covid skittles. Bt
skittles. Yeah. So Yep. 25.
So.
But I think it's, you know, it's, obviously,
you wanna consider, like, how much work are
you doing that is only useful
for the contest. And there's different ways to
look at that. You know, Am I just
working my design brain. I mean, we do
that all the time. You know, we we
design stuff that we're just gonna throw away.
We don't think that when we design it.
Right? But that's what's gonna happen with it.
Right?
But I think it's important to consider that
when you're gonna do... When you're gonna do
a,
a contest. So... Yeah. And a couple more
things on that,
all of that depends on what your goals
are as a designer. Mh. And it, you
know, if you're like me, I have different
goals for each of my designs.
Right.
So,
you know, it might
depend because there's other costs too that we
didn't talk about. Yep. Which cost
maybe time rather than than money or restrictions.
So Yep. All contest might require you to
make a video
Yep. Yeah.
I typically set aside 2 weeks if I'm
gonna make a video for 1 of my
games. The first week, I'm workshop the and
writing the scenes that I'm gonna shoot.
In the second week, I'm shooting it and
editing it. Mh. Mh. And
mine don't look professional. So
that's
2 weeks for a non professional to do
it, and they are 2 minutes long or
1 minute sometimes. Right. Right. And I think
if you... I mean, so I have a
whole background in video production. I do my
videos in 2 to 3 days. They usually
do look fairly professional
they're always the best. But, I mean, I
I do the best that I can do
with the stuff that I have. Yeah.
But and I'm... I feel like I'm pretty
good at making them. I
despise making.
I think it's because I used to have
to do that kind of stuff. Yeah. For
real,
but, like, I... I'll make them Whatever My
code is. Was someone like, I'll I'll make
the video
because there's there's 1 thing I hate making
more than videos, it's sell sheets.
Yeah. I... Yep. I'm... Because I'm I'm super
bad at cell sheets. Like, I can't...
I'm just not good at it. So
So it's, you know, I have to set
aside 2 weeks to make a stupid cell
sheet. This should take somebody in afternoon, You
know? Well, and I'll I'll add I set
aside 2 weeks to make the video. Sometimes
I make it in a day.
That's good. I at least feel more comfortable
if I set aside the time. Yes excel
sheets also can be 1 of the costs
of entry. U. Yep.
And, you know, it needs to convey the
information that your video needs to convey, but
on a piece of paper,
which is why I think that's a little
bit harder.
Hope. So much harder. Gosh.
Rule book
might be a cost of entry.
Mh. So... And I bring these up because
if your design goals are make a fun
game that I can play with my friends.
Mh.
You
might not need a rule book ever, and
you might you don't need a cell sheet
ever or a video.
In that case. Right. Right. True. Yeah. But
if your goal is pitching, which usually my
goal is for any given game. Mh.
Like, that's kind of my default is I
want to pitch this 1 to publishers,
then it's helpful for me to make a
pitch video
and send it to
the judges of a contest,
and I'd rather have it be the reason
why I don't do well in the contest.
Then be the reason that the publisher didn't
wanna talk to me. Right. Right Right.
So
Yeah. Anything else you can think of that
people might need to...
Yeah. So... So so 1 thing real quick
back, this is still on the incentives. So
slash cost. That just popped my head around
this. You'd mentioned game crafter. Right? Yeah.
I think 1 thing to call out specifically
about their contests.
The cost and the benefit here. Right? The
cost of course is you have to
buy a copy of your own game. Right?
You have to not not exactly. So
this actually comes up a lot on, like,
every time there's a new game 1. People
will have a lot of questions. Because I
thought chance to have to order call that.
It's okay look that. Okay. And you probably
should order 1 if you want to do
well.
But it is not technically a requirement. So
the the requirement is that your game should
be
published ready
which means that you've uploaded every art asset
and
have approved all the files. Okay, So you've
proved it, at least know that it theoretically.
Yes. Which is good. Also
happens to be the requirement to be able
to purchase a game from them.
And and there is actually a fairly good
reason on their end for it is because.
Yeah. When the when the judge, like, selects
the finalist,
they immediately order them a copy of each
of the finalist so that they can... Play
them to justify. Yeah.
So it needs to be,
well,
you can always make workarounds for a system.
But Right. They're... It's set up to just
easily fold into their system. Yeah. Right? So
it has to purchase a bowl.
Yeah.
But you don't have to make it public
either though. Right. You just in it to
the point where you could
make it. But if you're making a video,
you probably want to order it a month
ahead of time so that it can be
in the video.
Yep.
But I think the other thing to remember
though, the benefit of all that is,
if you're...
If you're, you know, you see it, like,
if you're entering every game crafter contest, that's
that's a lot. First of all, that's at
night gotcha you. But let's say that you're
just, like, cherry picking the ones that really
speak to you. Or speak to a design
you've got sitting around that you've never done
anything with.
I think the biggest thing about that is
you can then...
You've now... The benefit is you force yourself
to make it. It's out there. You need
to order a copy for a publisher, boom
ordered, send it to them. Right? You need
to you just wanna put it up so
people can buy it.
Ready. Right? So that, I think is a
big motivation factor on the incentive side,
for something like that.
Again, I've always been awful a game crafter
in general,
component Studio,
I wanna fight you every day.
And so there's that.
But like,
when I think about those things, you know,
like, if I was good at it,
I think that I would be more likely
to do that sort of thing. Right? But,
Yeah, that learning curve is not enough to
make me want to enter the content... Like,
I'm not like, I'm gonna learn this so
I can enter contest. That doesn't get for
me. Yeah. I mean... So, right. You have
to to upload,
let's say, a card, a poker card. U.
You have to make it the exact pixel
that they say. Mh.
And
you know, it... It's got their their
drift line, their safe line, stuff like that.
They give you a template. You need to
figure out how that stuff works.
It is not easy or obvious to figure
out how that stuff works. If you don't
have print experience? It's true.
And so that's, like a hard
learning
moment for you that that can be there.
Like, for example,
their tolerance for drift is very high. They're
they're pretty transparent about it.
But if you don't know what that means,
you can be very surprised when you print
cards that have a nice little black border
And, like, the border on the left side
is 3 times bigger than the border on
the right side
because it's just that far off when they
cut it, which is spot... Like, they're clear
about that, they... You can even simulate it
on their site.
Right. Right. Like, you can look at your
card on there and see, like, okay. If
the drift is all the way off, what
does it look like?
But to your point, like,
my most final looking games other than the
1 I self published,
are the ones that I did for game
crafter or contest. Yes. Yeah. Yep.
But it's... And then it's a clear
huge benefit
if your
able to do art of some sort. Or
Draft sign, like, that's the other way hard
part. Yeah Yeah. Is, you know, I feel
like
those contests are designed for people who are
at least
decent
at
all of the things. Right? Right. Like, honestly,
the thing you need to be least good
at for those contests is game design. Right?
Right? Like,
because
really,
no one's playing your game before you're selected
as a finalist.
Like, you gotta be good at... If you're
good at all the other stuff, people will
you'll get people's attention. You'll get votes, you
know, and then,
I mean, I'm just saying like,
it feels like Game design is the least
important part of that procedure.
Yeah. I... Actually, I think in almost
even more so there, but in almost every
contest,
Like, sales and marketing
are
are probably some strong skill sets to have.
Like, when you're thinking about your your video
and your cell sheet and stuff like that.
Like, if those are the things people are
gonna look at before they decide if it's
a finalist,
like, Mh. You know, in most cases, nobody
plays the game until it's a finalist.
Right. Right.
So which I get. I get. I mean
like. They they don't have time. That's... Yeah.
It makes sense.
But so, yeah, your ability to put your
best foot forward on all of those things.
Matters more than the game design
until it is a finalist than it does
matter. It needs to
if you care about winning, then it needs
to do better than all the other ones,
which is also
just someone's opinion man.
The India.
Yeah. So that's that's some good stuff to
think about think about around those things. Specifically,
I think,
what else you think here?
I got 1 line here just says deadlines.
So
I think,
like, if you need something to motivate you,
there are different contests
around the year that have requirements of
video or requirements of cell sheet Like, if
that's the type of motivation that you need
to actually make the first draft of your
cell sheet.
Then that's something you can think about.
You might wanna submit
just for that reason. Right? Give yourself deadlines
give yourself motivation if that motivates you. Mh.
Well, then that's... I mean, that's a tool
you can use too with I use that
tool
outside of contest. I use the same deadline
tool for cons. Right? Yeah. Going to a
con,
then I
and like, this is the deadline to send
up to people for this con,
do it. You know? And don't... But still
I wouldn't have done it for the contest
either. So... No, but I... It does work.
It does work sometimes. It is helpful. No.
Yeah. That's that's... I... That's actually what I
meant with that too was... So the contests
can do that, then, I also use Pro
online as deadlines, you can upload
sell sheets for that and get feedback from
people,
and,
yeah. Cons
are a good
good source of deadlines for having either your
prototype
ready. So Pro spiel online would be have
my digital prototype ready.
And then conventions would be have my physical
prototype ready. Right. Yep. So those are non
contest
things that can give you some some useful
deadlines. And then, of course, you know, sell
sheets or whatever.
I think
around requirements.
Yeah. And we talked a little about requirements,
But, like, something to think about too is,
I tend to be a last minute type
of person,
like, where I'm, like,
And then you run into, like, oh, I
had to order a copy or, you know,
like, oh, uploading a game to say Produce
online. Is different than I thought it was,
like, because I didn't
read this stuff correctly. Right? Or,
you know, it's... I'm bad at that stuff.
So, like, I think that that's a thing,
like, when you are gonna enter a contest
or
sent a pitched thing or, you know, do
whatever, whether it's, you know, play a Bm
g thing or in a produce skill online
thing,
like,
you gotta do your due diligence ahead of
time to know
what you have to do. Right? If you
wanna go all the requirements. You don't want
surprises,
because
those surprises are your fault if you just
didn't read everything clearly enough or, you know,
make the notes you to make
and that's something that I struggled with, you
know, many times. And so, like, I'm not
I'm not throwing anything in anyone to say,
like, you did this bad. I am me.
But
I'm throwing it myself. So I think that's
something that's important to remember,
and, you know, so for myself, when I
go through that, I like to read this
stuff and then just jot down.
The gist of the requirements. Right? Like, okay.
Yes. This is the 5 steps I have
to take to make this happen. Here's the
information I need,
you know, and then I... And then I
know to get it ready. Right? And to
write the specifics down. Like, hey, we were
like, you know,
game crafter. A great, you know, call out
for Game crafting. Would be, like, make sure
that you have the the pixel sizes right
and everything. Right? You know, like, this is
this many pixels by this many pixels for
these cards like, Yeah. You gotta know that
stuff ahead of time, You know?
Yeah. Yeah. I so Yeah. If it let
me... Really, really dive into that stuff early,
not ultimately. Yeah. And and that actually, I
schedule all of that out. So when I
was saying I set aside 2 weeks, for
a video. Mh. I set aside a specific
2 weeks. It's not like, 1 day. I
think my 2 weeks are gonna start now.
Right right. First 2 weeks of July, I'm
making the video for this game, and I
tell myself that, and it's, like, if I'm
going to do game design stuff to
during my,
lunch break, Mh.
Or, you know, all day. Everybody couldn't see
the quotes.
Then,
you know, I'm going to prioritize the video
during those 2 weeks over Right. Something else.
Even if I'm excited about it, I've set
this deadline to make sure that I actually
do the thing.
Right. And...
Yeah. On, I... I actually do wanna talk
about that. So for the game crafter, you
make a shop page. Yeah. Which is almost
the same thing as, like,
It's... It doesn't need to be as detailed
as a kickstarter page or any other crowd...
There's a lot of stuff in there. Yeah.
Yes. Like, you...
I will recommend
having
animated gifts in it and having, like,
actual real market materials that are
Like, they are images, but they have all
the words and stuff, and they flow nicely
rather than just typing it in markdown, which
is the other option.
So you wanna make sure that people can
glance at the shop page and know what
your game is. So
and it has a community voting.
Oh, we haven't talked about community voting at
all. So,
I'll just talk about it in terms of
sure game crafter first. So
the way a game crafter contest works is
you have a deadline to submit everything.
And, actually, maybe I'll pull up the current
1.
This will give away what day we're recording
on.
Click on community
and current tests.
The that cool stock part challenge, is in
semi finals right now.
And the coloring book contest is open,
and it has 66 days, 22 hours, 7
minutes and zeros seconds until
submissions are due.
So
after those,
we'll say 67 days,
Mh. There will be some processing on the
back end,
and then maybe like, 345
business days later.
Community voting will start. So
anybody
can go to the game crafter and look
at all of the games that got submitted
to the contest
And provide feedback
and vote for them by giving them a
little thumbs up
but the voting has an asterisk,
you need to have a game
account to vote for someone.
And you also have to have... I forget
what they call it,
crafter points.
So it costs... 10 crafter points to give
someone a vote.
You can buy crafter points from them, but
it's
I don't think that's the intention. Like... No
You earn them. You can earn them by
just doing stuff. Right Earn them a few
ways. Yeah. So
if you have an account, you can,
people submit their things for art tests and,
community verified tests.
So you can just go through that when
those pop up,
and they also have an automated bot in
their discord that will tell you every time,
something like that comes up, so you can,
like, even on your phone. You can just,
like click through Right. And get, like, you
get, like, 3000
points if you vote on an art test.
So it's, like, giving up 10 to vote
for someone is not that. Yeah yeah. It's
just to make it so that you're not
just constantly...
Yeah.
And you you gain a crafter point for,
like, every penny you spend when you place
an order. Yep. Yeah Yeah. I, I have
a Yeah. Wrapped on a,
craft points and I haven't even,
bought anything in a long time. Yeah. Because...
Yeah.
So
there might be somewhere between 15 and
90 entries to the contest.
You can look through them. They're actually always
in a random order. Mh.
So, like, every username gets them in a
different order.
And you can go through there. But sometimes
you'll... I'll open 1 up, and it's just
like, 1 paragraph of text.
Mh. And then there's, like, a link to
the rule book. It's like, well,
I'm not gonna read all your rules. Me
first I know... Some of the people read
the rules of every single thing that they
do,
or every game they review because I go
in there and I review every entry usually.
U. And I'll provide them, like, a paragraph
of feedback. And if I think it's really
great. I'll vote. Mh. Mh.
And so
that's how you get in the semi finals
is having
being, like, the top 20 for the community
voting. Yep.
And then after that, the judges choose
some amount of finalist,
that varies contest to contest.
And actually, it's... There's, like, a weird exception.
For the game crafter, they don't have to
just choose from the semi finalist.
But if you are a semi my finalist,
you will get that, like, acc on your
game in the game crafter shop.
So
that is
1 thing on there.
And then after that, like I said, you
know, the judge... They order the games. They
go to the judge. They Mh. Play the
games.
And there's not usually, like, a clear timeline
on how long that lasts.
That's gonna vary contest to context. Right. Right.
That makes sense
And some other contests, like, there's the board
game workshop contest is
1 where you submit videos. Like, you... I
just submitted my pitch videos for that.
And
people give their feedback, that's the only info
they have. Is, like,
text description of the game that I gave
and the video.
Mh
And
that is... Has just been community feedback the
whole time,
at least so far. And this my first
year doing it, I know there have been,
like,
publisher rounds in the past. I don't think
there is this year.
But so in in
some contests, there will be, like, community feedback
where you get to give back to other
people that committed,
their time to put something together.
And they're gonna give you feedback as well.
And but also be aware of what the
time
commitment is there. So in the game crafter
1, you do not need to go through
any of the other ones. Mh.
But the chances are people probably aren't gonna
know who you are if they don't get
a message from you talking about their game.
Right. Right.
And then in, like, in the board game
Workshop 1, I had to do 5...
I had to give people feedback 5 times
for each of my entries. And I entered
2 things. So... Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And and,
you know, it takes time. Like, you have
to watch their video and give them thoughtful
feedback and... Yeah. I mean, yeah. It has
to be, like, 200 characters or more, which
isn't very many characters. But with still. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like, it's a real requirement, and
actually, the board game geek 1 that I
did
had the biggest commitment, and I did not
realize this when I was submitting my joke
game
that, like,
I think I needed to
print and play
like,
4 games or something cash gosh and give
them feedback.
So I had to learn their game. I
had to print it out and assemble it,
which,
you know, I barely wanna do that on
my games.
Exactly. Yeah. And
you know, had, like, read the rules, teach
someone else because it was a It was
a 2 player design contest. So I at
least had to teach 1 other person. I'm
glad it wasn't, like, a 5 player design
contest.
Because I never would've have been able to
play them.
And then, yeah, like, provide them detailed feedback,
and I needed evidence that I did that
for my game to qualify.
Wow. I... Honestly, I think if I got
to that part, I've even like, I'm just
I'm gonna... I'm out Like, because that... Yeah.
So I personally don't think I'm doing a
Bg g contest again, but it does have
a strong unity. And
it's
Like, I think some of the people that
submit a game to that submit a game
to that every year.
Right? So the people there know each other
that's also the case on the game crafter,
like, the people there know each other. You're
probably gonna be a little bit more likely
to succeed in the semi finals or, like,
in the community voting part, if you're involved
in the community on their discord. So, like,
I'm in their discord and
the only channel I have
that isn't muted is the contest 1 in
the Produce 1 because mh. Like, I can
go to Produce meal. But
Yeah. So
that... I think, yeah, The community
voting is is pretty
impactful part of those because it's a way
to actually be involved.
Mh. Where other other contests it's, like,
set it and forget it, which is can
also be fine. Like, then,
you know, you can be a little bit
more realistic about your time commitment.
As you put all the time up upfront.
Right. Right.
That's a lot of stuff to think about.
It is but we usually come up 1
at a time. Which is right Right. You
know. So you just you just need to
think about all the stuff for 1 at
a time. Mh.
What haven't we covered yet?
Looking at my list, but you have a
more detailed list than I do. So
Got benefits,
newer old designs.
It might be worth mentioning
We talked about contests where you need to
make a brand new game. Mh. Mh.
But some contests, there is no time requirement
on. Like, you could've have been working on
it for 5 years. Mh. Also, maybe you
submitted it the year before, Like, mh. Double
check that that's a requirement.
Also,
if you're submitting multiple,
like, designs that you've been pitching or whatever,
Mh. Check that you can submit multiple designs
if you wanted to submit more than 1.
But, yeah. I I think we've pretty much
covered it. I get... Well... Yeah. Do we
talk about publisher
hosted ones. We did a little bit with
skittles.
Yeah. I feel like we pretty much covered
it with that. Yeah. I I think I
think the big thing that I will like
to throw out there for people old designs
is. If you see a contest that looks
interesting, and there's no requirement on that,
go to your design graveyard and just start
looking at stuff
because,
like, it is... That I have found has
been a useful way to make me think
about an old design that maybe I was
stuck on
or, you know, needed something else or just,
you know, I put it down for some
reason.
To just go ahead and
see if this could revitalize it. Right? It
might save you some work, but it also
might help you get something back that you
been missing. So,
yeah. So I think that's worth noting.
Okay. Yeah. Actually,
so the... 1 of the things that I
do like about the game crafter ones is
like, they have some sort of prompt. Right?
So Yeah. First 1 I did is the
dice mitigation challenge.
And how I got my design dispersed for
that, was, I looked at a note on
my phone that I had made months prior
that said,
throwing meatballs or dice at targets.
And with a question mark or something. Right.
Right. And and then I was like, well,
this 1 could have to do with dice
mitigation, and then I figured it out from
there. Right? So sometimes it can be a
really cool prompt.
You know, I mean, that one's pretty vague,
but... Mh.
The other 1 was, like, should be a
1 player
game, and,
you know, I adapted 1 of my puzzle
games that I was working on for it.
And
Yeah. So
definitely a great suggestion. Like, look at the
designs that you
haven't started or the ones that you
like, you worked on a long time ago
and decided to permanently shove or temporarily shell
or whatever.
You know,
Yeah. Agreed.
But I think overall, like, I think kind
of the my parting thoughts on this specific
thing is just that
you really need to look at a contest
and really as a whole and really decide
is this a good fit for me and
where I'm at and what my goals.
Right?
Yeah.
And and what is...
I I like to think, like, what's the
best thing can happen out of this contest?
What's the worst thing that can happen. Right?
Yeah. You know,
just because, like, I think I think the
worst thing a lot of times is, like,
I'm not gonna get everything done, or I'm
gonna feel like I wasted my time, you
know, I've once for 1 contest,
you could enter as many as you 1
and I entered 5 games, and I spent
probably
3 months
just
designing these games.
1 of them, I think made it to,
like, the semi finals, but was not a
winner. The rest of them didn't do anything.
The feedback wasn't very useful.
And in the end, I didn't want the
games anymore. Like I didn't wanna do anything
with the games. And I was like, well,
this was
a big old waste of time.
So...
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. I thought of, a few
things
just then.
So
Like I said,
1 of my priorities is getting feedback in
a contest. There have been a few contests
that I've submitted to
and I literally never heard anything ever again.
So I feel like I didn't get a
lot of value out of that. Like, I
even had to make a video for 1
of them.
It's like, I never heard anything.
So I don't think I would ever personally
submit to 1 where I'm not gonna get
feedback. If I'm not at least guaranteed some
amount of feedback,
I don't think I'd submit.
And.
The other thing is, like, you do put
a lot of time into these
into these designs and, like, getting the design,
sell, like,
market materials like the video and stuff put
together.
So you do need to be thinking about,
like, sunk cost fallacy too, like, Mh. Mh.
After a contest, it can be a good
idea to just
stop thinking about that design for a little
bit... If if you work on multiple designs.
If it's the... If it's your only design,
you'd you do whatever you want. But
while, everybody can do whatever they want. And
don't think of anything I said that's something
you should do. You don't have to submit
to any kind.
Right.
But... Yeah. And and I... My takeaway is
kinda similar to yours. Like,
I got pretty burnt out on contests earlier
this year, like, around the time that that
like, the Bg g 1 was happening. And
I was like, oh, 0, god.
Oh my god. I had to test these
gains and give them feedback.
Right. And
Yeah. So,
I think I'll only be
doing a contest if I'm super excited about
the prompts or, You, who the judges are,
like,
because I had just done 2 game crafter
ones in a row before that,
and the the
most recent game crafter won, like, the cool
stock part challenge was announced just then, and
I was like, I think I'm too tired
to do this. I would I'd love to
do it because I know Emily Will gives
great feedback, and she's 1 of the 2
judges.
Yeah. So,
you know, I was like, I I'd like
to, but I just have no energy for
this 1. No too good. Yeah. But then
that brought us to the coloring book contest
which I cannot draw at all.
So I thought, you know, there's no chance
on that.
But
someone else who can draw
was talking to me about it, and we
actually decided to do a c design for
it.
Mh.
So,
yeah. I I am actually really excited about
that because I'm also, like, testing out c
designing. Like, do I like this?
So
that's another fun element to it for me.
That's cool. That's cool.
Awesome. Well, this was a fun topic. And
yeah. Yeah. I it gave me some new
perspectives to think about on contests. And like
we said, we talked about this before, but
We'd like to hit some of these topics
with different perspectives. Every once in a while,
And this was good. I think this was
really helpful.
For me, so Hope it was helpful for
the listeners.
And I appreciate you being willing to,
yeah, throw some ideas out there about it
and to to give us some
some stuff around your
yeah. Run your knowledge with this and the
contest you've entered. So... Yeah. This is good.
Speaking of contests,
you were going to,
pitch a game that you're making for a
contest.
I am gonna pitch a game. A game
I've never thought about pitching before.
That's how we like it. Yeah.
So,
my first meeting with my code designer Gene
Coup was,
I think 2 days ago.
And we talked for, like, 3 hours about,
I don't know, 20 different games that we
could make.
We settled on 2 that we kind of
like, we're... So the first 1 we're moving
forward is the 1 that I'll pitch.
It certainly doesn't have a name. It's our
coloring bought coloring book contest
entry,
and the concept is
color by numbers.
Mh.
But the numbers are,
like, randomized. So in in our, like, image
that we're play testing with, There's some trees.
There's a sun
There's a deer.
And,
like, the leaves on the tree don't all
have the same number.
Okay. But yes. You're going to want to
color them all the same color.
So in the spiral of the spiral brown
book, that this will be in. Mh.
Our labels
for where you're coloring utensils go. I'm gonna
call them Cra because that's shorter than coloring
utensils.
So
so, like, ahead of the game, you're picking
6 colors. Mh.
And you slot 4 of them in the
slots 1 through 4, and then there's, like,
2 more slots at the bottom, which, for
some reason, we're calling time out.
And so all the numbers on the image
are 1 through 4,
even though there's 6 different colors that they
might be.
So
On your turn,
you can pick up 1 of the cra
in the slots 1 through 4 and color
1 of the spots that matches that number.
Right? So Mh. If you're doing green for
the leaves on the tree, you grab the
green from the 2 slot, and now you've
colored in the 2.
And now you need to get the green
to be in a different position to color
the 1 in the leaves and the 3
in the leaves and the 4 in the
leaves and all the other twos that are
in there.
So after you color with it, you take
1 of the ones from time out, put
it in the slot that that 1 was
in, shift the other 1 in time out
up and put the crane in time out.
And
your goal... I... At least, our
initial prompt is make the picture look good.
So we're gonna see if adds, like, a
big enough challenge.
I haven't done any testing with it yet.
He just finished this morning, like, the... This
picture that I described. U.
And so there's a bunch of different things
we're gonna try. So
my
my gut right now is, like,
either solo or fully coop,
and there's also rules about, like,
when you color a space, it must be
adjacent to a space you've already colored.
Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. And then and then
every element has
could have rules.
If if make the picture look nice isn't
a
interesting enough prompt to testers,
it'll be like,
the leaves on the tree must be 1
color. The trunk of the tree must be
1 color. The deer can eat up the
2 colors.
Right. Yeah. Right. You could even create, like,
a point system where
you have to hit a certain threshold to
win. Right? And right that's based on those
requirements you just said or something like that.
To make it even... They can piece it
together even more than, you know, depending on
what you want.
But it could also be... We're also looking
at multi Victor,
like, this person
needs to make sure that
the clouds are colored and the trees are
colored.
This person needs to make sure that the
sun and the deer and the grass are
colored.
Okay. Okay. Yeah. And so potentially, both could
win,
but... Yeah. So
that's 1 angle we're looking at. We're also
put gonna look at competitive.
It seems pretty easy to sabotage someone.
Mh.
And even to accidentally sabotage someone. So
right, like, multi Victor and and competitive might
not be the best
options. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. And
and we'll see, like, the the whole system
on the spiral
we might completely get that and change it
too.
So
it's completely un tested game, but
It can go a coloring book. It can
be 2 pages, which is the requirement for
the for the contest. It needs to be
a left page and a right page of
a spiral bound book.
Because their goal with the contest is
anybody who submits their entry can
can agree to be in
like, nice. A comp
for. I love know that there'll be a
whole book of games
That are supposed to be... I don't know,
inspired by the prompt coloring book. That's cool.
I think that's a great idea.
That's fun.
Yeah.
Very cool.
Awesome. Yeah. Well, yeah. Thank you for sharing
that.
And once again, I appreciate you coming and
hanging out with me and talking about everything.
And
yeah.
If, listeners wanted to get in touch with
you, What's the best ways? Is there any
information you wanna give out other than obviously
they can join our discord and you're there?
Yeah. Join the discord, and I'm there.
You can find me on all
socials
by not looking at them and deleting your
account and finding me on the discord.
And that's where I'll be.
Nice. Nice.
Love it.
Well, listeners, I hope you enjoyed this. If
you wanna get in touch with the podcast,
you've course ability game dot com. You can
find a a building game podcast dot com.
I'm sorry. You can find a link to
our discord there under the discord tab.
And you can join that. You can connect
with Joe and all sorts of other cool
people.
You can also email us to building podcast
at gmail mail dot com, or you can
keep coming back every single week. And until
next time, good night.
Night, building the game, building the game, which
is in France, with Jason Brand, building the
game, building the game, which Jason france? Which
Jason it brand? The end of the episode
that's... The technically ends? The