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13 Mar
Posted by Lory Gilpatric as Modern Board Games
Indonesia based news outlet Kompas, in collaboration with Indonesian game design company Kummara recently announced the upcoming Board Game Challenge, which is a board game design competition that will premier in 2015.
The Regional Phase of the competition will be held in five of Indonesia’s major cities, Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Jogjakarta, and Surabaya. Participants will take a game design class provided by Kummara in one of these five cities.
Then, the Board Game Challenge committee will announce the design theme. Participants will have to create a board game based on the parameters set by the committee.
The committee’s theme may differ by regions, so as to include the possibility of adding local culture and influence, such as folklore, tourism, fashion, food, and more. Judges will select finalists from successful submissions. Those chosen will then be invited to Jakarta to participation in the Grand Final.
During the Grand Final stage, the finalists will present their prototype to the judges, as well as players selected from government, corporate, and business members, will play the games and determine the best three board games.
The first place winner will receive 15,000,000 Indonesian Rupiah (IDR) (approximately $1,100). Second place will receive 10,000,000 IDR (approximately $755). Third place will receive 7,500,000 IDR (approximately $565). The winners will also have the chance for their design to be published by Kompas, and possibly other publishers.
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Let’s face it, virtually all of these contests are judged based on looking at prototypes, not on actual play. And it’s really, really hard to tell which games are really good based on that. You can tell which are poor, perhaps.
Why do we playtest games? Because we want to find out what’s really good and what isn’t, and we can’t tell that from looking at a prototype. There used to be a lot of video games that were clunkers, and that’s because the makers tested them for gameplay little if at all.
If publishers could pick out the best games based on looking at a prototype, they’d make a lot more money. They get to play the game a few times, and still often don’t get it right.
I just want to help to clarify. The contest are not just looking at the prototype. The contest judged based on gameplay, theme, and the contestant’s effort.
The judges also help the contestant’s prototype to get better and better. They tested the game, even more the contest also provide an exhibition. It shows all of the prototypes then judges and the contestant played the prototype.
normally I’d agree with you, but this event IMO, is different. The submission isn’t actually open for everyone. It is limited only to participants which commit to follow all the workshop process. Such process isn’t covered by this article but it’s there. All the judges/mentor are guiding the participant especially regarding game design aspect, therefore all the board of judges don’t blindly judge the submission only by the prototype looks. They were there through the whole game designing and even product designing done by the participant.
All the participants are facilitated to design their game and also to play test it, along with their discussion group, another participant and later on the last phase will then given a chance to do playtesting with more people. So to put it into summary, it’s not only the prototype that the judges will take into consideration, both the game design process and the participant research (related to the theme and mechanic) are important as well
cool! I never thought boardgamegeek are popular in Southeast Asia. When I was a high school student 10 yrs ago in Taiwan. No one play boardgame. Only one cafe shop provide game you can play but in Germany version, cannot read at all ><
This contest is the first board game challenge in the country (Indonesia). Right now, the contest is attended by more then 300 contestant, and more than 60 prototype were created.