This year's theme: Deduction.
About.com Board/Card Games is sponsoring our Fifth Annual Game Design competition, with the theme of Deduction for 2005.
The online gaming site GameTable Online is co-sponsoring this year's competition.
The goal is simple: design a great two-player deduction game using pieces most people are likely to have around the house. Prizes will be awarded to the top games, as chosen by a panel of judges.
First prize includes a trophy and submission to numerous game publishing companies for their consideration. GameTable Online will offer the winner the company's standard game contract, which includes being compensated for play-time spent with the game by GTO users. GameTable Online reserves the right to work with the designer to modify any aspects of the game which aren't friendly to online play, such as frequent interrupts or real-time play.
The winning game will be put into the GTO development queue; however, they cannot guarantee when programming on the game will start or finish.
The winning game designer will also receive a free one-year subscription to GameTable Online.
The top game and four runners-up will be published on About.com Board/Card Games and featured in our weekly email newsletter. Additional entries may also be published. About.com Board/Card Games retains non-exclusive rights to publish any entry in the contest.
One runner-up will receive a free six-month subscription to GameTable Online. All designers who submit a valid entry will receive a free three-month subscription to GameTable Online. (There is a limit of one subscription per designer, and a limit of one subscription per entry. For example, if a game is designed by more than one person, only one three-month subscription will be awarded.)
Official Rules
1. Games must be designed for play on an easy-to-replicate game board, using checkers, Go stones, Chess pieces, Poker chips, dice, a standard deck of cards, or other items likely to be found in the average gamer's collection.
Examples of easy-to-replicate boards include any board that is based on squares, equilateral triangles or regular hexagons. It is not necessary to use a board; card games are welcome, so long as they meet all of the other requirements in these rules.
2. Games must be designed for two players. Additional players are allowed, but cannot be mandatory.
3. Games must include a deduction element. Examples of games with a deduction element include Clue, Coda, Black Vienna, Sleuth, Zendo, Werewolf, Scotland Yard and Top Secret Spies. About.com Board/Card Games reserves the right to disqualify games which fail to follow the spirit of the theme.
4. Entries will be judged by a panel selected by About.com Board/Card Games. Criteria include the overall quality of the game and how well it fits the theme.
5. Winners will be determined using the same system employed by the International Gamers Awards to determine the winners of the IGAs. For more information visit this page -- http://boardgames.about.com/library/contests/bl-process.htm.
6. Games rules must be no longer than 1000 words plus necessary diagrams.
7. Any games submitted to previous game design competitions sponsored by About.com Board/Card Games are ineligible and may not be resubmitted.
8. Entries must be received by e-mail (plain text, please -- no attachments other than .jpg or .gif image files will be opened) at boardgames.guide@about.com.
Entries will be accepted beginning January 1, 2005, but no entries will be accepted later than February 28, 2005, at noon Eastern US time. Any entries received after that time, regardless of reason, will not be considered.
9. Entries must include the designer's name, e-mail address, and postal address.
10. A maximum of two games per designer will be permitted.
11. If illustrations are required to explain the rules, please post the illustrations to a web site and include the URL with your entry, or attach them to your submission as .jpg or .gif image files. No entries will be accepted by postal mail.
