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