Thousand Year Game Design Challenge - June Update

It was another fruitful month for the challenge, with a very special guest now in the running. But first, some news: The deadline for entry is extended to August 31st. Hope to see you at GenCon and I look forward to showing off some of the entries so far.

Take-Back-Toe by James Ernest
Veteran game designer James Ernest submits this entry that actually doesn't have much in common with tic tac toe. It's more like a dice-driven mancala, with an elegant tension of constrained choices. The game suggests using poker chips on a mouse board, but you can play this with rocks or via forum post.

Antipode by Shane Hendrickson
Much like the classic game Hex, your goal is to connect two sides of the board. The twist is that the tiles are double-sided, as in Reversi/Othello. If your pawn passes over an opponent's tile, it flips to your color. Interesting mix of two well-loved abstract games. Usually those mashups don't fare well, but I think this one has strong potential.

Charing Cross by Mike C
In the tradition of many great games, Mike enters a chess variant that's actually a little more like Chinese Checkers. Each player has two pairs of chess pieces starting from two sides of a chess board, trying to reach their opposing side. I can immediately see the tension here. Interesting!

Saaguan by Andrew Cooke
With touches of Robo Rally, this game offers some more complex gameplay than the average 2p abstract. Robots move about the field, blasting each other with beams. Check out his automated and animated demo, too. Very cool.

Mint by Graham Walmsley
Graham actually withdrew this entry after some people told him they played a very similar game in school, but I'm putting it up here as sort of an honorable mention. With a bit of hacking and tweaking, the basic mechanics can still be used to create an interesting new game and I hope Graham submits a revised entry. Get on it, Graham! :)

Past Entries:
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Thousand Year Game Design Challenge - May Update

Recent buzz from the Long Now Blog, MetaFilter, and Jane McGonigal spurred a huge spike in traffic. We had several new entries last month and many more rumored to be coming soon. Here's what we have for May.

Cartography by Benjamin Alan Mohr
Here's an example of a classic genre with a clever visual motif. Each tile has land and water. One player is trying to create self-contained areas of land (islands) while the other is trying to create self-contained areas of water (lakes). I look forward to giving this one a play or two.

The Movie Game by Tonio Loewald
(or the World-Playing Game) This game is sort of a freeform narrative exercise in which each player takes on the role of a character from a movie, using the beginning, middle or end as a breakpoint from the established story. Together, the players take turns being the protagonist and supporting cast.

Rush Run Riot by Kelvin Beriguete
This kinda-sorta chess variant strips down your pieces to kings, pawns and "bouncers." Much like Arimaa, you have the option of moving pawns twice, but can trade in those movements to move a bouncer. Bouncers are neutral and can be moved by either player. Interesting!

Sáto by Kristian Järventaus
In the long tradition of scifi-inspired board games, Kristian presents a hexagonal abstract strategy elimination game. The pieces are all identical, but have some interesting methods of moving around the hexagonal grid. Because pieces can move along concentric circles, I wonder how hard it'll be to anticipate and plan offensive maneuvers.

F*ckin' Do It Then by Ryan Hughes (NSFW Language)
So far, the majority of challenge entrants have been very cerebral affairs, so I'm delighted to see this visceral title enter the mix. Players draw random words and bid on whether they can make another player guess their word with as few clues as possible.

Venn’s Revenge by Louis J. Cassorla
This entry is one of the few to have an explicitly stated social agenda: To improve spatial recognition abilities in all players. Players draw circles on overlapping sheets of translucent paper, trying to overlap previously drawn circles. I must admit, I'm still trying to parse the rules as written, but perhaps it'll be easier when it actually hits the table.

Klon by Antoine Richard
Chess has several nuanced rules of movement to learn before you ever make your first move. Antoine has taken a slightly different direction, imposing those movement rules on specific spaces of the board while leaving the pieces themselves generic. He apparently even made his own wooden board!

MetaFilter discusses The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

There's an ongoing discussion of the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge on MetaFilter that has already drifted into posthumanism, Calvinball, copyrights, and the game market in general. Step in and speak your mind!

» MetaFilter: Dude. MOVE ALREADY.
» Video Above: A game in Cambodia's Ankor district ruins, posted in comments.

The Long Now Foundation blogs the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

I'm all kinds of humbled that the Long Now Foundation would feature the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge on their blog. If you haven't heard of the foundation, check out their website and listen to this NPR interview with the director of the 10,000-Year Clock project. Of special interest to gamers, here's a conversation between Stewart Brand and Jane McGonigal.