IceAwards / Play through of the games from 2011

[Greg Lattanzio]

I’ve spoke with a few of you who bemoaned the absence of an IceAwards for last year’s games. The IceAwards inspire game creation and keep exemplar, potentially classic games from falling into obscurity. Over at the Starship Captains forum (and at the wiki) we’ve been going through the first elimination round to decide what games from 2011 are playable at this point. We've always intended that, for the second round, the discussion and votes could be taken up here on the main forum (especially after some of the unplayable games were take out of the list). However, stuck in the first round, there are a few games left that could use an opinion. Thus, to speed things along, feel free to join us there or within this thread.

1. 1st round: Game play through to make sure games “work” and are actually “pyramid games” (not Snakes and Ladders with pyramids as merely movement pieces). A game passes if one player, who didn’t make the game, vouches for it. If a game maker or player can explain why a broken game isn't broken, they have a last chance to quickly fix or clarify a rule.

Here are the remaining games that could use an initial judgement:

Round 1:

If you've played the above game, or are willing to give it a try, let us know whether you think it should make it past the first round.

[Eric Wald]

I've passed Pentamid Twist on to Round 2.

[Eric Wald]

Second opinion on Chain reaction: We made it through a dozen turns or so before giving up.  It could make a great computer or tablet game, with simultaneous random particle ejection, but it's far too fiddly and frustrating for the table top.

It probably qualifies as a game, though.

[Greg Lattanzio]

Then I guess whether it passes as or not as a formality, without someone getting through a single game (much less offering a single positive review) it won't really be passed onto the third round.

[Greg Lattanzio]

We’re almost there… only a half dozen to go. It makes some sense to make a somewhat arbitrary deadline. Let’s see if we can’t get through these final games in the next week, roughly by 11/18^th! That way, we may be done with the contest by mid Jan, well in advance of next year’s voting.

The final list of playable games and initial comments will go up as soon as the last few are given a read through and cursory test. You probably don’t even have to completely finish the game at this point in the process.

Then we’ll move on to the next round where the real reviewing process begins.

[Greg Lattanzio]

We’re moving ever closer to completing the first round of the IceAwards for 2011! Thus this is one last push to get the final few games evaluated (at the very least, we could use your help in reading through the directions and playing through a turn or two of a game, to make sure that it “works” ). Then we can move on to the fun part of the judging and presenting the awards themselves!

[Greg Lattanzio]

Only two to go... It would be nice to get through these this weekend. The next round is the first real evaluation round, so these just need a general test to see if they work (play a few rounds, or one complete game). It's been indicated that we might want to start the 2012 Awards earlier in 2013, so the sooner we get through the 2011, the better. I hope that we can be onto the final voting round by the end of January.

[Greg Lattanzio]

I’m withdrawing my game, Stacktrices, partially in interest of moving the judging forward and in favor of my other game, Evacuate.

We’re almost ready to start the next round! I’ll be organizing the details on that and will post them within the next few days.

[Robert Dudley]

I'll pull Colonization again as well. Down to zero!