A week isn't a lot of time, even if you come from the Game Chef old-school and believe that playtesting your rough draft is an exercise in arrogant wankery, so let's get rolling.

If you have one player, you have the Girl, alone, going out on an adventure.
If you have two players, you have the Girl and her Dad when she's at home, the Girl and one Friend when she's away.
With three or more players, the Dad can come along or can change roles so you can have more than one Friend at once.

Something which worked well in my game about ninja's is questioning about the environment. We'll submit to patriarchal authority and say that the Dad player also gets to answer questions about the environment, and other people answer questions about their internal world. The Dad's internal world is mysterious. For the one player, of course, the one player has to do all the asking and answer herself.

Questions about the environment:
"What kind of bugs are they?"
"What's the color of the leaves?"
"Is it a friendly cat?"

Questions about your internal world:
"Are you getting hungry?"
"How do you feel?"
"Is it easy or hard?"
"What's that a picture of?"

So what's the basic process of play?
You have the Girl, she's in a place.
Describe the place.
The Girl asks questions about the place, which are answered or not.
If there's a friend in the place, they're doing something. The girl joins or not.
The Girl leaves when this is over.

Activities:
You can do well at them or poorly.
Regardless, you can have fun.
You can bring in other people.
You ask questions about them, too.
When they're over, either leave or move to another activity.

So basically, places and activities are an overlapping chain, united by Friends (and Dad), with possible breaks if you get bored.

I think that there should be die-rolling, but it needs to be simple, because I'd like the game to be played in real time. Maybe just 4-6 on a d6 (a coin flip, but easier.) "Roll High" to overcome the natural course of things (if something is hard, and you want to do well, you must roll high to do it well. If a friend asks you to do something, and you don't want to, you must roll high to overcome your natural enthusiasm for everything.) That seems like a pretty good way to throw in disruptions.

Any thoughts from the peanut gallery so far?

yrs--
--Ben

So you're the girl.
You enter a new place. Ask at least three questions about the place. Answers can be a description or an "I don't know, why don't you find out" in which case you have to act and ask again.
The girl is asked one question about herself. Or more.
Then the girl says what she's doing. This will lead to more questions (one external, one internal, minimum).

Special Questions for the Girl:
"Is it hard?" If it's hard, you won't do it well. If you want to do it well, roll high.
"Is it easy?" If it's easy you'll do it right the first time. If you want to do it poorly, roll high.
"Is it scary?" If it's scary, you'll be afraid of it. If you want to be brave, roll high.
"Do you want to come along? / Do you want to help?" You do! If you want to be not interested, roll high.
"Are you bored?" If you're bored, it's time to do something else. If you want to keep doing it, roll high.
"Are you getting hungry?" If you are, you should go home and eat a snack with your Dad. Tell him about what you did when you do.

If there's a friend there, also ask questions of them. But friends always fail hard things, and always succeed in easy things, and so on.

Keep going until you're back home and done playing for the day.

Hahahah. :D Presumably the only people reading this thread are the people that shouldn't be reading this thread.

yrs--
--Ben

Brian: This is what I'm saying. The ingredients are completely flat. Have you considered using opposite ingredients? It worked well for me.

I'm done with my game! Now I just need to print it out and ship it. I'll try to post a download link here, as well, for people who like printing and binding their own.

Is my game the only one featuring an actual burning sea of death?

Or did other people just roll with it and do crazy shit like that too?

Well, since the judges seem to be allowing a bit of conversation regarding designs...

Ben, as a fan of Yotsuba&!, I wholeheartedly approve of trying to make a game based on it. I have tried to make games based on similar concepts over the past 6 years (even before I stumbled across that comic and others like it, such as Aqua and Aria). Keeping it to the limited Yotsuba&! premise, it's like being a tourist in your own culture. Playing such a game can open your eyes to things you'd overlooked in the world just outside your own door in reality. After that, it's just addictive as you use the game to share what you've seen with your friends. Can you tell I'm looking forwards to your game?

As for my progress in the contest, at first I had the same reaction to the ingredients as you did, garbage fantasy or game contest "cruft." I stuck with them, though, and was glad I did. It wasn't until I had a soundtrack put together for the game that I was sure I had the idea that would become my entry.

Now, the standard disclaimer and warning. Judges, don't follow the link I'm about to provide! This is my "blog", or whatever you care to call it. I've set it so anybody can comment, even without an account there. We'll see how that goes.

Graham: I'm not complaining about it, just saying these ingredients (to me, natch) are totally blah. But, actually, the ingredients led me to a game that I like a great deal (I think it may actually be one of the better things I've ever designed), just in a round-about way. I mean, it's a cool contest. Clearly lots of people are writing things.

yrs--
--Ben

I dind't like or dislike the ingredients, mainly because I was so excitedhappyhappy about the THEME. Basically, I came up with an immersive design that still makes me chuckle, then went back and fit three ingredients into it. Didn't help or hinder, really.

Posted By: Logos7if the judges have to sort through a bunch of drivel about burning sea horses, or sea horses at midnight, or burning seas at midnight, or burning midnight horses, well who's fault is that?

Ours?

Posted By: AndySACRED
ROSE
THREAD
INCONSISTENCY

I hated those ingredients, but as I remember there was a second set of 4 ingredients, which I also hated. I ended up using all 8 ingredients from that year out of spite. :)

David: Neat!

yrs--
--Ben

Since Luke Crane has used up all other uses of "burn," it's no surprise we'd end up with parallel development.

But do you burn your character sheet? I didn't THINK so. :P

Did anyone do the really, really obvious and just make their game an episode of Iron Chef (that's Iron Chef, not Iron Game Chef)? (guess the secret ingredient!)

Jonathan: That looks pretty cool. It's another 1-4 player game: looks like it's in the air. But I don't really see a lot of guidance about how the one player game would work. That'd be appreciated.

Additionally, some sense of "What are good complications?" Maybe cut the names list short and have four example complications for each area. I get the feeling that complication structuring is the heart of playing the game well vs. playing it poorly, and there's very little insight into how to do that, other than the pre-set chapter one.

Likewise, what does "finite" mean? Any finite number? Do the G&M just pick a number aribtrarily? What's a good range?

yrs--
--Ben

Maybe I should just say that.

Yeah, that would be better. For "area" I mean "part of the map." And I wasn't aware that you were trying to fit it all into two pages. In that case, uh ... I don't know. It seems to me that advice about complication structuring is probably worth the space of even an example or two.

I'd just like to say that "Horse" allows me to finally have an avenue for the Bella Sara RPG I've been dying to write.

Hey, Jonathan. Let me send you the actual rules.

Maybe it's because I never heard of Yotsuba-To, maybe because I like playing devil's advocate, or maybe it's because I'm a cynic, but I gotta say I really don't think I could get into a game with that premise, Ben. I mean I'll happily admit that my entry is pretty much the epitome of what you'd call 'cruft', but... eh... a game where you play a little girl going around the place doing nebulous things? Sorry, no offence or anything, but I just don't get where the fascination is. It sounds rather bland to me, as does the manga from the brief description on the link you provided, so I guess I'm not the target audience anyway.

What I'm really asking is what, in your opinion, is the big draw that would make people want to play this game?

Other comments:
Having to roll to not do something can be annoying as it takes control of the character away from the player. Some people like it, some just get irritated when they do something stupid through no fault of their own. May I recommend that you either augment or replace the 'roll to resist helping' mechanic with some kind of reward system instead? If you make it inconvenient for players to help others, but give something nice for doing so, players will want to help others and you won't have to force them.

From what I could gather about the Manga, it's primarily about the little girl learning important life lessons. Perhaps some element of learning should be incorporated into the game's structure, if it isn't already?

-Ash

Posted By: GrahamI'm glad people are progressing with their games, but I do wish you'd stop posting to this thread and write games, instead. That was one of the aims of the competition, after all: to write games rather than talking about writing games.

One of the most important parts of writing games is constructive criticism.

Ash

Posted By: GrahamSure, but one thing we wanted to do differently, in this competition, was design rather than talk

The idea that design occurs only when you're writing in private, is a strange, romanticized image of what "design" is. This sharing of ideas is design. Communication helps us gain insight into our own ideas, clarify how we communicate them, and refine them (or even push us to seek new paths). That's all part of the process of design. Want proof? Ben's going to be submitting a game that was designed using this thread.

Our blogs are the same thing as this thread, just elsewhere. So are our playtests. Our chats with friends and relatives offline. Everything you've not only allowed, but encouraged. The only difference here is that you're more aware of it because it's where you can see it. What I don't understand is how you're not seeing the design process that's happening here.

I'm trying to be gently encouraging for people to write games rather than post. That's all. I'm genuinely sorry if it's coming across differently. That's the thought behind it. Don't argue. It's just a competition.

Graham

Ehi, Ben, how's your anti-LGC game doing?