Our first fourteen years have been an incredible success for KublaCon’s design contest. As a matter of fact, the 2008 winner, "Order Up," was published by Z-Man Games and “Kachina” (the second place winner from 2008) was printed by Bucephalus Games, Zack and Amanda Greenvoss' winning entry from 2001, “Specrtum,” was printed by Eurogames (as “Phoenix”), and one of our contest winners, Jodi Soares, is a published game designer now because notice from her of her winning entry, publishing both “Russian Rails” from Mayfair Games and “Rotundo” from Adlung-Spiele.

Get the Best Feedback

Getting your game to us by April 24th will allow us (the panel of well-known designers show judge the entries) to determine play your game enough to get you the best feedback. (We will give you that feedback during KublaCon at the event on Monday at noon.)

- Kubla

===============

Thanks, Kubla!

Here is the information you need about the contest, folks!

Anthony J Gallela
KublaCon Game Design Contest Organizer

Intention
Many of us at KublaCon work in several different parts of the entertainment industry. We noted some years ago that in each of the other entertainment fields, there are contests where entertainers can test their concepts, get feedback, and show their ideas to people who might be able to do something about them.
Screenwriters, songwriters, filmographers, photographers -- everyone had such contests except game designers. KublaCon's intention has been to give game designers an opportunity like their fellow entertainers have -- a venue to test concepts, get feedback, and show their table top game ideas to people in the business of designing games.

Table Top Games
For KublaCon's purposes, a Table Top Game is defined by excluding things rather than by including them.
With that in mind, a Table Top Game is not:
A Role Playing Game
A Miniatures Game (though your TTG might have miniatures -- like Talisman)
A Live Action Role Playing Game
A Collectable Card Game
A Computer Game

Amateurs only
This contest is open to amateurs only. If you're a professional, and you would like to suggest a professional category, please e-mail KublaDesignContest@gmail.com to talk about it. We will not have the professional category for this year. For the purpose of this contest, a professional game designer is anyone who has a published game now in print, or who has ever had one in print. To be a professional, you must be credited as either a designer or a developer on the game's credits page. A TTG entry may be designed by as many people as you like, but none of the designers may be professional.

Prizes
The prizes may be game products, just like any other prize at KublaCon, but there will also be three "intangible" prizes. The play-testers at a minimum, the judges too, and the attendees will give you feedback on your game. The play-testers and judges are people who are “close to the action,” so their comments should be very helpful. If you win, your game will carry the label of "game design winner" -- a label that will help you get the game looked at by potential publishers. Not all of the winning games have been published, but most of the winning designers have found design work. Your game will also be on the lips of industry professionals--people who know people -- and you may find yourself getting a call out of the blue from an interested publisher.

Feedback
It is the intention of the judges of this contest to give every entrant feedback on their game. How in-depth the feedback is will be determined by the number of entries, and by the amount of feedback the game elicits from judges. You will be given a report on Monday of the feedback to take home with you.

Finished Game
All games submitted must be finished. A finished game is one that has a rulebook and all its necessary components (though the components may be proxies for the final components meant for the published version). The judges must be able to read the rulebook and play the game based on what they learn in said rulebook. They will further need to be able to play the game out of the box: all of the components needed for your game must come with the game. (You may note if you intend to make the customer by their own dice, or counters, or whatever, but the judges don't want to have to go scrounging for these things while judging this contest.) If a game is not finished, and does not have all the necessary components, then it may not get any feedback from the judges. (A very good suggestion from past years that helps the judging process is to include multiple copies of the rulebook in your submission. This will help new players learn, and give us judges a copy to write on if we want to provide feedback directly in your rulebook.)

Ownership of Product
Games submitted are the sole property of the game submitter. Submitting a game in no way adjusts the "rights" of any party associated with the game.
Judging submitted games will not limit the judges in concept or design of games already created, in the process of being created, or that will be created in the future. By entering your game in the contest, you are knowingly putting it into the public knowledge domain.
That having been said, the judges will make a good-faith promise not to publish your game without your consent. As a contestant, you have to have faith that the judges are gamers just like you, and they believe in the do-unto-others-as-you'd-have-done-unto-yourself motto.

Judging Process
Entries will be played by a set of playtesters “hand-picked” by the judging panel. These are some of the same play-testers they use for their own products and game designers as well. These play-testers will fill out questionnaires regarding each game and those questionnaires will be reviewed by the panel of judges. Based on that review, the top three entries will be played by the on-site convention judges and attendees! The winners will be chosen based on ratings in the following categories:
Mechanics: does the game play well?
Interface: are the components the right components?
Graphical Presentation: How does the game look?
Target Consumer: Is the game appropriate for the consumer group presented in the submission form?
Mechanics are by far the most important thing in the contest, and will receive the highest priority. The interface of the game is not the graphical presentation of the parts, but rather whether the game should be, say, a card game rather than a board game. The graphical presentation of each entry is the least important, but the games will be judged on that as well. Finally, the target consumer measures how well the designer has hit his or her goal.

Winners will be announced at KublaCon, noon on Monday.

Submitting Your Game
There is no entrance fee to submit your game! However, a few submittal rules are in place:
1) You must be a full weekend registrant.
2) You may submit only one game for free. If you want to submit more than one game, the fee to do so is $60 per game. This fee helps compensate the play-testers for their hard work testing your games. Judging the games is a VERY time consuming, and often frustrating process. A clear and concise rulebook will help our play-testers spend time evaluating your game ... instead of deciphering how to play. We recommend giving your game with rulebook to someone who has never seen the game before and having them try to learn to play the game without asking you any questions. Watching them go through this process will teach you what's missing from your rulebook.
3) You must fill out a submission form and include it in the box with your submission. You can get a submission form by downloading it with the link at the bottom of this page (the dates are wrong in this form, but the address is correct).
4) The earlier you send your game to KublaCon, the more time the team will have to review it and make notes. The deadline for submittals is the 24th of April -- that is to say your game must ARRIVE by April 24.

Send in your game as soon as possible to:

KublaCon Game Design Contest
C/O Anthony Gallela
15504 11th Ave NE
Shoreline, WA 98155

Make sure to include your name, phone number, and email address. Make your check or money order for the $60.00 per each game beyond the first free submittal to “Khalsa Brain Games.”

IMPORTANT REMINDER: You MUST pay for a full-show attendee of KublaCon to enter the contest. If you do not buy a badge for the con, you will be disqualified.

Judges
Judges will include many of the game design guests at KublaCon this year as well as other Game Industry professionals. Also, the final judges will be looking at notes from the KublaCon attendees that attend the game sessions set up in the tabletop board gaming area, as well as feedback garnered from attendees in the free-play area.
 
Press release:
The KublaCon Game Design Contest is getting even better!
This year there are some major changes to the format of the contest including an earlier submission date!

The two, major differences we will be more time for the judges to write up feedback for you, and adding the attendees into the contest process.

You will get feedback from Game Industry professionals, experienced play-testers, and now the gaming public. (Final judging will still be by the game designers.)
Make sure to get your games submitted by April 24th!