"Special Distinctions"

So, continuing my initial overview of this year's rules. Now we have "Special Distinctions", which are like the Achievements you get in various videogames.

I'm trying for the Service Medal just to be helpful, but that really just means reading and commenting on things and doesn't tie into the game design portion directly.

So what other Special distinctions are interesting? Let's see:

The Al Gore Yadda Yadda Play on A Cell Phone or Internet Award

Cellphones would be hard to work with, but the internet has a variety of interesting technologies that could be used. Like Blogs. Or Wikis. Something might be doable here, though it bears further thought before getting committed.

The A/V Club Badge

Well, I do work for a Media Center, after all. I could probably make up a video in Final Cut Pro, though not likely in the "1 Week" version of GC. Maybe the One Month or One Year versions.


Brevity Award

4 pages isn't tough, really. Make a simple enough game and this can be done. Definitely doable, but this badge feels more like one I may or may not achieve bu won't go out of my way to get.


Cerberus the Three Headed

Well, I do have two adult roleplayers besides me living in my house. Designing for 3 players would be my natural course of action anyway. It increases the chances of the game getting playtested in the course of GC, which is always good. Oh, and 3 is how large you want your clandestine cells to be, if I go for Intrigue.


"Fit it on a Frisbee"

Or other custom printed object. My best idea here is to have a custom clock, wherein the face tells you different things in the game, depending on where the hour and minute hands are. This might be combined with the board game idea (see below) to have a board game played out on a clock face, wherein you have to outrace the minute hand as it completes the hour.



Reimagine a previous Game Chef Game by someone else

This is another "coincidentally way to easy" things I don't want to try. I was already in the middle of rewriting Gar Hanrahan's Poking the Emperor into a LARP when Game Chef began. I could just finish that and submit it, but it feels weak. Now, I don't know what other GC entries I'd rewrite, in part because they haven't been well archived at 1km1kt.net.


Academy of Flatland Make a Board Game

Not a bad goal, but not one I'm especially interested in. I'm more likely to accidentally realize halfway through GC that I invented a boardgame and then get this trophy than I am to aim deliberately for it.


2001 and Zombies

Both are okay, but don't grab me. But they aren't actively the sort of thing I want to avoid, like some awards.


That's obviously way too many things to try for, so I need to narrow it down some as I cogitate on things.

Theme and Ingredients Reactions

Ingredients and themes and optional medals for this year have been posted. So what do we have this year?

We have a theme of Intrigue. That's interesting, though in the last year I have organized a half-dozen LARPs with varying levels of intrigue and started a D&D campaign where the PCs fight in a resistance movement against evil efreet in the City of Brass:

If you do something here, you'll get burned.

So the day before GC started, I was already reading about clandestine cell structures used in espionage and revolutions. I guess the question here is: do I want to keep doing more of the same, or is that too straightforward/easy/not interesting enough? I'd like to vary up what I'm reading and writing, and Intrigue sounds too similar to what I have been writing.


Ingredients:

Fleur-de-lis: Symbolic primarily of pre-revolutionary France. You know, I just finished reading this article about news syndication in Pre-Revolutionary France, and how songs heard in the street (and 18th century rap battles) were essential tools for informing the public and starting the Revolution. Once again: helpful coincidence, or too easy?

Dividers: More difficult to quickly integrate. Though if I'm dealing with revolutionary cells, division between cells is a very important concept. I'll have to think about this one some.

Seabird: That's a bit different, though it works great for some sort of spy codename. Also brings to my mind the Albatross in Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Seabirds as past sins? Seabird also fits with Fleur-de-lis (as in compasses and exploration) and Stars for nautical adventure in the Age of Sail. Probably a lot of games coming along those lines this time, especially as intrigue and espionage can fit right into an Age of Sail sort of game.

Star: As already mentioned, you got stars as navigational tool. You could also transpose your your French sailing ship into outer space:

Kinda like Spelljammer

Sailing ships in outer space is already kind of done in rpgs, though. Stars also have a crazy number of other connotations, too, which could be used somehow. Right now I can imagine a astrological system based off cards, something like how the Athasian moons are used in the weird game I just finished writing about Dark Sun. More on that later, perhaps.



And beyond the ingredients, there are a large number (twelve) of "Special Distinctions". I'll cover those in another post, though.