Judged!

 And found wanting...

The judges' comments for the Game Chef Challenge are up, and though the winners have not yet been announced, I suspect that I shan't be among them :)

It was an interesting challenge, and I shall be keen again next year (provided it doesn't coincide with reports writing). There were two sets of judge comments for my game, plus another entrant was kind enough to review it. There are some pretty basic things missing from the game - like examples of play, and much in the way of flavour text. And some of the stuff that's in there needs editing and rearranging. These things have been noted, and may one day go into Invincible Hench v1.1, if I get around to revisiting it. Certainly the ideas and features will make it into any game stuff I write in the future, which is awesome.

So, a very positive experience, from which I hope I have learned some basics of game design. The second judge's comments were a lot more detailed and helpful than the first judge's rather brief (but accurate):

Too much GM authority, not enough GM support.

That was the whole comment. The second judge wrote about 200-400 words for each game (including mine). I'm not sure that an extra 192 words of criticism would make me feel any better, but I was a little stung by that comment. Entirely true, but ouch!

Next year I will write the most awesome entry ever, and all judges will quake and tremble in mighty appreciativeness!