JESS: JxJ Game Design Competition 2008 + 2007 awards

The JxJ Game Design Competition 2008 is already opened in Spain.

Last year, we had the first game design competition in Granollers. I think those awarded games deserve some words and a chapter of the Spanish Gaming Tales. Let’s take a look on the last year JxJ game design contest…

From more than 30 games, 15 of them were selected by the organizers. Diferent gaming groups form Barcelona played them, and after some weeks, 8 really good games were the finalists. Then, a special jury of 8 (not so angry) persons played and played the games for a long weekend in a hotel in Granollers. El Mercado de Tlatelolco (Tlatelolco Market), by Victor Melo, was the final winner in 2007.

El Mercado de Tlatelolco prototype being played in Córdoba

There are some good creative minds working on new games in Spain – and a growing-but-still-little game industry.

L’Ascesió Fair in Granollers is a comercial fair, with some cultural activities around. The Jugar X Jugar was located inside the big comercial fair, and it was dedicated to boardgames (You can read the Spanish Gaming Tale about it).

In the middle of the commercial core fair, there was a stand showing the 8 finalist prototypes of the JxJ Game Design Competition 2007.

Oriol Comas (JxJ Fair director) and Sonso (member of the jury of the JdA Spanish game of the year award)

Let’s see the 7 finalist games, and the winner game:

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Encerrados, by José Antonio Abascal

Surely, the most beautiful prototype. The game, Enclosed, could be hard to think but it is fast and fun to play. In the beginning, it can look similar to a Battleship game (with only one board) and the two players place their “ships” (made of different number of red or white chips, in one color for each player). Once this set up is done, the game begins. Playing cards, you must place a tile on the board. The tiles have Tetris shapes, and there are only two of each of them. The objective: to surround the enemy ships, and don’t let your own ships to be surrounded. You must keep your attention on your cards, on the already played cards, on the tiles available to be played, and on the free spaces on the board. There are different variants to manage your hand of cards (to make the game more or less brainy), but it always works and really shines.

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Protegido, by Raúl Echegoien

Using a traditional Spanish card maze, and some clips as markers, you can play the Protected game. It is a majority game, more interesting to be played at the beginning of the game, but later options and decisions become easier and hazard-card dependent. Maybe a good idea, but it needs to be developed a step more (Its X-mas legend theme, pasted on the game, doesn’t help either).

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Dijous, Mercat!, by Víktor Bautista & Josep M. Allué

I like this men, well known authors in Spanish gaming scene. They have published (as a couple or alone) some children games, edited by traditional Spanish game companies. They are waiting for their opportunities to publish adult games, and Tobynstein is on this way. In the Thursday Market game, we are in a traditional Catalonian market, full of typical foods. It is a card game, with funny auctions. The different characters shown on the cards ask for a kind of products, and each player must sell what they want. The characters always buy the cheapest offers - but you need to be rich to win. Funny idea.

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Fiebre del Sábado Gótico, by Santiago Eximeno

In Saturday Gothic Fever, a multiplayer card game, you are in a gothic disco, and you have seen a beautiful black-dressed girl, Lilith (of course ;-)
You must approach Lilith alone, and ty to convince her to dance with you – this is based on dice rolling (depending on your player-card which shows if you are more or less drunk). By the cards, you move Lilith to the different disco locations: dance floor, wardrobe, couches… If Lilith is in the closet, she can not be disturbed. Also by cards, you increase or decrease your own alcoholic level, or do the same to the other players. A wanton chaotic game.

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Hospital, by Juan Carlos Coca

This is a heavy strategic game, or at least, that is what it aspire to be – a kind of Puerto Rico (+ many other games) going to a hospital. You must manage in the best way a hospital, choosing different roles with different abilities, some good for you and other bad for the other players. This is a complex game, but it is clearly not finished yet. The different options are not well balanced (the different ways to the victory, the different character powers, etc.). Maybe we will see this Hospital game returning in the future.

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Mundialito, by José Carlos de Diego

Jose Carlos, the man behind the courtain of the BSK forum, is a Icehouse fanatic, and he has invented more than one game using the pyramids (and some other without them too). This Little-World-Championship (Mundialito) is a soccer inspired game for two players. The pyramids of each player begin the game placed on the 6x6 board, on opposite sides. There are two balls, one for each player, and the objective is to score with your ball in the last row of your rival. You can kick and move your ball, and move your pieces- be careful, bigger pieces can push aside little rival pieces-, but the movement is limited to the options shown on the board (with arrows – like an old game I love, Distrito 21, published in Spain 20 years ago). Mundialito is a very good game, well done and completely closed, a kind of abstract brain-burner but quick game.

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Pastura, by Xavi Bonet y Mertxe Iglesias
A shepherd game for two persons. Another gem, well balanced and really funny to play, with interesting options but not too much hard to think – a truth eurogame. You have sheep pieces, and walls (with L, U or Z shapes). On your turn, you place a sheep on the 6x6 board, or you place a wall. The game is over when all 36 sheeps are placed. Then, the wolves appear: one of the sheeps of each player is a wolf on the other side. They are discovered and each wolf eats the 4 sheeps surrounding it. Now, the scoring: in each region enclosed by the walls on the board, the player with the most sheeps scores its own number of sheeps (if equal, no player scores). If there are a region with 1 sheep, it scores no points. Clear rules (I am sure you could play now with this explanation), and beauty prototype (like almost all the finalist games in the competition, I must say). I can imagine this game being sold on German boardgame shops.

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El Mercado de Tlatelolco, by Victor Melo

I have told this before: I can imagine this game in an published box in a boardgame shop. You feel the eurogame style (if this means something) arousing from this game. The real Tlatelolco market was an important Aztec market, and there we are in this game. Each player sit on a side of the board, with 4 tiles in front - they are its own 4 merchants. The market is in the middle, composed by 4x4 pieces (each merchant has 4 tiles in front of him, and other merchant at the end). One of the market pieces is removed of the game, so now it is possible to change the market, moving a piece to the gap.

There are different tiles on the market:
- Crowds: It blocks your merchant - Each merchant can buy products in the 4 tiles he has behind, but if one of them is a Crowd, the merchant can not see the tiles farther.
- Markets: there are four, one for each kind of goods (in 4 colors).
- Tezcatlipoca, the king: At the end of the game, each kind of goods score as many point as goods of this kind there are on the king tile.
- Governors: If you buy goods and pass on this tile, you must pay one of them to the king – Depends on the moment, it could be even good for you.
- Charger: The same as Governors tile, but now the good goes to the market again.

The goods are cubes in four colors (jewels, cloths, ceramics and grass) , and the reserve is a black bag. The game finished when this bag is with less than four good cubes to refill the market.

On your turn, you have two options.
- You can pass: then you gain seeds (Aztec money). You put a seed on one of your merchants, take 4 goods from the bag to put them on the corresponding color markets, and moves one tile for free to the gap.
- Or you can buy: Using a seed, one of your merchants buy all goods of one kind in front of him (in his own row of tiles). The bought goods are placed on the merchant, and from this moment this merchant can not to buy another kind of good – that’s an important strategic point. If you pay an adittional seed, you can also move a tile to the gap on the board. You can repeat this actions as you have seeds, and in any order. It is important to move the market as you want it, but also move it to disturb the rival merchants.

Color prototype

Easy rules, good and funny playing time, good interaction between players, tactic decisions, opportunities to increase your points and to disturb your opponents… - this game has many good reasons to be played. The result is a tactical game for 2, 3 or 4 persons, in which you can think more or less hard (as you want), but you can play quickly too.

On your turn, you always must think on your own objectives, but also must think on the market situation at the end of your turn. It is very important to move the market to avoid easy buying by the next player. When the game advance and a merchant have bought a kind of good, everything is more difficult because not all goods can be bought by all merchants. The always moving market is really fun and fit the theme (I can see the crowd market flowing), but it prevent about long term strategic movements because each player will move the market before you get a new turn.

The award ceremony

The game can be played as it is, but I know Victor Melo is improving the details in the design (He tried with an advanzed rules, but it was not neccesary for a midle-weight game like this). You can find more about the game on BGG. Maybe the game, the first game designed by Victor Melo, will be published in the future (I hope!).

The game, the author...

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Now, the JxJ Game Design Competition 2008 is runing… We will discover new good games and the authors behind them.

¡Nos jugamos!

© 2008 Jesús Torres Castro

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Comments:

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Thanks for sharing these with us. Your descriptions of several of these games had me itching to try them. One of my favorite things about BGN is the chance to see how gaming is developing around the world. So many interesting games, so little time… Posted by David Lund on Jan 30, 2008 at 09:51 AM | #

The rules for Mundialito are on the Icehouse Games wiki: http://www.icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=Mundialito That 6x6 board with arrows is really just four Martian Coasters (one set). I’m surprised this wasn’t entered in either of the two recent Icehouse Game Design Competitions! Posted by Doug Orleans on Jan 31, 2008 at 12:10 AM | #

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