Pseudocontest, days six and seven

Another Nibykonkurs finished. We managed to hit magical 19 (for 19th edition) which is a record. And as always, I've managed to underdevelop my game. That gives me hope I'll finish it later and in English, so it will be available for a larger audience.

How is White Frost doing? Well, I came up with an idea of a game that deceives players. All the action is unimportant in the final scene. It doesn't matter how much Frost they have, how many of them survived. The only thing is what will they do when they see the Czar.

It's smoke and mirrors. A lie that could never be told within gm-less game, where all the content is produced in cooperation with other players. In here the truth about Czar and his reasons is hidden. The question emerges suddenly, out of nowhere and becomes crucial. That evokes a set of emotions which is unavilable in a different game. This game tries with all its power to convince you it's not a story game based on a single question. It utilizes standard exploration to make you believe you're deeply in normal game, but than switches the gear and stops you - at least that is what I expect.

I have to finish it and translate it to English. Estimated time of arrival: May 2013.

Pseudocontest, day four (and five)

All hells broke loose, as it always is, when any deadline is close. It was just a matter of time. But I've managed to cure the gin hangover and finally get to work. It was mostly courage and iron will, with just a hint of wedge the wedge policy.

Couple of surveys and conversations gave me the distance I needed to finally pick which game concept to develop. And again there is a rule - when all the concepts equally suck stick to the first idea. Mostly because it's probably the simplest one. The other are just building on or building against it. But always there is the original concept hidden inside, so why bother with extra content?

White Frost (Czarist Russia + Dream Time) it is, then.

Pseudocontest, day three

Elevator pitch is a term from the movie industry. Imagine, you're in Hollywood with great ambition to became a screenwriter. But life is harsh, and only career available is that of a porter. One day you're ordered to take care of Kevin Smith and his luggage. You have exactly 30 seconds one on one. Ding, goes the elevator. Five floors, thirty seconds, your career at stake. Can you do it?

Good pitch shouldn't be longer than 10-20 words for a personal intro or 50-100 for a business one. A similar thingy is one of the three Jared Sorensen's questions: what is your game about. The main difference is that pitch sells the game idea, and Jared's question is more about the performance based on the game. But The Questions (various ones) are the song of (day after) tomorrow. For now - the pitches:

Pseudocontest, day two

It's time to break down the ingredients. I've already spent some time yesterday thinking what can be cooked of the stuff provided. And one thing must be said: the more awesome phrases, the harder it is to combine them into anything fruitful. This is the rule of Pseudocontest. Screw that, some hard work should give me a decent splash of memes to work with.

So, I took the mind mapping software (I would normally use a sheet of paper, but since I had an idea to publish it here it must have been made at least readable). Here is the breakdown of the ingredients. The iron rule worked as predicted. An hour of brainstorming left me with a number of semantic fields and pictures, but nothing with a real spark.

Pseudocontest, day one

Pseudocontest is a Polish game desing competition, based on a popular Game Chef formula. In 7 years the community managed to pull off 18 editions with a decent number of almost a 100 games written. After a longrer period of inactivity we've re-activated the contest and launched it for the 19th time.

The basic idea is: write a game in a week, using two of the three presented ingredients. This edition's host, mr. Paladyn, presented us with a quite hard set: The Dreamtime (meaning: the Australian Aboriginals beliefs and spirit world), Czarist Russia and Paradise Lost (I presume Milton, not the metal band).

Smoke and Mirrors: on the role of the GM

Some time ago on a convention far away we had an arguement fueled by Ben Robbins' articles on GM-less gaming.

It was mostly me vs. my old-school friend Tomasz considering Vampire: the Masquerade as a milestone in gaming (and they never felt any urge to be more up-to-date with games). And the WFB game the rest of the crew played gave us an opportunity to run quite long conversation about games, gaming and GMing.

I do agree with most of the ideas from Ben's GM-less playing panel - but Tomasz gave me very interesting concept on the purpose of having GM. Besides all the common reasons (run game, watch rules, police the group, invent scenario, play npcs) he said something that was quite strange to me - GM is there to deceive the players, enforce their suspension of disbelief. His act is like a magician's one - you know it's all smoke and mirrors, a sleight of hand. But you can't see it (and won't, cannot nor even should). The sacred mystery is saved. When you're playing GM-less game there's no place for smoke and mirrors. Everything is happening right here. No kunstwerk, as zie Germans would say.

Hello World!

The story goes like that: once upon a time a great game designer and wonderful man John Wick was invited to came to Poland. He dared to joke whether polar bears are walking down the streets here. And the insult stuck. So, here we are. Polar Bear Games.


We like games. We play games. We design games.
Games from the furthest East.


[PBG Logo by Rafał 'ninetongues' Sadowski ]