The Results of the Microgames Design Contest 2002


The contestant worked thier magic, the judges played the creations. Now we see just whose cusine will reign supreme....sorry too much Iron Chef.


Aside from honor and glory of doing a job well done the winners in each category as well as the #1 and #2 overall winners will be spotlighted in a special issue of Countermoves. All entries have the option of being publish in Countermoves.


First place overall gets first pick of any two prizes listed below. Second place overall gets the pick of one prize listed below.


Task Force Games Valkenburg Castle

Metagamings Artifact

Interplay #1

ButtonMen Vampires (Angel/Buddy)

US Patent Number 1

20 bucks

Countermoves #2 color printed version



Before we go any further I want to thank everyone who helped out in doing the MDC2002. I learnt a lot form it and hope the next one will be even better. I want to thank all those who entered games, they all are winners. I also want to thank those who sent in judge reports. I also want to thank my wife for not killing me during the contest.
From the time I started to plan it till now we have had a newborn son enter the house:)- It makes me want to do a Newborn Microgame..but not right now.


Now...it is time.


In first place....Brian Train's Operation Whirlwind.

In second place...a three way tie

Joe Scoleri' Glider Pit Gladiator 2002

David Allen's Harvest the Wind

Gottardo Zancani's Steel and Crystal

Countermoves is proud to announce that it is now part of the Sourceforge Open Source Community. A new site is being hosted on the Sourceforge servers to facilitate distribution of the Countermoves publications, several mailing lists and discussion forums, game development collaboration tools and a host of other services which will make interaction between the game developers, players and readers more efficient.


You can find the new Workspace, News, Message Forums, Files section on the navigation bar near the top of this page.

Updates Updates



Microgame Design Contest News

The deadline for judgng has been pushed back to Aug 15th 2002. The sheer amount of great games submitted has left more than a few judges needing more time to fully report on the games. So if you have not already, pick up one, some or all of the games at the MDC2002 Games Warehouse, play them, and write up a judges report to send in (send them to mdc2002@wsmf.org ). The reports can be as short (rate them by the numbers) or as verbose as you want, but everyone will help the game designers not only win prizes but tune up thier games to be even better.



Countermoves Zine News


The last issue (vol 2 iss 2) really took a lot of work to do up and so we have revamped our outlook for future issues. Rather then trying to put out WarandPeace sized issues we will work to put out more regular issues which will be easier for folks to print out and distribute.


Yes I got carried away with Issue 2, I admit it. I went color crazy and insert crazy and drove my wife crazy. Thankfully the voice of reason sat me down and told me what i need to do..that is focus on the goal of what the zine is supposed to be. It is supposed to be a way to get cool games to as many people as possible via a geurilla distribution system. Putting out big assed glossy looking affairs may be cool for the ego but horrible for the goal.


So we scale to realistic proportions and my wife stops glowering at me every time I talk about stappling centered evenings.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/microgamesdesigncontest2002/files/


The Microgame Design Contest 2002 is a place for game developers to show off thier Iron Chef Game Design skills and for game players to judge the works.May 1st 2002 is the deadline for geame developers for entering games, and then the real fun starts...judging. Here is a list of the games you can playtest and judge. Deadline for judging is June 1st 2002.

BlitzCommander -A microgame representing Operational Level Warfare during World War 2 by J. Pardeck

Glider-Pit Gladiators 2002-A microgame of ancient aerial combat by Joe Scoleri

Harvest The Wind- A microgame of tactical combat in the 19th Century American West by David Allen

Leetown and Elkhorn Tavern- A microgame of the the Civil War battles in Leetown and Elkhorn Tavern Arkansas by James Acerra

Operation Whirlwind -A microgame of the situation in Budapest in November 1956 by Brian Train

Richthofen WWI Air Combat Car -by Michael Maners

Search Diver- Search Diver is a microgame involving dive planning and underwater search by David H. Allen

Steel And Crystal -A solo microgame of conquest in a fantasy land by Gottardo Zancani

WarpQuest -An abstract microgame system that depicts goal driven scenarios by Lloyd Krassner and the WarpSpawn Crew

WarpSkirmish -An abstract microgame system that utilizes a mix of board, card, dice and unit elements to create a system with chess-like strategy, fog-of-war uncertainty and module expandability by Lloyd Krassner and the WarpSpawn Crew

Way Of The Warrior-
A solo microgame system to simulate small tactical war operations by Gottardo Zancani

Countermoves Zine Volume 1 Issue 2
is done. You can find the PNGs to print out at the Countermoves Files Section

Countermoves Zine Volume 1 Issue 1

is available for printing, distributing and sharing

in the File section of the Countermoves site

One month and a load of news to tell.


Two Zinelettes have been released to the public.

The first is of Lloyd Krasner's Malta Convoy. a great little solo dice simulation of the hard won naval mission.

The second is of the Countermoves Generic Microgame Engine. This is the core rules to create just about any microgame you can think of. An example gameworld is included. Expect to see lots more CGME gameworlds and gamesets in future zines and zinelettes.


The draft of our first issue of the Zine is now complete and getting its final workover. The public release is expected on 12/22/01. The issue is 34 pages packed full of games, articles and variants. Its amazing how fast this issue came about. Issue 2 is already getting material.

Stephan has done an amazing job with the new web site for Countermoves. You can now reach our main page simply by going to http://countermoves.net This section will continue to be the news section, so look here for whats cooking.

I have added some new features here that might be useful. First off, look up right under the Countermoves logo, which comes to us by way of the creative hands of Mr Trevor Blake.

Under this logo you will find a few links that point to some useful Countermove sections. he first is the NEWS section, which is what your reading, the second is the MESSAGE BASE which you is the conversational board, the third is the FILES section where you will find the parts and the whole of the zine and zinelettes, The fourth is the ARCHIVES of the news section and lastly is the CONTACT information, a place to email us.

Next off is a way to COMMENT on the news items here. After each news item will be the name of the person who posted the item, a time stamp and then a way to COMMENT on it. This should be used for the items posted here , for further conversation about Countermoves head on over to the MESSAGE BASE.

Give it a whirl and see how it flies.

The first issue of Countermoves the Zine will most likely be put out in mid December 2001.

We are well on our way to proofing the articles already sent in and are looking forward to getting more to inlcude in the zine. Head on over to the Message Board and join the fray.

We have a pressing need for artists.

Here will be the Countermoves Portal. I have gone and paid the fee to get rid of the ad banner up top, so that should be gone soon. I will work on formating the page to be more countermoves friendly over the next day or so.

More as it happens.