Fair enough on not making "affordability" or alignment with the current LL product line a requirement for the games--though I sincerely hope the voters keep that as a strong influence on their rankings. I agree with Carlton, however, that a theme competition (where theme isn't a purely mechanical requirement, like "use Volcano Caps") isn't necessarily restrictive or even likely to result in several identical games. Many times, the theming will be simply flavor--much like all the "Martian" games, for which martianess certainly is not a mechanical element. I'd say the more abstracted the theme terms, the more likely folks will latch onto them in wild and interesting ways. Also, the Iron Game Chef contest typically offers two sets of four terms, and one picks which three terms from ONLY ONE of the sets that one will use. (Plus, not all Icehouse games are board games.) As for award logos/graphics, I would just put out a call for submissions and then let folks vote on their favorites. I'd recommend keeping them around 100px x 100px, so they aren't too obtrusive. Of course, someone has to (permanently!) host them, for them to show on the (broken) wiki. I'd might be nice to also have a 10px x 10px version of each, for adding to links to the games, as opposed to the large graphic, which should only be used on the game's main page. RE: 1 game per person may be entered in each of the two contests - I see why you'd want that (avoid spamming fifty lame games, trying to get a win), but it also seems less "open." Brian's "voter self-correcting" notion will tend to make someone lose, who spams games: voters won't slog through five games from one designer, if the first couple are poor quality. RE: entry for the 2nd contest of the year closes prior to announcing the winner of the previous contest - That sort of clashes with the idea of "can resubmit" for open and themed: how could I know I should resubmit if I don't know if I've won or lost, yet? Surely, a game can't *win* both contests, right? What were you really wanting from this? Finally, I wonder if we might consider having more than one winner/winning category, for each competition? Have folks rank games in the following Awards: * Most Fun To Play * Most Innovative * Best Presentation * Grand Champion We could even have that be the "primaries" folks have proposed, if there's a lot of game submissions: only the top two or three in any given minor category are considered for the Grand Champion award (which involves another round of voting). Of course, that's more icons for Award ribbons/stars/logos. :) So... on to specifics.... WHEN we gonna open submissions? WHERE will submissions have to go--wiki, e-mail to organizer, wiki + notify organizer, wiki with the [[Category:2007Contest]] tag? HOW long between start and end--when does submission acceptance end and voting begin? WHAT are admissible games--I am curious if a derivative game would be admitted, like Ikkozendo? Thanks, all; David