Well, we have enough volunteers to get started. Rather than making assignments, let's start by letting people pick the games they want to try. As a reminder, the list of games to go through is here: http://icehousegames.org/wiki/index.php?title=New_in_2009. I am willing to do: - Amoeba, because I've played it already. - Dectana, because I just got the 2 Dectet decks I ordered in the mail. And all the games from Anthony Kapolka's First Year Foundations Class, because I have working with Anthony on getting missing files ready to upload to the wiki (which will happen soon). That includes: - Around & Around - Behind Enemy Lines - Candy Capture - Capture the Card - Dash - The Fast and Ferocious; or, Black Ice - Horde Runners - Icehouse Baseball - Ice House Bowling - Ice Points - IceRace - One Square at a Time to the Capture - Race to the Top -Switch House! - Topple - Tree House Rush - Tri-Prism Face Off - Zoink! This isn't as big of a load as it seems. A couple of them do not have available files, and several of them will be very quickly handled, being rather weak designs. Don't feel obligated to claim many games to start with -- doing just a few will help. This is a first pass, a "slush pile" judgement to see what games are worthy to be evaluated by several people in consideration to be a finalist. Think of their general appeal -- don't cut a good design just because it's not the sort of game you like to play. I propose the following method for posting your evaluations: after playing the game enough to decide whether it deserves making the cut to the intermediate level, place your comments about it in the "discussion" page for the game in question, labeling your comments "2009 Game Award evaluation". Point out strengths and weaknesses, and why you think it is or is not worth having others look at it. Be nice; make criticisms helpful for the designer, and others looking at it, to understand why you make your judgement, what worked and what didn't, how to do better. So, feel free to pick a few games to try out, and let the rest of us know! Bryan