Wolverine Soft Game Design Contest

Think You Have a Great Game Idea?

This contest allows you to submit you game idea and design in the form of a design document for the chance to win. A design document is a document that describes an idea for a game in great detail. This includes a thorough description of the story, characters, game play, levels, controls, etc. Often, design documents act as pitches for a game idea. If you think you have a great idea for a game, write it up and enter the contest to win some prizes and recognition.

Contest Results

1st Place: The Age of the Monk by Alex Krusz
2nd Place: An Untitled Adventure Game by Paul Skowronek
3rd Place: Corporate War by Paul Skowronek
4th Place: The Dark Hunt by Chris Brown

Congratulations to Alex and thanks to everyone that submitted a design document to the contest.

Submissions

Beginning September 16, 2004, submissions should be emailed to wsoft-design AT umich DOT edu with "Game Design Submission" as the subject. All contest submissions are due by October 8th, 2004.

Include the following information about you or your team in the email:

Name(s)
Uniquename(s)
Game Title
Brief (1 sentence) description of your game
The design document for your game as an attachment

See below for more information on the format of the design document.

Contest Details

Email any questions not answered here to wsoft-design AT umich DOT edu.

Participants

The contest is open to all current University of Michigan students, and current Wolverine Soft members, with the exception of the Contest Coordinators and Judges. You do not need to have the skills to develop your game, just the creativity and imagination to come up with the idea.

Teams

Participants are free to work on their design document in a team of however many people they want. Teams are not required, so you may still work alone if you prefer. If you work in a team, you only need to send one submission email, but be sure to include every team member's name in the email.

Design Documents

Your game idea must be presented in the form of a design document. A design document is a written presentation of a game idea. Most real games begin as design documents written by game designers. It is important to plan out the details of a game before it begins development so that everyone working on the project has a clear idea of what needs to get done to make the game. Here is a good design document template that you can use to structure your document. You are not required to use this template but you can if you are unsure of how to structure your idea. The most important thing to remember when writing your design document is that clear organization and good presentation are key. The document can include pictures, but it does not have to. The description of each facet of your game idea should be as detailed as possible. This includes a detailed description of each level, or a sample level. The length of your design document is up to you, but remember that organization, completeness and detail are very important.

Here are some sample design documents for you to read and get some idea of what is expected:

Design Document for "EYE"

Rules

The rules are subject to change at any time.

By entering the contest, you agree to have your design document posted on the Wolverine Soft website after the contest is over.
You must be willing to participate in the development of your idea into a game should the interest arise. If not, you must be willing to allow other Wsoft members to develop your game idea into a game.
Your game should be reasonably feasible for development on current consoles or PCs with current technology.

Judging

The judging process for this contest aims to select the contest entries that are overall the highest quality and the most likely idea to actually be made into a game if it were pitched at a company.

Contest entries will be judged on the following criteria:

Completeness of the design document (10 points)
- Does the design document describe every aspect of the game?
Organization/Readability of design document (10 points)
- Is the design document well written and well structured?
Feasibility of development of the game on current consoles or PCs with realistic budget (10 points)
- Could this game actually be made into a real game today?
Originality of the idea (10 points)
- Is the idea innovative and different from other games out there?
Appeal of the idea (20 points)
- Does this game sound interesting and fun to play?

Each entry will be read and given a score out of 60 by each of the five judges. The entry with the highest total score will be the winner.

The judges are:

Ed Baraf, Wolverine Soft founder
Hayden Cacace, Wolverine Soft president
Rich Alvarez, Wolverine Soft events coordinator
Andrew Pinson, Wolverine Soft secretary
Nate Bonham, Wolverine Soft publicity coordinator

Prizes

The winner of the contest will receive any current generation console game of their choice!