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Sheep Therapy by Jadanys Clip!

Congratulations to Jadanys, and another big thank-you to everyone who participated in the English-language Game Chef competition this year. Stay tuned for the announcement of the global winner once the other language communities’ winners have been translated.

Your Game Chef 2018 English-language finalists, chosen based on peer review by other participants, are:

The Legend of Alsa Tyrantslayer, by Don Bisdorf
Logout, by Alois Bourguenolle
Sheep Therapy, by Jadanys Clip
The Sinking Tower, by Jeffrey Bo Doon
Cardenio, by David Joria
The Warrior’s Journey, by Michael Meinberg
Colere, by Benjamin Smith

Congratulations to our finalists, and a huge thank-you to everyone who participated in Game Chef as a designer and peer reviewer. You make this competition possible.

Stay tuned for the announcement of the English-language winner next week!

2018 Theme: Lost Stories

People have been telling stories for as long as our species has been around, but the vast majority were not recorded, and have been lost to us. For example, Aeschylus’s play Psychostasia (Weighing of the Souls) was popular when it was performed in the fifth century BCE. But today, only three words (blunt, speedwalking, and sheepskin) remain. Games are a major source of lost stories today. A single game may generate thousands of stories as it is played by different groups. But the adventures of the characters at the table usually disappear as they happen unless the players make a special effort to record their session.

This year, we ask you to think about the concept of lost stories as you design your game. Why are some stories lost, and others are not? How are we affected when stories are lost? Might losing certain stories be a good thing? What would happen if we recovered a story we had thought was lost?

2018 Ingredients: blunt, speedwalking, sheepskin, weigh

Now get designing! When you complete your game, you can submit it here. You have until midnight Hawaii time on August 26!

Game Chef 2018 will run from August 17th to 26th. The contest begins just after midnight New Zealand time on August 17th and ends just before midnight Hawaii time on August 26th, to give everyone the maximum amount of time to work on their games. If you’re excited about this year’s competition, follow our Google+ community, Facebook page, or Twitter to hear the announcement of this year’s theme and ingredients.

And for your reference, a quick chart of starting and ending times around the world:

Once Upon A Full Moon by Pedro Ziviani! Congratulations to Pedro, and a huge thank-you to everyone who participated in this year’s competition. We saw some great games this year and we hope everyone is inspired to keep creating.

Stay tuned for the global winner once the entries from all of the language communities have been translated.

Your Game Chef 2017 English-language finalists, chosen based on peer review by all participants, are:

Firelight – Will Patterson
Once Upon A Full Moon – Pedro Ziviani
Our Friends Over There – Tim Hutchings
Weave – James Iles

This year we had 76 games submitted. The peer reviews on the games were exceptionally positive, and we congratulate all of our participants on their hard work in creating a game. We can’t wait to see what comes of all of the games from this year’s contest.

The English-language winner will be announced on August 14.

The Theme for Game Chef 2017 is Borders.

Borders are critical places, by definition. Through borders, we draw lines and separate, but at borders, we cross, we discover, we meet. Some borders are highly official, like the ones for the countries we live in, and other are informal and unspoken, like the silent rules of a community. Some borders are physical and undeniable, like a mighty river, and some are subtle and shifting, like the boundaries of our comfort zone. We use borders to protect ourselves and to shape our identities, but borders can also restrict and stifle, oppressing and separating unfairly. Some borders we protect with all our strength, other we challenge and try to change. We cross borders to discover, to learn and grow, to challenge our assumptions, and we cross them again to come back home.

For Game Chef 2017, we invite you to design games that explore the concept of borders and boundaries, how we draw them, why we cross them, and what we find beyond.

The ingredients for Game Chef 2017 are Yarn, Echo, Smoke, and Cut.

Game Chef 2017 will run from June 30 to July 10. The contest begins just after midnight New Zealand time on June 30 and ends just before midnight Hawaii time on July 10, to give everyone the maximum amount of time to work on their games. If you’re excited about this year’s competition, follow our Google+ community, Facebook page, or Twitter to hear the announcement of this year’s theme and ingredients.

And for your reference, a quick chart of starting and ending times around the world:

Dallas, USA/London, UK — Game Chef, the yearly international game design competition focusing on analog game design, is excited to announce a new leadership team beginning in 2017. Alberto Muti and Alexandra Zanasi are the new Global Coordinators. Alberto and Alexandra have both served as Community Coordinators for Italian Game Chef, so they have both the experience and passion to manage the international competition beginning this year.

Game Chef Global Coordinators are responsible for creating themes & ingredients every year, and liaising with the coordinating teams for each participating language.

Josh T. Jordan and Rachael Storey, who served as Game Chef Global Coordinators for 2015-2016 are excited to pass the torch to this new team, and will maintain a behind-the-scenes role as part of Alberto and Alexandra’s advisor council. Josh and Rachael are particularly excited that the new leaders are from outside North America. After several years, this international competition will, for the first time, have leaders who aren’t American.

“There’s no way for Rachael and me to predict,” says Josh T. Jordan, ” I have no idea what amazing themes and ingredients Alberto and Alexandra will bring to Game Chef 2017, but I’m very excited to find out. Rachael and I have known these two for a few years now, and we’ve been impressed with their leadership in the Italian Game Chef community, so we know that we’re leaving the international community in good hands.”

“Out of the Cocoon” by Ivan Lania, winner of the Italian language Game Chef competition.

Check out all of our great language community winners that have been translated into English:

• “Agoraphobia,” By Florencia Paula Müller & Lucas Hyon (Spanish)
• “Out of the Cocoon,” by Ivan Lania (Italian)
• “Focus,” by Alexander Carneiro (Portuguese)
• “Matching Hearts,” by Damien «Rahyll» C. (French)
• “Beyond Our Walls,” by Robert Bohl (English)

Congratulations to Ivan, and to everyone who participated in Game Chef 2016. Keep an eye on this space for announcements about Game Chef 2017!