This is the second year the Design & Play game design competition is held.
I am one of the judges, together with five other local game designers and
publishers. Our goal in doing this is to encourage others to try their hands
at game design, to develop Malaysian game design, and to bring more good
Malaysian games to the world. This year we had 113 registrations. By the time
of submission (2-minute video and rulebook required), 65 contestants managed
to have their games ready. We have now completed the judging for the first
round, and shortlisted our top 9 - our finalists. We are supposed to have just
the top 8, but because scores were close, we agreed to make it nine. This
exact same thing happened last year. It might become a tradition. Now the
finalists are sending to us their physical prototypes, and we will have a
judging day for all of us to play the games. Final results are to be announced
on Malaysia Day, 16 September 2026.
These are our Top 9 (in random order):
Our judging process requires that every game be rated by at least three
judges. Around position 8 we had several games tied in points. All these games
were then rated by the other judges who had not rated them yet. Even after
this scoring, the points for some games were very close. So we agreed to again
make an exception and have nine finalists this year instead of the originally
planned eight.
Here are some of my thoughts after having completed the judging for our first
round.
1. The overall quality of the games has gone up. There are more games that
make me feel I want to try them. There are some games I am keen to try which
did not make it to the top 9, because they didn't do as well with other
judges.
2. AI has been helpful in making prototype art and rulebook layout. Many games
look great. Art is not scored, but it does make our lives as judges a bit
happier. It helps us get into the mood of the games. We are better able to
imagine what it feels like. I am guessing some participants asked AI to help
proofread and tidy up their rulebooks. This certainly made our lives easier
too. I suspect some asked AI to write the rules or design the game for them.
These did not work out well at all. They were incomplete and did not make
sense.
3. I reflect on the fact that we as judges are so very imperfect. As I do the
judging, I question myself - who am I to judge this game? How good a game is
is subjective. As judges, we all have our biases. Although there are six of
us, I think even as a group we still have some common biases. We may think a
game is too simple and lacks meaningful decisions, but if that game gets
fantastic art and is marketed well, it might become a viral hit none of us
would have expected. Fun is subjective. Despite my imperfection, I still need
to do my job as a judge, and I rate the games to the best of my ability. I
need to be able to articulate at least to myself why a game is good or
bad.
4. I am a little surprised that some good designers did not make it to the top
9. Some of them participated last year. Some of them have participated in
other competitions, or we have seen their designs elsewhere. I interpret this
as: even when you are a good designer, not every one of your games will be
great. Some are better than others, but you keep at it and you keep improving
your average quality. I also interpret it as: sometimes your idea just doesn't
click with the judges, due to their personal preferences and biases.
5. We have new faces in the top 9. That's a good thing.
I think we have already achieved the most important goal of the competition.
It is to get many people to be doing game design, discussing it, giving
feedback to one another, learning from doing, gaining experience. I don't want
to sound like I'm trying to console those who didn't make it to the finals. I
truly believe one very important thing you get from competitions is what you
learn and how you become better at designing a game. That is why all of us
judges take the time to write feedback for every game we judge.
This is the Youtube playlist of the 2-minute video introductions for the Top
9 games:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO9jzqUhmrEI
This is for all contestants:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLciPyvfyKznI
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