Last year, 2013, was the last year for the amazing GDC Game Design Challenge.  It was a highlight of every GDC, but this year it was nowhere to be found.  This left a hole in our hearts which I am attempting to fill today, by beginning a game design challenge of our own!

I'm your moderator, Rob Lockhart, and I've brought together a group of amazing designers, who will each do their best to create game designs for the theme, which is... Well, I'll tell you the theme in a little bit.  First, let's meet our contestants!

Chris Bell is a game designer currently working with Giant Sparrow, the creators of  'The Unfinished Swan.'  Previously he designed 'Journey' with thatgamecompany and 'Way', the award-winning game about empathy and communication that launched his career (free at http://www.makeourway.com/). Chris has been able to create amazing bonds between strangers with a thoughtful, authentic approach to design.

Jenn Sandercock is an independent game designer with a lot of innovative and compelling projects under her belt.  Titles like 'The Dragon Whisperers' -- a game for two people trying to communicate with a dragon when each of them only has half the dragon dictionary -- have demonstrated how willing Jenn is to go beyond conventional game mechanics.

Jake Elliott (on the left) is half of the game studio Cardboard Computer, creators of the amazing episodic game series 'Kentucky Route Zero,' but the first of his projects I saw was 'Beulah and the Hundred Birds,' which is a game about his grandmother as a young woman collecting birds into a flock.  Though steeped in a digital aesthetic, Jake has an appreciation for atmosphere that is very theatrical.

Tanya Short is the founder of Kitfox Games, whose Sci-Fi RPG/roguelike 'Shattered Planet' is stretching the limits of those labels.  She's currently working on 'Moon Hunters,' a randomly generated open world adventure that promises to be both action-packed and accessible.  Tanya seems to be enthralled by player choice -- allowing for choices in identity, moment-to-moment action, crafting and user-generated content -- she seems to optimize her work for interesting decisions.

Liz Ryerson is an independent game designer, composer, writer, and digital artist. Her work aims to re-evaluate the ways we experience and understand digital spaces - and examine the strange, forgotten threads of game history that might lead us into new territory. Her game 'Problem Attic' explores the troubled psychological landscapes of its protagonist through willful abstraction and unconventional game design choices.

John Murphy is part of the Young Horses team that brought 'Octodad: Dadliest Catch' into the world.  He is also an in-school game designer for ChicagoQuest, a middle and high school which infuses its lessons with games and gamelike experiences at every level.  John's designs have a humor and childlike playfulness that makes them irresistible.

I'm pretty confident that these folks are going to knock your socks off.

Here's how the challenge will work.  Each of these impressive individuals will create a video describing their design, and in about three weeks you, the Gamasutra readers, will decide whose idea you like the best.

Now, what everyone's been waiting for...

THE THEME

That's all, Folks!  Good luck to our participants, and we'll see you all again in three weeks!

~

Your Host, Rob Lockhart is creator of Codemancer, an educational fantasy adventure game which is now on Kickstarter.