Announcing the Game Design Contest Finalists!

After much deliberation and reviewing many great game ideas, our selection is now down to four!  Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a game into the 2012 Marbles Game Design Contest!  We were very impressed with all of the entries and how many brainy ideas are out there.  To vote for your favorite game and who you think should win the $2,000, leave a comment below, or head on over to our Facebook page to let us know there!

>Head to Head: The game consists of 2 brains (aka game boards). You win by gaining control of three of five parts of your opponent’s brain (frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, Cerebellum) or gaining Brain Stem. Players gain control of one part of their opponents brain by having three of your Invader Cells occupying one section of your opponent’s brain.

Each player has 10 Defender Cells (white marbles) and 10 Invader Cells (black marbles). Invader cells are used to attack your opponent’s brain; Defender Cells protect your brain. Rolling the colored die decides players’ moves. Once each player has 3 Defender Cells in their brain, they can begin invading their opponent’s brain. Each player can move only one cell per turn. A player can eliminate one of his/her opponent’s Invader Cells or Defender Cells by using the opposite Cell of his/her own to eliminate it.  Once you eliminate one of your opponent’s cells, that cell becomes yours to use on future turns. Defender cells can never be placed in your opponent’s brain. Play ends when one player successfully gains control of three of the five parts of the Brain or until one player has gained control of their opponent’s Brain Stem.

Mt. Cleverest: Everyone picks a color and places their two ice picks on their basecamp.  You must attempt to move one of your climbing axes up a level.  Your ice picks are attached, so they may not reach the next position on the mountain.  If no position can be secured, you can move the part of the mountain that is above you 1 click in any direction.  This is counted as a move.  The mountain only moves .5 inch at a time so it may take several moves to secure a position at the next level.  If when you move the mountain, you cause another player to no longer reach their secured position, they remove their climbing axe and must use their next turn to secure a new position or risk falling all the way off the mountain. Once both your climbing axes have reached the top of the mountain you can plant your flag and claim yourself KING OF THE MOUNTAIN. Be the first climber to reach the top of the mountain and plant your flag.

Rock Me Archimedes: A unique and exciting two-player strategy game that challenges players’ critical thinking skills, hand-eye coordination, and manual dexterity. The game consists of a narrow board that rocks like a teeter-totter, a special die, and red and blue marbles. Players take turns placing marbles in the center of the board or moving them towards the outside ends, while trying to avoid tilting the board too far to one side of the teeter-totter. The first player to get four marbles to his or her end of the board without causing the board to touch the table is the winner. Sounds simple—well, it is simple, but it’s not easy. Even one marble placed too far from the center will tip the board over if it’s not balanced by one on the other side! The object of the game is to get four of your colored marbles into the corresponding colored end zone on the rocker board, without causing the board to tip over.

Wordedgy: Each player grabs a letter block at random. Who’s got the earliest letter in the alphabet? You go first! Hang on to that letter! Arrange the other letter blocks randomly in a five by five grid on the board. It should look like a word search.

Each turn, the player slides their letter block in from top, bottom, left, or right, shifting a column or row over one space. Identify what words you’ve created. Look closely! You’ve got to spot the words to score for them! Score one point for each letter of each word created by the shift. Words must run left to right or top to bottom. Like a crossword! Words don’t need to include the added letter, but they do need to be created by the shift. Words can cross, but not overlap. You could score for for MATE and SAW, but not for MAT and MATE. The player on the left goes next, using the block knocked off the grid in the previous turn. Keep that in mind when you play! Once a player has scored with a word, no player can score with the same word again. If you think a word isn’t real, challenge the turn! If any words aren’t in the dictionary, the player doesn’t score anything! If they all are, you lose your next turn! The first player to fifty points wins!