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NOTICE OF COMPETITION

PREMIO ARCHIMEDE 2008, organized by studiogiochi, concerns the invention of board games.
The Prize is dedicated to the great Alex Randolph, who was the President of this competition during the first seven editions.
Everybody can participate, there are no age nor nationality limits.
The authors must be non-professionals (this means that the activity of inventing games can’t be their main occupation and they must not be well known in the international scene). The authors can participate either as a single person or as a group.

The Prize is supported by the patronage of the Comune di Venezia and the J.P. Halvah Foundation (founded by the very same Randolph and directed by Herbert Feuerstein). The Foundation offers a support of € 3.500 to the winners, in form of study trips, stages, contributions for the publication, etc.

The official magazine for the competition is Focus Brain Trainer.

Besides the Archimede Award, the jury will assign the Special Award Sebastiano Izzo and many other Awards such as:
Winning Moves Special Trophy, for the best family strategic game. The winner game will be exposed at the Winning Moves stand, during the fair of Essen 2008.
Carta Mundi Special Trophy for the best card game: Carta Mundi will produce for free 1.000 copies of the best card game of the PREMIO ARCHIMEDE and it will present it to the winner; the game will need to have one or two decks and it will be produced with its rules and its case; the graphics will be realized for free by the ScriBabs, that published the winner game of the previous year.

To participate, please send a prototype of the game within the 30th of July 2008 to:

PREMIO ARCHIMEDE 2008
c/o studiogiochi
S. Polo 3083
30125 VENICE


The Prize has a promotional structure and is a non profit event. The members of the jury will work basically as volunteers. The authors are required to give a participation fee of € 25 for each game, to be sent with the prototype. This fee is ment to support a part of the organization costs.
For the payment, please attach to the rules a non-transferable cheque to studiogiochi or else an international postal cheque. There will be a participation certificate for each admitted game, indicating the day of the presentation of the game.
 
The final ceremony will take place in Venice during the Fall of 2008, in collaboration with the Faculty of arts and design IUAV of Venice. Besides a memorial to Alex Randolph, there will be various meetings, expositions and workshops.

The associations that participate to the event will recieve informations about the games competing and will be able to take a look at them.

The authors may recollect their prototypes during the final ceremony; all the non recollected prototypes won’t be returned.

The Prize is also supported by the cooperation of the Musée Suisse du Jeu (Swiss Museum of games) that will organize an exposition of the final games.
 
All the games will need the requirements below.
Without these requirements they won’t be allowed to finalize the competition.
The game
- Has to be original and unpublished.
- Can’t last more than 90 minutes.
The rules
- Have to be typewritten (typewriter or computer) in italian and/or english.
- Have to be easy to understand and exhaustive (including the indication of the contents of the material and the number of players). The jury must not have a hard time understanding them.
- Can’t be written in more than 10.000 characters.
The prototype
- Needs to be contained in a solid cardboard box similar to the games oficially produced. The box has to be easy to open, but also well closed. It must be easy to carry, not too heavy and not bigger than aproximately 40x30x10 cm.
- It has to be functional. For instance the pawns have to be able to stand easily, the spaces have to be enough big, the cards must not be too thin, the colours have to be easy to identify, etc.
- It is not necessary to be presented as a final version, the graphic aspect comes after its use.
- The pieces of the game have to be wrapped separately in order to make it easy to get ready for the game.
- If necessary, the board has to be folded to fit into the box.
- The organization is not responsable for any loss or damage to the prototype during the event.
The authors
On the box and on the rules there must be the name of the game, the name and surname of the authors, their full address, telephone number, and eventually e-mal address.
Advice: Before you send the game, let it be played by the testers without giving any help by explaining the rules and observe how it is been played! That way you will know how you can refine your “creature”.
 
EVALUATION STANDARDS FOR THE GAMES
The jury will consider the games accordingly to the following features (in order of importance):
- Originality of the game mechanisms.
- Playability, balance and functionality of the mechanisms.
- Amusement.
- Interaction of the players.
- The possibility that the game will be taken into consideration from editors to be published.
- Theme coherence.
- Quality of the prototype.