Gnome Hollow nominated as a 2023 Ion Award Finalist!
For those of you that don’t know… SaltCON is the largest board game convention in the western United States. They also facilitate the largest unpublished board game competition in the United States called the Ion Award. It’s awesome because the games are judged by publishers all over the world as opposed to other competitions judged by gamers.
December 1, 2023 I submitted Gnome Hollow for the 2023 Ion award competition and last week it was selected as one of 4 finalists in the Strategy Game category! I am so thrilled to be selected and am hoping my presentation to the judges will lead to a win!
This is the second competition I have entered as a game designer. I entered a different competition last year and didn’t make the cut to be a finalist. For me this wasn’t disappointing, but rather ignited me to make my design better. I tore into Gnome Hollow and stripped it down. I broke it every way I could think of. I asked others to break it. Eventually, I had to rebuild the ratios of specific colored mushrooms on specific shaped tiles because I realized I had a horrible inflation problem in my game. A hundred iterations later, I played a version of the game with a friend and it worked! He said “Congratulations! You have a game!” and it was an amazing moment!
Being selected as a finalist has confirmed all the positive feedback that friends and fellow game designers have given me. And it has led to a lot of amazing conversations with publishers and game designers all over the world.
Like so many other game designers, we all love what we create, but deep down we all hope that others will love our game too. I think that being selected as a finalist has really given me confidence that my design is really good. But more than that, I think it has taught me that my process for refining and polishing a game is good. It makes me a better designer.
I think the game stands a good chance at winning this award. I am pitching Gnome Hollow next Friday for 45 mintutes to the judges. This is going to be fun!
Wish me luck,
Ammon