Ten Days Left to Enter the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge

The Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge


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Only a Few Days Left to Enter Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge
Ambitious Contest Challenges Designers to Create Games to Last Lifetimes

On New Year's Eve 2010, game designer Daniel Solis issued a challenge to the entire game community: Design a game that people will still play in the year 3011. And he offered $1,000 of his own money, just to make it interesting.

Since then, the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge attracted new game designers from all over the world, as well as industry stalwarts Greg Stolze and James Ernest.

"I entered the contest because I liked the idea of designing games that aren't intended for sale." Ernest said. "We tend to identify game design as product design, but they are really two disciplines. Unfortunately, if it can't be sold, it typically never gets made. So this was a great chance to do that."

The Challenge has also drawn praise from games scholar and Gameful co-founder Jane McGonigal. She tweeted it "gets people designing beautiful ambitious games." Even the Long Now Foundation, builders of the epic Ten-Thousand-Year Clock, helped spread the word to their longevity-minded community.

Now there are only ten days left for game designers to submit their creations to the Thousand-Year Game Design Challenge. This contest awards $1,000 to the creator of a game that will still be played in a thousand years. The deadline for entries is August 31st.

ABOUT DANIEL SOLIS
Daniel Solis is an award-winning game designer of Happy Birthday, Robot! and Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple, both co-operative storytelling games directed at young players. By day, he is Associate Creative Director at Third Degree Advertising.

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