I attended both Casual and Triple AAA design competitions yesterday and was disappointed in the overall management of the competition. The impression I had from the SXSW entries were that technical merit or perspective wasn’t particularly important.

The primary focus and driver for those selected to present were based on which had the best ’story’. I realize of course the importance of story, but not every game is driven by a narrative. And in my presentation I focused less on story and more on mechanics and technology. Which many of the presenters failed to discuss and at the end of several presentations judges would comment on the lack of substance regarding actual game mechanics. Or in some cases some presenters never even mentioned how the game would even play.

Ultimately, I felt some of the presenters were poor in the substance or content and I didn’t feel like anyone was being innovative. It was all just story and those that had any sort of game play established it was just a rehashed version platforms games like super mario or kirby’s dreamland. Maybe next year they will manage to pick some game designers that are actually do something new.