Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition

Judging and Awards

Judging

• The puzzles and one-page descriptions will be on display during the Puzzle Party, and will be available for hands-on examination. (The designers' names will not be revealed until the announcement of the results.)
• Puzzlers' Award: each registered Puzzle Party attendee may select his or her top five puzzles, based on personal preference or the suggested voting criteria. Ballots must be returned by the end of the designated review period, as announced at the Puzzle Party.
• Jury Prize voting: the judging panel is selected in advance by the organizing committee. Typically this will include eligible members of the committee and one or two people from the host country. Each judge will select 5-7 puzzles from the pool of entries that they feel distinguish themselves from the other puzzles in the competition. Then the judges decide as a group what awards to give and which puzzles shall receive them. Any member of the organizing committee that submits a puzzle to the competition will not participate in selecting the judges or take part in the actual judging.

The following are the tentative 2008 Design Competition jury members: 

• Nick Baxter (chair), Oskar van Deventer, Gary Foshee, Marcel Gillen, Naoaki Takashima, and Jerry Slocum.

Judging Criteria

• All judges are asked to consider the following criteria, balanced by their personal preferences:

Innovation
How innovative is a new puzzle design; or how inventive is the new application of  known principles? Emphasis should be given to designs that are completely new.

Physical Design
How well does the physical design work together with the puzzle mechanism? How beautiful is the physical design, considering the workmanship, artistry, and use of appropriate materials?

Positive Solving Experience
How "fun" and rewarding is the puzzle to solve?

• For the Puzzlers' Award, each Puzzle Party attendee will simply rank their top five favorite designs. It will be up to the individuals to decide how important they feel each of the above criteria are for their selections.

Awards

• The Puzzlers' Award will be given to the puzzle that gets the highest overall score from the Puzzle Party attendee voting.

• One or more juried prizes will be awarded, as determined by the judging committee.

• The winners will be announced during Puzzle Party.

• Prizes will include suitable trophies, pins, plaques or certificates.

• The results of the competition will be reported in the Puzzle Party Souvenir Booklet and on the Design Competition web site.