Participants -

Thanks to feedback, Judge discussion and new releases, I have decided to make just a few more major changes to the ruleset.

As you may know, HeroScribe was previously allowed until I was reminded that it did not allow quest notes to be added natively.  With this information I decided to remove it from the jam as adding quest notes to a quest map designed in HeroScribe would break the post processing rule.

After the tool was removed as an option from the jam, a brand new expansion was released for HeroQuest - but assets from the newest release, Against the Ogre Horde, do not have an official jam-certified way to be used in quests.

In addition, there are other official assets that do not have a way to be used in the allowed tools.

I have executed what shall be the final rule changes for the upcoming jam today, and am very pleased to announce the following changes:

HeroScribe is now allowed as a tool to create quests.  If using HeroScribe, participants are allowed to edit their work to add quest notes.

In addition, if using hQuestBuilder or QuestBooklet, participants are allowed to edit their exported files to add tiles and other icons from the official expansions into their work.  Participants may still not use image or PDF editing to manipulate the quest notes (i.e resizing text to avoid a second page).  

With these changes, a new judged category has been added to accommodate the judges when scoring quests.  Judges will now score participants based on accessibility of the quest, i.e how accessible the quest is to setup and play.  This is scored subjectively, will differ depending on the perspective of each judge, and likely score lower the more assets are crammed into a quest.

To accommodate participants who have had to work hard to stay within the stringent lines of the restrictions placed upon them by the current rules, the Jam submission START and END dates have been pushed back by one week.  Use this new extension of time wisely to make any necessary changes to your quests with the new tools and resources at your disposal!

This will be the last surprise for the jam - I hope the changes will be received well!  

Be sure to note that the rule pertaining to the asset limit now excludes wandering monsters - this means wandering monsters will not count towards the asset limit in any quest!

Enjoy, comment anything you like below and I'll see you at submission!

Ash

Am I understanding this correctly? I just added a bit of flavor to the quest: statues, tiles, stairs.

Now I should remove them again to score a higher accessibility score? Should i also only use monsters and furniture from the base game to max out accessibility?

This would be a whole new quest.

I admit this confuses me too should we be sticking to just the base game set to increase scores?  Would certainly make for a lot less variety of this is the case.

the challenge of how much to add to a quest is part of the jam.

I won't personally advise how much is too much, but I will be frank here - a judge who decides the creative aspects of your quests is worth the work to build it may judge the accessibility accordingly (mercifully), and another judge who does not see the point of additions may deduct.

Using base assets is "safe", but trust me when I say that there are quests that will use a LOT of assets in a way that will rank just as highly.   It's subjective and there will not be a mathematical formula that gaurantees anyone a win.

I want to see quests that you, the participants, want to build - the ones you are excited to make.  If you worry about chasing a high score to win and put aside your creativity, your quests may suffer for it!

Thanks for the reply that clarifies things!