How can you design a game that tricks the player into thinking she or he has psychic abilities? That's the question we posed on a recent Game Design Challenge. Here, we present the three best solutions as chosen by special guest Mick West, a game programmer and founder of Neversoft Entertainment.

Observations
The focal point for judging in this challenge was positive reinforcement. The game didn't have to be overly sophisticated, but it did have to praise the player for doing well, thus focusing their attention on successess or wins rather than losses.

Matt Roberts (with help from fellow students), level design student at The Guildhall at SMU, Project(ion) (page 2)
Using Facebook social engineering, Matt Roberts came up with an idea that
The submission, said Mick West, was well detailed, showed a good sense for using manipulation, and had good positive reinforcement. It's also quite feasible as a concept.

Sina Jafarzadeh, media and computer science student at the Technical University of Dresden in Germany, Psychic! (page 3)
Sina Jafarzadeh's idea was "the best in terms of answering the challenge requirements," said West, though it could have used a bit more positive reinforcement. West also praised the idea for its "good use of probability and visual cues."

Nikhil Murthy, prospective student at Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, India, Sub-Clouded Mind [download: zipped, compressed rar file (please note that this file will only be hosted until 1 August 2008)]
Nikhil Murthy gets props for sending a runnable game. Although the idea is solid, "the gameplay is too slow to create an impression, " said West. "It does not specify what range the numbers are in, so it's hard to guess." The idea holds strong enough to take third place, though because of its subtle use of positive reinforcement, and a nice style that promotes magical thinking. [Note from Murthy: The numpad does not work with the game. Sorry for the oversight.]

Honorable Mentions
Louis Fontaine, MSc AI student at the University of Amsterdam, Precog Outlaw (see page 4)
Louis Fontaine presents an interesting idea with nice use of cues and positive reinforcement.

Peter Fung, McDonnell, Toronto, DS Minigames (see page 5)
Peter Fung's submission was a mixed bag of minigames with very detailed designs.