[blank] design challenge

Following on the heels of my post about the 24-hr comic and it's similarity to the Indie Game Jam, here's another comparison.

In this case, I was reading a post over at VentureBlog (yes, I read a lot of blogs. My RSS agregator is my "Information Beer Bong") about the goings on over at Foo Camp (description here, it's a get together/mini-conference organized by Tim O'Reilly).

On of the sessions they do there is something called "Halfbaked.com: Entrepreneurial Improve Theatre", in which teams are randomly assigned two-word combinations and then have fifteen minutes to prepare a pitch to a panel of pretend VCs (some of whom are real VCs).

Sounds a lot like the GDC's Game Design Challenge, no? I guess that kind of time-pressure, audience feedback, format is common, but it's interesting that it seems to always produce good results.

BTW, The winning entry was "Bottlecap Porn", and I'd argue it wasn't only a good entry, but an novel business idea that actually could work. (See the website for the short pitch)