24 Years of The Interactive Fiction Competition

October 2, 2018 5:56 PM

2018's IFComp has seventy-seven entries, which is actually less than 2017's seventy-nine entries - a long way from 1995's twelve. This year shows a continued trend of browser-based online games, although ADRIFT and Z-code based games still make a showing. This year's organizer is Jacq, who previously organized IntroComp, which helps IF writers consider try new things out and gauge reactions before finishing the whole game.

(previously: 2015, 2011,2009,2007,2006.)

posted by cobaltnine (18 comments total)

what

no.

look I didn’t write a full zcode game back in the 90s and then I thought for some reason that the zcode scene was dead or moribund and that I had missed my chance to write one, and NOW you tell me that right here in the godforsaken year 2018 zcode is not only not moribund but actually more of a thing than it was in the 90s? you tell me that I have in fact NOT missed my
chance?

shit. this is a hell of a thing to saddle me with. because of you I’ve got to write a fucking zcode game.

I hope you’re happy.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:02 PM on October 2, 2018 [17 favorites]

tbf tho I do enjoy thinking about the confusion that publishing interactive fiction under this name might produce.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:06 PM on October 2, 2018 [11 favorites]

Strongly recommend you download and play both Counterfeit Monkey (2012) by Em Short, and Hadean Lands (2014) by Andrew Plotkin. (Technically I'm not sure they are zmachine games, they might be some more complicated thing.)

There was also this relatively recent talk by Graham Nelson, the creator of the Inform Programming Language.
posted by vogon_poet at 6:08 PM on October 2, 2018 [8 favorites]

For the record, both Hadean Lands and Counterfeit Monkey are Glulx games. It's a successor format to ZCode, which allows larger programs and fancier sound and graphics. You can write them both with the Inform programming language mentioned above, so in practice the differences are pretty slim from an author's PoV.
posted by Alensin at 6:25 PM on October 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

I bought Hadean Lands but oh my goodness is playing text adventures painful on an iPhone. Not recommended except on a desktop.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:09 PM on October 2, 2018

Hadean Lands and Counterfeit Monkey are far and away the best IF games I've ever tried.

Hadean Lands might have broken the genre for me. Its quality-of-life improvements are so impressive that it's hard to go back to a game without them.
posted by painquale at 9:13 PM on October 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've been toying with an idea about an IF game about a supervillain whose superpower is monologuing. I should actually implement it and submit it for next year's comp.
posted by Merus at 11:57 PM on October 2, 2018 [6 favorites]

Before my house was attacked by weather, I had started a CYOA that was erotic novel in one direction, lovecraftian in another, and a vanilla path that hinted at the other two. I wonder if I have a backup of it anywhere.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 4:57 AM on October 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

I encourage y'all to judge the games. Even though there's seventy-seven entries, you only need to rate 5 games. You can go to the ballot page, hit the "Random Shuffle" button, and play the first five games in the list that strike your fancy. Some take 15 minutes or less. Then go to the vote page and give them a score from 1 to 10. You can even drop an anonymized note to the author on the vote page.

As an entrant last year, seeing how people voted and getting their feedback meant a lot. Folks like me who are more well-known in the community tend to get more votes and more feedback. By picking games at random, you're helping spread that love to less-well-known authors.
posted by sgranade at 7:13 AM on October 3, 2018 [8 favorites]

Strongly recommend you download and play both Counterfeit Monkey (2012) by Em Short

In place of a strikethrough'd FTFY, because I am not speaking for you, here's my version of that:

Strongly recommend you download and play anything you can find by Em Short

I'm also a big fan of Adam Cadre's Endless, Nameless. If you were into IF in the 90s, you may remember him as the author of Photopia.
posted by solotoro at 7:54 AM on October 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

look I didn’t write a full zcode game back in the 90s and then I thought for some reason that the zcode scene was dead or moribund and that I had missed my chance to write one, and NOW you tell me that right here in the godforsaken year 2018 zcode is not only not moribund but actually more of a thing than it was in the 90s? you tell me that I have in fact NOT missed my
chance?

You have not missed your chance, but you might want to try a few modern works of IF, cause the genre has expanded a wee bit since Graham Nelson rocked the world of Infocom fans by dropping Curses in our lap in 1993.

Prepare to have your idea of what a zcode game can be explode like a piñata , spewing new ideas everywhere.
posted by straight at 7:55 AM on October 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am doing this right now! The thing I am having a hard time with is judging games fairly when I know some are harder to write than others. Like, am I judging things for their class, for enjoyment, etc? Because of course I'm going to enjoy a two hour game written for a parser more than I am going to enjoy a fifteen minute twine game - but if I rate all the fifteen minute twine games low, that doesn't really help sort out which are the good ones and which are the bad ones.

(thus far, for choice based stuff, I enjoyed Abbess Otilia the most)
posted by corb at 11:30 AM on October 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

IFComp doesn't specify how to judge since that's a hard thing to say. I've rated some works high because they have neat puzzles, and I've rated others high because their writing is stellar.

After a while I settled on the question, "How much do I feel this work should place high in the competition?" Whether that's because I thoroughly enjoyed the work or because it spoke to me artistically or because I thought it was a crowning technical achievement. If you find the two-hour parser works more worthy than short Twine efforts, then by all means, rate them that way.
posted by sgranade at 3:01 PM on October 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

The thing I am having a hard time with is judging games fairly

I seem to remember when this was discussed 20 (!) years ago, the consensus was that if everyone uses their own criteria for judging, it would pretty much average out so there was no need to micromanage it. It's a friendly competition.

The main rule is you have to base your ratings on only the first 2 hours you spend with the game.
posted by straight at 3:53 PM on October 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon: On top of that, in the intervening years, Inform 7 was released, which resembles the English language and compiles to Inform 6, and from there, automatically to Z-code or Glulx.
posted by BiggerJ at 8:54 PM on October 3, 2018

Another problem with Twine-ish games is there's no good way to submit bug reports! Having some gamebreaking on Animalia - the animals are addicted to peanut butter and there's no way to continue after running away at lunch.

Also, I think bugs and all, Animalia is going to get a ridiculously high score from me and I thoroughly encourage you all to try it.
posted by corb at 9:32 AM on October 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

yeah, Animalia was a high point of a bleak weekend. Looking forward to replaying it with different initial choices.

Ailihphilia is extremely well-implemented and I liked it but I'm guessing for some its central conceit would be more of an annoyance than not.

I'm happy to see the games going off in all sorts of different directions and novel presentations and idiosyncratic interfaces. I'll always be a fan of the classic text UI, but they don't all have to look that way.

(And, yeah, Counterfeit Monkey is FREAKING AWESOME.)
posted by Zed at 11:23 AM on October 8, 2018 [1 favorite]

For those who have been away, I want to emphasize some things people have been referring to... interactive fiction is not only alive and well, it has been exploding with creativity. The old development tools are much better and there are lots of new ones. Twine, in particular, has brought in huge numbers of creators without prior programming experience.

Pretty much everything old and new can be played in a browser (including all but 5, it looks like, of this year's IFComp entries). The Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB) is the canonical directory of IF games; it includes helpful user-contributed lists like A starter pack for those new to interactive fiction -- click on any game and then on the 'play online' link on that game's page and you're there.

Also, there's going to be an inaugural interactive fiction conference in Boston next June.
posted by Zed at 12:34 PM on October 8, 2018