2003 IFComp Award Winners Announced 11
An anonymous reader writes "The 9th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition has now announced its winners - the start of the judging was previously covered on Slashdot." There are a number of sites with reviews of the competing text adventures, which are all freely downloadable, and winner 'Slouching Towards Bedlam' ("a game of multiple paths... set in a steampunk universe with Lovecraftian overtones"), and runner-up 'Risorgimento Represso' ("on a par with most Infocom games, and exceeds them at many points", but paradoxically too long to be played through within the 2-hour judging period), both get plenty of kudos from judges.
no time limit (Score:5, Informative)
It's not actually a requirement that the game be playable within two hours; the rule is that the judges only will play the game for two hours before scoring it, whether they've completed it or not. (And now that the comp's over, it's so much the better to have two such high-quality games that go above and beyond in terms of length.)
Congrats to the winners.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not use Z-Code / TADS? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why not use Z-Code / TADS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because some authors are familiar with a certain programming environment, and lack the time / skill to learn a new one?
As an extreme example, a couple of games over the years were submitted in HTML (+Javascript).
I'm not saying it's the best way to go about it, just offering a motive.
Besides, it's enough if only half the judges (or less) play your game, since the results are based on average scores, not popularity.
And in fact, some judges may enjoy trying out new engines. Yes, so far none of them even came close to Inform or TADS, but one day they may face competition.
Re:Why not use Z-Code / TADS? (Score:2, Informative)
> and lack the time / skill to learn a new one?
This is a FAQ. The short answer is, it would take more than 50 times as long
(that's a conservative estimate) to write a moderatley decent parser (in *any*
language, even Perl) as it would take to learn e.g. Inform, which is quite
easy and has the additional benefit of coming with a more than merely
moderately decent parser. (The Inform standard library parser is the best
natural lan
Lojban would help here. (Score:3, Funny)
Slouching Towards Bedlam (Score:5, Interesting)
So far I'm intrigued enough by the concept to try to beat the puzzle(s); other works of IF often seem far too contrived. My only annoyance is that some idiot posted a spoiler of what I'm guessing will be a major plot point on r.g.i-f with no warning. I've declared a personal moratorium on reading anything related to games I haven't played to my satisfaction yet.
The final results: (Score:2)
Risorgimento Represso, by Michael Coyne
Scavenger, by Quintin Stone
The Erudition Chamber, by Daniel Freas
Gourmet, by Aaron A. Reed
Shadows On The Mirror, by Chrysoula Tzavelas
The Recruit, by Mike Sousa
Baluthar, by Chris Molloy Wischer
Cerulean Stowaway, by Roger Descheneaux
The Atomic Heart, by Stefan Blixt
Episode in the Life of an Artist, Peter Eastman
A Paper Moon, by Andrew Krywaniuk
Sardoria, by Anssi Raisanen
CaffeiNation, by Michael Loegering
Temple
Some links for the lazy (Score:2)