27th Annual Text Adventure Competition Won By Game About - Text Adventures (ifcomp.org) 23
DevNull127 writes: Saturday afternoon, 91 geeks huddled around a Twitch stream to hear the winners announced for the 27th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition. This year's competition attracted 71 entries, and $10,396 was raised for a cash-prize fund (which is divided among all the game authors whose entries ranked in the top two-thirds, with the first-place finisher receiving a prize in the hundreds of dollars and the last entry in the top two-thirds receiving $10). But there's also a long list of fun non-cash prizes available in a "prize pool," and starting with the author of the first-place game, authors take their turn choosing. (Prizes included everything from 0.055 in Ethereum cryptocurrency to the conversion of your text adventure into a professionally-produced audiobook.)
After a six-week period where the general public played and voted on the 71 games, the first-place winner was chosen. It had a strange title — "And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One." Its welcome screen jokingly promises "the latest in ASCII graphic technology to occasionally write high-res, text-based images directly onto a screen that is eighty characters wide or more..." In this text adventure game you play a teenager who starts out....playing a text adventure game (called "THE GLUTTONOUS ELF: Adventure #1"), with the game itself ultimately offering a kind of meta-commentary on the world of text adventures over the years.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this game also won a second award — the contest's special prize for the entry most-liked by the other games' authors who'd entered this year's competition.
This year's runner-up was "Dr Horror's House of Terror". It's not to be confused with the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing movie with a similar name — except perhaps with some playful and intentional overlap which becomes apparent as the game progresses.
And a splendid time was had by all.
After a six-week period where the general public played and voted on the 71 games, the first-place winner was chosen. It had a strange title — "And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One." Its welcome screen jokingly promises "the latest in ASCII graphic technology to occasionally write high-res, text-based images directly onto a screen that is eighty characters wide or more..." In this text adventure game you play a teenager who starts out....playing a text adventure game (called "THE GLUTTONOUS ELF: Adventure #1"), with the game itself ultimately offering a kind of meta-commentary on the world of text adventures over the years.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this game also won a second award — the contest's special prize for the entry most-liked by the other games' authors who'd entered this year's competition.
This year's runner-up was "Dr Horror's House of Terror". It's not to be confused with the Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing movie with a similar name — except perhaps with some playful and intentional overlap which becomes apparent as the game progresses.
And a splendid time was had by all.
Not all text adventures (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true that the Interactive Fiction Competition used to be about games that use the same interface as Colossal Cave Adventure, but nowadays they're outnumbered by the Choose Your Own Adventure-style games where you click on choices in a browser.
The change came a few years ago, and I still find it bewildering. Maybe it's because typing is so hard on a modern smartphone.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Of course it also simplifies the gameplay if the player is presented with possible choices. Instead of having to remember them.
I could also argue that the Colossal Cave Adventure style of interface was a good option in the past where screen real estate was rather limited compared to today. If you only had a text input field, and didn't have to display all the possible options, you could dedicate a lot more screen space to other text.
Re: (Score:3)
Very very few of the "choice-based" games have anywhere near the amount of state or "world model" under the hood of even a simple parser game.
Re: (Score:1)
It's just a damned interface.
Re: Not all text adventures (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, because a game with a text parser has to accommodate actions and states that the game designer never contemplated.
Re: (Score:2)
A game's interface is analogous to an iceberg in the sense that you're presented with the tip, while a lot of it is obscured from your view, whether you're a player or developer.
As a player you likely never see clearly what's underneath unless you apply reverse engineering methods to get a vague idea about what's going on in that 'black box'. As a developer you may have a debugging mode that provides you with mor
Re:Not all text adventures [pander to the judges] (Score:2)
Not a bad FP, but I was looking for something more recursive, as in the extended Subject. Dare I say more Funny? No, I better not, given my broken funny bone.
But they say you should write about what you know, eh? So the winning game should naturally be a meta-game about writing a game. Should be the most effective way to pander to the most "qualified" judges.
AI (Score:5, Interesting)
Kind of sad, only 91 people, and most of those were probably entrants, since there were 71 games. Text adventures used to be the state of the art in gaming, and felt like a limitless world of potential.
That being said, I think we're on the verge of a revolution that few people see coming, which will cause text adventures to explode with popularity and probably result in Tesla-like accelerator cards in all our systems that can run multiple neutral networks as you play. With AIDungeon and now KoboldAI and NovelAI, we're right on the cusp of intelligent, realtime, AI-controlled dungeon masters being able to weave a story as coherent and intriguing as a real DM. Once this is achieved people will flock to it, and it'll then quickly be integrated into a more modern style RPG.
Imagine Skyrim but with realtime story-telling and plot threads that will develop if you pick at them. You could type to a DM at any point, and the game will change state around you, in controlled ways.
We're almost there with text adventures, and there have been recent improvements with long-term cohesion and experiments in controlling game state.
Re: (Score:3)
Speech processing and better text to speech is what could make these types of games interesting again for the younger generations.
A huge part of what has lead to gaming console and mobile device's widespread appeal was more comfortable interfaces, where you could sit in an a comfortable chair without having lean forward to type on a keyboard.
Letting people interact via voice commands takes things to another level of interaction with the software. For example when I still played Elite: Dangerous
Re: (Score:2)
No, the problem with text adventures isn't the "text" part. It's the "adventure" part. Adventure games hit their peak in the 90s and died out through the 2000's. It is now just a struggling genre - there are a few adventure games, but that's it.
Basically what killed a lot of them boiled down to nonsensical puzzles - why did you have to carry that lightbulb from the very first room (which you cannot get to now) all the way and feed it to the monster? Or how does leading a horse back to the stable via a maze
Re: (Score:2)
Kind of sad, only 91 people, and most of those were probably entrants, since there were 71 games.
I'm a text adventure nut from way back, but no way I'm going on Twitch ever.
The awards ceremony used to happen on a MUD.
That takes me back (Score:2)
You Navigate a Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike, And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One. If You Continue, You May Be Eaten by a Grue.
Elf (Score:2)
I fed the elf a carrot. I won.
You are at a disgusting keyboard . . . (Score:2)
You are at a disgusting keyboard, with black cruft on the keys.
look up
You see an old monitor, splattered from carelessly opening diet soda.
Run
you trip over a box full of moldy pizza and die.
Game Center CX (Score:3)
Sounds like a game called Game Center CX: Arino's Challenge [hardcoregaming101.net] for the Nintendo DS. A series of homages to popular retro games with a meta-story about a kid who plays through them and reads gaming magazines with reviews, previews, and tips.
"And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One" sounds like an accessible way to appreciate text adventures if you didn't grow up with them.
I Made A Text Game Of Playing Zork (Score:3)
> type go south
You type "go south" on the keyboard
> read text
You read the text. It says, "South of House - You are facing the south side of a white house..."
Wasn't a big hit.
Not much of a prize (Score:2)
What you gonna do with 200 Zorkmids?
Impossible to play on mobile? (Score:2)
"You have played interactive fiction before.
As such, you know to press any key to continue when there is no command prompt, such as now."
> Press screen
You press the screen on your mobile device. It has no effect.
> Press screen harder
You press the screen harder. Still nothing happens.
> Look for keyboard popop icon
Sadly, no keyboard popup icon is available.
> How to play game
Press any key to continue when there is no command prompt, such as now.
> Where are keys
There are no keys, stupid.