IF Comp 2013 roundup

[maga_dogg]

The comp is over, and the results are in. (If you're reading via Planet-IF and missed my reviews, they're all here.) Highlights:

If you want a strongly-written, ambitious story: play Solarium.

If you want something brutal, introspective and poetic: play Their angelical understanding.

If you want to play something where interaction is crucial to

Comments

[ruthling]

thanks, I didn't make time to play many of the entries this year ut I will want to play some eventually.

[two_star]

You mean YAGWAD isn't an uncontroversial classic? Man, now I don't know anything.

(Sorry for posting this anonymously previously; I didn't notice that I wasn't logged in.)

[ext_1447415]

Jason's quote feels spot on to me. I wonder if a more Twine-friendly comp would be worth forming, as getting punished for theme and platform will probably put off a lot of new authors. The feedback comp is a nice idea too.

[maga_dogg]

I'm not sure that it's possible to create a competitive situation that doesn't punish authors for theme and platform, one way or another; it's impossible to separate those things from player experience, and people tend to feel strongly about 'em. But I do think that an event that reflected more Twiney values would be valuable. I don't know whether that's a comp or not.

[maga_dogg]

It's totally not my idea - Emily has voiced it in the past, it's sort of one of the roles that Introcomp leans towards. And yeah, I'm definitely being hypocritical in the Here Is Something That Someone Else Should Do sense here, because outside the XYZZYs I only really have the energy to run smallish, fun minicomps.

[duchez]

So when you say curated events and showcases, you mean like the IF Art Show from a few years back? Where there is a defined theme or goal? Or something a bit more like a mini comp where there are a handful of games that have been worked on, but no direction on what the games are about?

[maga_dogg]

Maybe like the Art Show. I miss that. Not necessarily.

But generally speaking, one of the big problems with the Comp is that it's the IF event most likely to be visible to outsiders, but if one of those outsiders decides to come in and play a game, chances are excellent that it'll be something decidedly mediocre. By 'curated showcase', I mean something where entries have been judged to be of some minimum quality.

One idea I've idly toyed with was an annual, year-long Rolling Spectacular: it'd be kind of like a single Artshow category, changing each year. People could submit games to it year-round, without a no-previous-release requirement; there'd be a judging panel, and at the end you'd get a bunch of judge reviews and maybe a Best in Show. (Judges would be able to reject, or reject-pending-fixes, games that didn't deal with the theme or that failed some standard of playability - I don't know how youd do that exactly.) I'm not sure if the whole thing would add up to a compelling prospect for either authors or players, is the thing.