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Interactive Fiction Competition 2002 Underway

Posted by michael on from the slide-upper-elevator-card-through-slot dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The games of the 2002 Annual Interactive Fiction Competition are now available from the IF Archive. Visit it or ifcomp.org to download the games."

9 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. A Note from the Organizer by Sargent1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi, I'm the competition organizer. A few words of instruction and explanation. The basic idea is that you're to download and play at least five of the forty games, and then rate them on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is the best. Full instructions are in the competition readme file.

    Most of the games run in a virtual machine, so you'll need to download interpreters for those machines. For the TADS 2 and 3 games, grab the unified TADS 2 and 3 source tarball for Unix. For the z-code games, try Nitfol or Unix Frotz. For the Glulx game, try Linux Glulxe or Solaris Glulxe. For the ALAN games, grab GlkALAN for Linux.

    You've got until November 15th to vote. Even if you don't want to vote, feel free to play the games anyway. And if this really gets you jonesing to play more of the recently-released interactive fiction, stop by Baf's Guide to the IF Archive for reviews of many of the games on the IF Archive. Oh, and a minor plug for my IF site, Brass Lantern.

    Stephen

    1. Re:A Note from the Organizer by Sargent1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's a lower ratio in years past, but not by much. An attrition rate of 50-55% is normal, so this year's rate of 58% is on the high side but not outrageously so.

  2. Re:still exist? by Sargent1 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy came smack dab in the middle of the big text-adventure boom of the 1980s. If you want early, go check out the Zork trilogy or Scott Adams's games. (No, not that Scott Adams.) And if you'd like to try Hitchhiker's, it's playable on the web at Douglas Adams's site.

  3. Re:Too bad... by Xenographic · · Score: 1, Informative

    1) That's not a text adventure.
    2) That's gross.

    If you don't like scat, do NOT click that link; you have been warned.

  4. Shameless plug by ScottForbes · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you're really interested, download my game-authoring utility -- Yonk 1.0b3 for the Macintosh. It'll let you write Inform-language games for the 2003 competition. :-)

  5. Please don't discuss the games by boa13 · · Score: 5, Informative
    There's one important rule in this competition that Stephen Granade left out: please don't discuss the games in public before the competition ends. This is to avoid influencing other judges and rumors such as "this game is bullshit, don't bother playing it" and its cousin "this is the best game in the comp, try it". We want fair judgement. Of course, as soon as the competition ends, be sure that rec.games.int-fiction will burst into verbiage, as everybody there will be posting comments and reviews.

    Personnally, I've played five games already, and was lucky enough that the third on my list is one of the greatest I've played. If it doesn't win the comp, then hell, this means the comp was exceptionnally good this year! :)

    Of course there's crap in these fourty games: the four other games I've played are not quite good (not bad, either). So, if you intend to discover Interactive Fiction, I suggest you try one of the "best-of IF" site. Either the ones Stephen mentioned, or The Best of IF.

    From the top of my head, the best IF I've played recently is:
    • Anchorhead (best Lovecraft game I've played)
    • World's Apart (good SF)
    • Spider and Web (spy game, with a twist)
  6. You betcha. Wanna play that? by fireboy1919 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here it is.

    I've been working on getting stuff like this online.

    So far, I've gotten, Matthew Russo's zplet working with a CGI front-end.

    Next on the list is jetty, though this will probably take a bit (lot) more work, as its not very polished at the moment.

    Anyway...I put MY favorite Inform games (those that work with the z-machine interpreter) online at this location.

    I just added the competition's zcode section as well - it's
    here.

    Have fun!

    One note: the reason that the applet asks for read/write permission is so that you can save. Its a security risk for you, perhaps, but why live your life in fear?

    --
    Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
  7. Re:What I like in IF by boa13 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Somehow, I forgot some URLs. Here are Adam Cadre's games, and Emily Short's ones (scroll down a bit).

  8. Re:What I like in IF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    You've already played at least one Adrew Plotkin's game. It's Spider and Web.