2003 IFComp Award Winners Announced

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.

Comments

Why not use Z-Code / TADS?

[BobTheJanitor]

I'm not surprised that the games are Z-Code and the next 10 are all either TADS or Z-Code. I don't understand why anyone would enter a Windows-only (or other proprietary formatted) game. If the home judges can't play the game, they're not going to rate it (highly or otherwise).

Slouching Towards Bedlam

[vsync64]

I started playing "Slouching Towards Bedlam" yesterday evening and I'm quite impressed. The way it handles computer interfaces is quite innovative although it might fall a tiny bit short of realistic.

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.