Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Text Adventure Competition Reports A 36% Spike In Entries (ifcomp.org)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the twisty-little-passages dept.

There's just four days left to vote for the winner of the 23rd Annual Interactive Fiction Competition. An anonymous reader writes: This year's contest set a record, drawing 79 new text adventures -- 36% more entries than the previous year's 58. All of this year's games are available online, furthering the competition's goal of "making them freely available in order to encourage the creation, play, and discussion of interactive fiction." (And they're also available in a 236-megabyte .zip archive.)

Each game's developer is competing for $4,800 in cash prizes, to be shared among everyone who finishes in the top two-thirds (including a $247 prize to the first-place winner). Authors of the top-rated games will also get to choose from a 38-prize pool (which includes another $200 cash prize donated by Asymmetric Publications, as well as a "well-loved" used Wii console). But the most important thing is there's a bunch of fun new text adventures to play. Reviews are already appearing online, lovingly collected by the Interactive Fiction Wiki. And one game designer even livestreamed their text adventure-playing on Twitch.

21 comments

  1. Please test my text adventure! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't find testers! :(
    Please test my code, I need to find any bugs!

    It's called "The New Castle"

    you can get it for Dos, Mac, or Linux,
    and the setup.exe will install a shortcut for Windows users, along with an uninstaller.
    get it here: http://trek7.sourceforge.net/f...
    Also, go to the main link and have fun with Trek7 - but don't report bugs for that one, I can't fix Fortran code :(
    Still the BEST trek game ever made! and it's TEXT!

    1. Re:Please test my text adventure! by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      Well, when I think about running a program the first thing that springs to mind is "where did it come from?" Not seeing a name in the readme or here in your post does not inspire confidence in running your code. There is a "The New Castle" listed on Moby Games, so are you Dan Gahlinger? Or is that another game?
      http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,303284/

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
    2. Re:Please test my text adventure! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's me, and it's a very old version of the code.
      If you read the castle.doc (a text file by the way) and other support text files, there's an email in there, and my name is all over the documentation and code, etc.

      Running the old 1999 version doesn't help me fix any current bugs. I don't know how to go about getting that one updated, to be honest, I totally forgot about it

  2. More Details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This year's Annual Interactive Fiction Contest set a record, drawing 79 new text adventures -- 36% more entries than the previous year's 58. All of this year's games are available online, furthering the competition's goal of "making them freely available in order to encourage the creation, play, and discussion of interactive fiction." (And they're also available in a 236-megabyte .zip archive.)

    Each game's developer is competing for $4,800 in cash prizes, to be shared among everyone who finishes in the top two-thirds (including a $247 prize to the first-place winner). Authors of the top-rated games will also get to choose from a 38-prize pool (which includes another $200 cash prize donated by Asymmetric Publications, as well as a "well-loved" used Wii console). But the most important thing is there's a bunch of fun new text adventures to play. Reviews are already appearing online, lovingly collected by the Interactive Fiction Wiki. And one game designer even livestreamed their text adventure-playing on Twitch.

    1. Re:More Details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's true that there are still a lot of text adventures in the IF Comp, but that's not all it is anymore.
      For some reason they decided to accept a whole bunch of Choose Your Own Adventure-style games people started making a few years ago in Twine and similar systems.
      That's a big part of the reason the numbers got so big, since it's a lot easier to put together one of those than an actual text adventure in a real IF language like Inform or TADS.

  3. I don't believe it by nospam007 · · Score: 1, Funny

    It's just a couple of AI game-masters making them up on the spot.

  4. Ob by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    I would have won but I was eaten by a grue.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:Ob by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      xyzzy!

    2. Re:Ob by TeknoHog · · Score: 1

      I'm playing this text adventure game called Linux, and I keep getting eaten by a GNU.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    3. Re: Ob by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plugh!

    4. Re:Ob by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A hollow voice says 'Cretin'.

    5. Re:Ob by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've played that one. You're not supposed to walk around in the dark.
      Try 'sudo apt-get install lamp'.
      If you find the right version, a lamp stack is already installed.

  5. I wish I had known about this by zifn4b · · Score: 2

    I would have made one. I used to have so much fun doing that on the C64. Cheers to whoever wins!

    --
    We'll make great pets
    1. Re:I wish I had known about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Likewise. I've made various interactive adventure engines over the years with projects.
      I love making all kinds of different styles to see what works well.

      One of my first actual projects at 9 when learning was making a very basic (IN BASIC) text adventure.
      It expanded over a few years to be pretty diverse.
      I ported it to YaBASIC on PS2 as well. I wanted to make some basic graphics for it that time though, but FUCK was YaBASIC slow.
      I had to resort to blocky graphics since trying to make textured tiles was not an option. Took over a minute to draw versus basic colored squares. Never did finish it. Got bored with it.
      I still have the code sitting around somewhere in a binder.

      Sadly my poor VTech laptop is long dead due to an unfortunate screen shattering accident.
      No idea where it even is, I am 95% sure I never threw it out simply for the hardware still being useful for something in the future. (since I was getting back in to hardware hacking around that time)
      But like some stuff I had when moving stuff, there seems to be things missing. I believe it might be walled up in an old walk-in closet that was going to be knocked through to another room but complications led to that not happening and it being forgotten about. Literally a closet in the wall not being used. So dumb. Going to be fixed this year or next.
      Likely along with the C64, Atari, NES, SNES, old PC, some dragon ornaments, bunch of lego and other nonsense.

    2. Re:I wish I had known about this by BasilBrush · · Score: 2

      It's annual. Start one now and it'll be ready for next years contest.

    3. Re:I wish I had known about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i'll take what he's having

    4. Re:I wish I had known about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The IF comp people are an incestuous group, and they have intentionally blurred the line between Text Adventures and Interactive Fiction. They are not the same thing. Zork and Colossal Cave are not what the IF Comp is selling - they are selling novels and short stories wrapped in a an artificial package. Zork is about puzzle solving, exploration, etc.

    5. Re: I wish I had known about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey I ported ps2 yabasic to JavaScript last year. You can paste your code in the window and run it in the browser. Look it up :)

    6. Re:I wish I had known about this by zifn4b · · Score: 1

      They are not the same thing. Zork and Colossal Cave are not what the IF Comp is selling - they are selling novels and short stories wrapped in a an artificial package. Zork is about puzzle solving, exploration, etc.

      Oh well I wouldn't have done that then. Any type of adventure game whether it be text, point and click what have you I personally think must be composed of both to be exceptional. They should have an interesting world/setting, satisfying puzzles and problems to solve, memorable characters and a good story line. I think back to my days of playing The Pawn.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  6. Winners each year and Top 50 of all time by mattr · · Score: 2

    I found this really useful page, look at the Prizes Chosen column. Each has a blurb and score of the top entries that year and if you click on it, you get reviews and links to the files.
    http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Pr...
    There are just so many entries from these years that I would love to see if there are any recommendations for best of in different categories! Well... googling for best interactive fiction gave me this very interesting page
    Interactive Fiction Top 50 of all time (2015 edition)
    It is awesome because each entry's page has a Play Online button so you don't even need to install it!

    1. Re:Winners each year and Top 50 of all time by mattr · · Score: 1

      p.s. looks like maybe you really should install your platform's player since online versions may be stripped down.