IFCOMP 2019

Discuss text adventures here! The classics like those from Infocom, Magnetic Scrolls, Adventure International and Level 9 and the ones we're making today.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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IFCOMP 2019

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

This is the official JC thread.

Go here for the site - https://ifcomp.org - there's links to all 82! games!

I ask only one thing to anyone posting in here, which is to default to kindness. I've been on an author's forum for a few days and everyone who entered with one exception is an absolute sweetheart of a person who is doing this because they truly love the genre and wanted to share something. The one exception to this is Jizaboz, who killed a guy.
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Flack
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Flack »

So far I have played two IFComp 2019 games: Enceladus and The House on Sycamore Lane.
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bryanb
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by bryanb »

Flack wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:46 am So far I have played two IFComp 2019 games: Enceladus and The House on Sycamore Lane.
You mean you haven't played the game that features you as a major character yet? I mean I suppose I don't know you're not a major character in The House on Sycamore Lane also as I haven't played it yet, but it's hard to believe you didn't play Meeting Robb Sherwin first. Unless you beta tested it, I suppose. I can imagine you telling Jizaboz that the Flack character isn't realistic.

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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Tdarcos »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:32 am This is the official JC thread.

Go here for the site - https://ifcomp.org - there's links to all 82! games!
Jonsey, 82 factorial - which is what 82! is - equals 4.753643e+122. We all need to get busy - no not that kind of get busy - I mean get busy playing all those games. If between the what, eight of us here, we can play 1,000 of them an hour, we should be finished in only 5.426533e+115 years. Now, that is only 4.522111e+105 times the approximately 12 billion years the universe has existed, but if we dedicate ourselves...
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Flack »

Well, I had no idea!

I have now played THREE games in the 2019 IFComp!

"Meeting Robb Sherwin" was exactly how I remember the weekend, except for Jiz downplayed the effort I put into avoiding contact with another character in the game. My only disappointment was that I wasn't able to revisit that pizza truck again, even virtually!
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Jizaboz »

Flack wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:30 pm Well, I had no idea!

I have now played THREE games in the 2019 IFComp!

"Meeting Robb Sherwin" was exactly how I remember the weekend, except for Jiz downplayed the effort I put into avoiding contact with another character in the game. My only disappointment was that I wasn't able to revisit that pizza truck again, even virtually!
Haha nice! Now finally I can say someone has played it other than the 3 play-testers. Thank you. Yes, the pizza truck seemed completely off-limits to me in real life unless I wanted to type "wait" 10 times and it all be over! I also wanted to include our trip to the 1-up, Flack but it was one of those things I had as a basic place-holder room then later cut out like my experience at the Roo-Bar after the wedding.

I am planning on playing Robb's game first and am about to do that now. There are quite a few on the list I'd like to play based on cover art or premise but we'll see what I get time for..
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Flack »

If you ever get a chance to expand the game I would like to see a local dispensary added downtown and some mention of the pinata cake!
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Tdarcos wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:12 pm
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:32 am This is the official JC thread.

Go here for the site - https://ifcomp.org - there's links to all 82! games!
Jonsey, 82 factorial - which is what 82! is - equals 4.753643e+122. We all need to get busy - no not that kind of get busy - I mean get busy playing all those games. If between the what, eight of us here, we can play 1,000 of them an hour, we should be finished in only 5.426533e+115 years. Now, that is only 4.522111e+105 times the approximately 12 billion years the universe has existed, but if we dedicate ourselves...
Yeah, bit of a bumper crop of games for the comp this year, Commander!
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Jizaboz wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:11 pm
Flack wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 5:30 pm My only disappointment was that I wasn't able to revisit that pizza truck again, even virtually!
Haha nice! Now finally I can say someone has played it other than the 3 play-testers. Thank you. Yes, the pizza truck seemed completely off-limits to me in real life unless --
Unless you were one of the AREA HOMELESS I fed that day, which I absolutely did not mind in the slightest. Though I will admit that I minded a bit that they got served ahead of some of the guests.

Also, the Mystery Guy that Ate The Cake Early making an appearance is also a definite comp highlight, that guy's getting my vote for Best Non-Player Character at the XYZZYs.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Jizaboz »

Flack wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 8:33 pm If you ever get a chance to expand the game I would like to see a local dispensary added downtown and some mention of the pinata cake!
Haha sorry for not providing 2 dispensaries. (There is only one from the Parking Lot) I did actually have a note about the fake cake because it fooled me the night before the wedding heh
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Jizaboz »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Oct 02, 2019 8:48 pm
Also, the Mystery Guy that Ate The Cake Early making an appearance is also a definite comp highlight, that guy's getting my vote for Best Non-Player Character at the XYZZYs.
Yeah, this guy is much higher on the shitlist than the random homeless people.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Flack »

I am currently playing "the secret of vegibal island"

So far it is full of typos, like one on every line. I need to do some research because I believe there are a lot of references I am not getting.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Flack »

Finished it. It's obviously written by someone who is not a native English speaker and loved the Secret of Monkey Island. So if that sounds like your bag, download away.
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Jizaboz
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Jizaboz »

Eye Contact - Thomas McMullan

Choice game featuring a conversation. It would seem you don’t want to be a negative Nancy. The facial features of the eye pictures are neat, but there’s not much else in this short conversation sim.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Voting ends tonight. That's 45 days. And this is so different from the last time I entered.

You got *no* feedback back then ... I don't think. Maybe someone would take pity on you and send you something. I remember the flood of reviews when the voting period was over on Usenet. That won't happen this year. 1) Because there is no need and 2) There has been feedback all throughout the competition. And it's really better this way.

My goal was to make a frustration free small game where people did not get stuck AND one where there wasn't a game-killing bug found in it. I think I succeeded at both of those things. It's been rough working in solitude on Cyberganked for 7 years. I really needed to do something smaller and get it out there and get enjoyment from this hobby again! I want to thank everyone here for how supportive everyone has been. It's really been fun and I am so glad I entered again.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

It appears that they are doing a show on twitch.tv with the results.
We'll spend Saturday reviewing votes and feedback, and preparing for our live stream, which will air on Twitch [on Sunday] at 3:30pm Eastern (12:30pm Pacific, 8:30 in the UK).
Also, it seems that when people voted they could give FEEDBACK. There were 10 public reviews of Enceladus and two more in the author forum. I was not expecting more info, so I guess we'll see if people use the feedback thing in the voting.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by bryanb »

So the results are in: Zozzled by Steph Cherrywell won IFComp 2019. I haven't played it yet as the description didn't make it sound entirely appealing. I guess I'll have to check it out now. Rounding out the top 5 are Turandot by Victor Gijsbers, Chuk and the Arena by Agnieszka Trzaska, Sugarlawn by Mike Spivey, and Heretic's Hope by G.C. Baccaris. Zozzled and Sugarlawn are Glulx games while the rest of the top five are Twine or Choicescript.

Enceladus finished in 26th place while Meeting Robb Sherwin finished 71st. I've said it before and I'll say it again: comp voters make a lot of questionable decisions. I haven't played enough of the top games to go into detail about how bad the voting was, but robotsexpartymurder in 6th place definitely raises some eyebrows. While the game is evidently about two of my favorite things (robot sex and party murder!), most discussion about this game that I encountered centered on players not being able to get started. Did everyone suddenly decide to pull out the walkthrough at the same time? I cry bloody murder!

Robb and Jizaboz definitely have nothing to feel bad about here all things considered. 26th isn't bad for 2019 considering that there were more than 80 games entered. I'm betting a lot of new players were introduced to Hugo just because of Enceladus. 71st is, admittedly, pretty low on the totem pole, but we have to take into account that comp voters are absolute knuckleheads. Jizaboz could enter more or less the same game next year but add a robot that murders Jason Scott and a post-wedding sex party and it would likely finish in the top ten.

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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by Jizaboz »

Yeah while I expected to lose, in retrospect I think that putting any more time towards this moronic audience in the future is a waste of time. Even as a judge, you end up feeling like the only person voting third party while everyone else is in a two-party circle jerk lol.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by pinback »

As soon as I tuned into the broadcast, the announcer made a "Pass the Banana" joke. Here is my review of Pass the Banana from 20 years ago, in which I rip the game an ass because it eschews doing something interesting or useful in service of a bunch of incestuous in-jokes.

I could not, then, believe that after 20 years, I finally, literally tuned into the community and the very first thing I heard was not only an in-joke, but an in-joke referring to the embarrassing in-joke game I decried two decades previous.

Most of the rest of the broadcast was dead air, because nobody involved in this hobby knows how to do anything that might appeal to anyone in the universe other than those who get Pass the Banana jokes.

ICJ came in 26th, but calculated that if it wasn't for CYOA horseshit, he would have been in 11th. Why CYOA is still allowed in this thing makes about as much sense as all of the nob-gobbling horseshit I was subjected to today. It was the first Twitch chat I've ever been party to where I didn't make a joke because I knew beyond a shadow that 100% of them wouldn't get it, and 98% of them would complain about it to someone who wasn't there.

Enceladus was a marvelous example of pristine game design. I doubt anyone even noticed that the default color scheme is the same color scheme of the ship you're on. I'll post about this separately, but other than DOOM 2016 it's the only game I've ever played that made it clear that it wanted you to succeed.

In summation: Fuckin' nerds.
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Re: IFCOMP 2019

Post by pinback »

BTW, the BBS is no longer coloring "Banana" yellow, but it is de-capitalizing it when it's capitalized: Banana Banana Banana
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