Interactive Fiction Competition

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The Interactive Fiction Competition (also known as IFComp) is one of several annual competitions for works of interactive fiction. It has been held since 1995. It is intended for fairly short games, as judges are only allowed to spend two hours playing a game before deciding how many points to award it, but longer games are allowed entry. [1] The competition has been described as the "Super Bowl" of interactive fiction. [2]

Contents

Since 2016 it is operated by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation (IFTF).

Organization

In 2016, operation of the competition was taken over by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation. [3] [4] [5]

The lead organizer 2014–2017 was Jason McIntosh, and in 2018 it was Jacqueline Ashwell. [6]

Categories

Although the first competition had separate sections for Inform and TADS games, subsequent competitions have not been divided into sections and are open to games produced by any method, provided that the software used to play the game is freely available.

In addition to the main competition, the entries take part in the Miss Congeniality contest, where the participating authors vote for three games (not including their own). This was started in 1998 to distribute that year's surplus prizes; this additional contest has remained unchanged since then, even without the original reason for its existence.

There is also a 'Golden Banana of Discord' side contest; the distinction is given to the entry with scores with the highest standard deviation. [7]

Eligibility

The competition differs from the XYZZY Awards, as authors must specifically submit games to the Interactive Fiction Competition, but all games released in the past year are eligible for the XYZZY Awards. Many games win awards in both competitions.

Judging

Anyone can judge the games. Because anyone can judge and participate in the competition, there is a rule that "All entries must cost nothing for judges to play". [8]

Rules

The competition has rules for judges, authors and everyone to ensure that everyone agrees on the purpose, scope, and spirit of the competition. [8]

Prizes

Anyone can donate a prize. Almost always, there are enough prizes donated that anyone who enters will get one.

Winners

The following is a list of first place winners to date:

Only two competitors have won more than once: Paul O'Brian, winning in 2002 and 2004, and Steph Cherrywell, winning in 2015 and 2019.

Reception

A reviewer for The A.V. Club said of the 2008 competition, "Once again, the IF Competition delivers some of the best writing in games." [10] The 2008 competition was described as containing "some real standouts both in quality of puzzles and a willingness to stretch the definition of text adventures/interactive fiction." [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

Text Adventure Development System (TADS) is a prototype-based domain-specific programming language and set of standard libraries for creating interactive fiction (IF) games.

Graham A. Nelson is a British mathematician, poet, and the creator of the Inform design system for creating interactive fiction (IF) games. He has authored several IF games, including Curses (1993) and Jigsaw (1995).

Adam Cadre is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction.

<i>Photopia</i> 1998 video game

Photopia is a piece of literature by Adam Cadre rendered in the form of interactive fiction, and written in Inform. It has received both praise and criticism for its heavy focus on fiction rather than on interactivity. It won first place in the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition. Photopia has few puzzles and a linear structure, allowing the player no way to alter the eventual conclusion but maintaining the illusion of non-linearity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ADRIFT</span>

ADRIFT is a graphical user interface used to create and play text adventures. The name is an acronym for "Adventure Development & Runner - Interactive Fiction Toolkit". The project was solely developed by Campbell Wild until he made it open source in 2018. Since then, only minor contributions to the main programs have been given by others, though there have been contributions elsewhere to alternative Runners and the default Standard Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Plotkin</span> Interactive fiction programmer and writer

Andrew Plotkin, also known as Zarf, is a central figure in the modern interactive fiction (IF) community. Having both written a number of award-winning games and developed a range of new file formats, interpreters, and other utilities for the design, production, and running of IF games, Plotkin is widely recognised for both his creative and his technical contributions to the homebrew IF scene.

The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of XYZZYnews. Any game released during the year prior to the award ceremony is eligible for nomination to receive an award. The decision process takes place in two stages: members of the interactive fiction community nominate works within specific categories and sufficiently supported nominations become finalists within those categories. Community members then vote among the finalists, and the game receiving a plurality of votes is given the award in an online ceremony.

Spring Thing is an annual competition to highlight works of text adventure games and other literary works, also known as Interactive Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Short</span> Interactive fiction writer

Emily Short is an interactive fiction (IF) writer. From 2020 to 2023, she was creative director of Failbetter Games, the studio behind Fallen London and its spinoffs.

<i>ifMUD</i> 1997 video game

ifMUD is a MUD associated with the rec.arts.int-fiction newsgroup accessible via telnet or a MUD client. It is central to the interactive fiction community, frequented by many of the genre's best-known writers. Every year, the XYZZY Awards are hosted on ifMUD during an online ceremony.

Jon Ingold is a British author of interactive fiction and co-founder of inkle, where he co-directed and co-wrote 80 Days, and wrote Heaven's Vault and Overboard!. His interactive fiction has frequently been nominated for XYZZY Awards and has won on multiple occasions, including Best Game, Best Story and Best Setting awards for All Roads in 2001. Ingold's works are notable for their attention to the levels of knowledge that the player and player character have of the in-game situation, with the effect often depending on a player who understands more than the character or vice versa. Ingold has also written a number of plays, short stories and novels.

Shade is a psychological horror interactive fiction game written and published by Andrew Plotkin in 2000.

Earth and Sky is an interactive fiction trilogy written and produced by American author Paul O'Brian about the adventures of a brother and sister who gain superpowers while searching for their lost parents. Games in the series have won awards in the annual Interactive Fiction Competition and received an XYZZY Award.

Winter Wonderland is a piece of interactive fiction written by Laura A. Knauth. The story is about the adventures of a young girl, named Gretchen, in a gentle and nonthreatening winter-themed fantasy land. It won the 1999 annual Interactive Fiction Competition.

<i>Floatpoint</i> 2006 video game

Floatpoint is a 2006 work of interactive fiction written by Emily Short about a diplomat sent to an endangered colony to discuss evacuation options and terms of cohabitation. It is written in Inform 7 and won the 2006 annual Interactive Fiction Competition. Floatpoint also won 2006 XYZZY Awards for Best Settings and Best NPCs. The game was generally praised for its use of multiple endings.

<i>Lost Pig</i> 2007 video game

Lost Pig is a comedic work of interactive fiction about an orc retrieving an escaped pig. It was created by Admiral Jota and released as freeware. It took first place in the 2007 Interactive Fiction Competition with an average score of 8.27. Lost Pig won best game, best writing, best individual non-player character, and best individual player character in the 2007 XYZZY Awards. Lost Pig finished with 18.7% of the votes for the Audience Award in the interactive fiction category in the 2008 Jay Is Games Best of Casual Gameplay awards, placing it second after Violet.

<i>Violet</i> (video game) 2008 video game

Violet is a work of interactive fiction by American author Jeremy Freese. It is a one-room puzzle game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Porpentine (game designer)</span> American video game designer, new media artist, writer and curator (born 1987)

Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a video game designer, new media artist, writer and curator based in Oakland, California. They are primarily a developer of hypertext games and interactive fiction mainly built using Twine. They have been awarded a Creative Capital grant, a Rhizome.org commission, the Prix Net Art, and a Sundance Institute's New Frontier Story Lab Fellowship. Their work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. They were an editor for freeindiegam.es, a curated collection of free, independently produced games. They were a columnist for online PC gaming magazine Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

<i>Cryptozookeeper</i> 2011 interactive fiction video game

Cryptozookeeper is an interactive fiction game written and self-published by American developer Robb Sherwin in 2011. Cryptozookeeper was written in the cross-platform language Hugo and runs on Windows, Macintosh OS-X, and Linux computers. Cryptozookeeper was released under a Creative Commons license and contains more than 12 hours of game play.

The Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB) is a database of metadata and reviews of interactive fiction.

References

  1. ↑ "Long games in IF Comp?". 19 May 2020.
  2. ↑ Vara, Vauhini (2005-11-15). "Keeping a Genre Alive". The Wall Street Journal online. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Archived from the original on 2008-05-28. Retrieved 2008-11-13.
  3. ↑ Francis, Bryant (June 30, 2016). "Interactive Fiction foundation formed to aid Twine, IFComp growth". Gamasutra .
  4. ↑ Short, Emily (December 7, 2016). "IF Only: What to watch for". Rock, Paper, Shotgun .
  5. ↑ Caldwell, Brendan (July 3, 2017). "IF Comp 2017 opens for scribes and crowdfunds prizes". Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
  6. ↑ "Jacqueline Ashwell is the next IFComp organizer". IFComp News. Retrieved 22 November 2021.
  7. ↑ "IFComp – About the Competition". ifcomp.org. Retrieved 2019-05-24.
  8. 1 2 "Rules for the Competition – Rules for Authors" (archived), ifcomp.org.
  9. ↑ "Winners of the 2022 IFComp". IFComp. Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation. Retrieved 2022-12-06.
  10. ↑ Dahlen, Christ (2008-12-22). "Violet and Everybody Dies". The A.V. Club . Onion Inc. Archived from the original on 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2009-01-17.
  11. ↑ Houghton, Stuart (2008-11-17). "2008 Interactive Fiction Competition Winners Announced". Kotaku. Gawker Media Network. Archived from the original on 2008-12-20. Retrieved 2009-01-19.
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