A Perhaps-Inadvisable Comp Idea

We’ve hit the ground running, so feel free to jump in hash out some of these undecided points. I believe @Draconis, @MiloM, @lpsmith, and @manonamora all expressed interest in steering this, although we’re not excluding anyone from popping in as well; it’s an open invite link.

4 Likes

Yeah the link isn’t time sensitive or has a max number of clicks. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

To be clear, I created a (I think) complete amalgamation of everyone’s thoughts/comments/concerns/summaries from this topic.Bolded sections in brackets are things that I’m not sure are nailed down yet. Everything else I think has been settled, but I could be wrong.

Amalgamation

Seedcomp! is a 2 round creativity/interactive fiction competition. The competition will take place on itch.io and [will not have a separate landing page/will retain its own dedicated landing page for continuity]. People may take part in either or both rounds. The first round launches [December 7th? 14th?] and people are invited to submit ‘seeds’ into the competition. These seeds can be absolutely anything (that isn’t offensive, obviously) [Hypothetically, we could have a NSFW section, but that is up for discussion]: game intros, pieces of art, blurbs, a design document, puzzles, poems, characters, an I7 extension, settings, feelies, anything. [People may even submit their own unfinished Introcomp entries as seeds if they wish.] Submission of a seed includes an acknowledgement that the author of the seed is freely relinquishing any and all exclusive rights to the seed in the spirit of the competition. People [are/are not] limited in how many seeds they can enter. There [is/is not] a minimum word count for static text seed entries (like blurbs). The deadline for the first round is set for [January 7th? January 14th?] with an open public posting of all the submitted seeds on [January 9th? January 16th?] to give organizers a chance to screen for openly trolling/abusive seeds.

People may enter round 2 any time after the seeds are made public and before the [March 1st?] submission deadline. The entries into the second round must be complete games, ideally between [15-30 minutes long] in total gameplay but there’s no limit on size if people want to write more, and they must be based on one or more of the seeds in some way either incorporating it directly or not. Multiple people can sign up for the same seed. To be clear, “calling dibs” on a seed is not a thing. People can sign up for multiple seeds [or even all the seeds simultaneously] . People [may/may not/may-but are discouraged to] use their own seed in conjunction with another seed. In the meantime, open discussion and/or reviews of seeds [are/are not] [encouraged/allowed] . It will be made clear on the itch.io jam that this is specifically and Interactive Fiction competition and submissions should be in that realm in a similar fashion to how ParserComp and EctoComp signpost this. Shortly after the round 2 submission deadline, games are open for playing and voting [and round I awards are given out: things like most number of people that signed up for your seed, and most number of finished games from your seed, etc].

The playing/voting/[ribbon submitting?] period ends [March 31st? Earlier?] and results are released [in late March? Early April?]. People [may/may not] make up unique awards/ribbons similar in a fashion similar to Spring Thing [and these ribbons are screened by the organizers to prevent hurtful/abusive ribbons]. Awards/ribbons are handed out. There is some kind of back garden area for people who don’t want to have their entries subject to voting [and/or special awards or ribbons?]. [Organizers may participate in either round as long as they submit their entries to the back garden.] [The seeds used for each round 2 submission are displayed alongside each finished game to show the inspiration and the change.]

[Starting obviously next year, we would list all of the unused seeds from each year in a growing “leftovers” category (another reason for a domain; handy place to keep it). In future comps, someone could choose from among that year’s seeds or from the list of unused seeds from previous years. If a leftover is used, it gets removed from the list. This would increase the chances that any particular seed gets used eventually while also growing the number of choices available to entrants each passing year.]

We’re breaking down and discussing each bracketed point on the discord, so if you have an opinion either way on any of those points, or you feel I forgot to include something that should be discussed, please join the discord and weigh in.

3 Likes

Currently trying to settle on a name, so, if you care, pop into the discord for the Name Poll if nothing else:

ETA: Poll image update, currently SeedComp, EggComp, and RelayComp are leading.

2 Likes

(SeedComp! SeedComp! SeedComp!)

7 Likes

You can have a jam with ranked competition, and don’t put the focus on prices or winners. Like ECTOCOMP.

It is a very good idea to have voting phase, because if not games will pass almost unplayed. The voting phase is just an excuse to have people engaged playing and giving feedback.

So… you can call it a jam, and you can have a voting phase.

6 Likes

Seed Comp won in the poll :stuck_out_tongue:

7 Likes

We’re really starting to get down to brass tacks with the committee and I’m excited how things are moving along so far. Hoping to have something we can show you folks soon. Stay tuned! :smiley:

7 Likes

What about… JAM Jam? :honey_pot:

2 Likes

(For the record: this became SeedComp. Web site, forum announcement.)

4 Likes

So busy spreading the word, forgot to follow-up where folks were talking about it in the first place! lol

Thanks, @JTN !

2 Likes

I’m impressed that you managed to turn this around from knocking about a few ideas to fully worked out and launched competition, with website, in a couple of weeks! I wish I could be as decisive.

6 Likes

@pinkunz, @lpsmith , @MiloM, @Draconis and I pushed each other to get this ready by the deadline we set :stuck_out_tongue:
Having the deadline agreed on helped a ton I believe.

6 Likes

If you’re curious, I originally posted this as an idle thought on November 21st, at 2:14pm EST.

We went live with a fully-fleshed comp on December 6th, at 9:00am EST.

That’s 14 days, 18 hours, and 46 minutes.

Honestly could not have done it without my fellow organizers, advise from organizers of other comps, past and present, and all of the support and discussion from everyone else in the community. :heart:

Can not thank you all enough.

6 Likes

Now I would really like to see What-If-DBComp in which people submit IFDB entries for non-existent games, including a description, any applicable content warnings, what awards it may have won (with the final digit X-ed out), the ratings chart showing number of ratings at each of 1-5 stars, its number of reviews, its tags, and the text of at least one review (or 2 or 3, but no more)… and then someone else writes the game that corresponds to that entry. Perhaps part of the premise would be that they were all SpeedIF games, so no one leads with “The rise and fall of a galaxy-spanning dynasty, in which you revisit the same ten planets across centuries…”

(I am never, ever going to organize such a thing, so I fling this into the void!)

7 Likes

I liked your post a lot (and such a thing would make a great seed for seedcomp), but I saw this:

and immediately thought of Worldsmith, which is an enormous game that actually starts with you creating multiple planets and visiting them over the centuries in a worldbuilding game. After that there’s over a dozen hours of regular puzzle-based gameplay.

7 Likes

And then there’s me thinking two hours is a long time…

2 Likes

Just to back up Mathbrush here, this would be an amazing Seedcomp! seed.

2 Likes

Alert, alert, I just had an idea: what if WhatIfComp (har har) could be like that every year, you choose one game, and one “area in time” in the game, and then the people have to make a game that begins from that point, but choose a different option. Like you choose the point in Zork where you’re entering Hades, and two people may say “what if the entrance to Hades was blocked off by rubble as soon as you enter”, and carry on the story from there, but one person makes it about finding a way to escape, and the other about becoming the King of Hades. And another says “what if you become a ghost and must explore the new underground in the body of a ghost, but the borders are not walls but are made from enchantments of the thief!”

3 Likes

Sounds like a good theme for a Jam.

2 Likes