I read through this a couple of times, but I think I’m not getting something. How is this different than what was proposed?
I like the unfinished Introcomp idea (agreed, with permission of the authors).
As for not bloating with rules… Sure, why not. We’ll just react to any issues if and when they come up.
I retract my suggestion for a round 2 entry maximum. (But I stick by my back garden suggestion, people should have a safe space to try new things if they want it, or not, as they choose.)
Yeah, I think phase 1 is something that’s looking very laissez faire rule wise. Sounds like we’re basically saying that anything can be a seed?
I would have instinctively gone for 1 entry per person (with any additional entries they wanted to put forward going in the back garden), but given that actually making a game is a reasonably hefty thing (it actually has to be a finished, rounded thing), the 5 entries max idea sounds fine to me, I doubt many people will even do more than 1 (I believe Ectocomp petite mort doesn’t have an entry limit and I can only think of one author in the past 2 years who entered more than 1).
Seeds, I think, are more of an issue though, especially if they can be anything. It wouldn’t take any malice for someone to flood the comp with single line seeds, but it could be a headache for writers to sift through loads of random, low effort seeds. Personally I’d limit those as well, 5 per person seems fine again.
Would it be useful to move this conversation into a more private space if we want to start more concretely organising things? Or are people still finding it useful to have these discussions in an open forum?
Seems I jumped the gun a little bit there…
Yeah! it is the same. It is similar to the NES covers jam.
Maybe the first phase is just for IF blurbs, in the fashion of IFcomp blurbs, with tags, and even content warnings.That would allow to have a very quick first phase, and have the people psyched for the real action in the second phase.
I was thinking that we’d not make the list of seeds public until the first round submission period is over. That way, they all pop up at once and create a buzz.
Either way. @Ruber_Eaglenest makes a convincing argument to not die on the hill. Y’all know my thoughts, but we can hash that part out later.
Really I personally think phase 1 would be the most fun if we just say ‘anything goes’, obviously with the caveat that the more creative and interesting the ‘thing’ is, the more likely it will be picked up by lots of authors.
My only worry from that would be lots of like one line ‘prompts’, which I personally don’t think would be very interesting. A word limit seems a bit arbitrary but would deal with that. I think a submission limit, making people really think about their entries, would help more. That’s why I’d support it.
I feel we have a fairly responsive and invested community here. I mean, we just have a 100 post thread about the voluntary judging rubric for IFComp. If we explain what we’re looking for, and what we’re not, in our pitch to the community, I feel like most if not all would get the point without choosing an arbitrary word count or seed maximum, doubly so for the word count, as that might imply we’d expect seeds to be written blurbs or outlines, when we want folks to think outside the box.
In the tradition of administrators everywhere, we can always backpeddle and add more restrictions if and when someone starts doing something in bad faith.
Okay, so let’s put a pin in that specific issue for now. Which has got me thinking about what we do definitely have. So here’s my understanding of what we’ve got so far. Stuff in italics is stuff I think we don’t have pinned down yet.
Seedcomp! is a 2 round creativity/interactive fiction competition. The first round happens at the end of January and people are invited to submit ‘seeds’ into the competition. These seeds can be absolutely anything (that isn’t offensive, obvs): game intros, pieces of art, blurbs, puzzles, characters, settings, feelies, anything. People may be limited in how many seeds they can enter.
The deadline for the second round is set for the end of February. The entries into the second round must be complete games, ideally between 15-30 minutes long, and they must be based on one or more of the seeds in some way (either incorporating it directly or not Which reminds me on a complete side note: there has to be some legal stuff about giving up the rights to the seeds you enter since other people can use them. Putting that here because I will forget it later.). The seeds are displayed alongside each finished game to show the inspiration and the change. Some kind of judging happens and results are released in late March. The competition will take place on its own dedicated website. There is some kind of back garden area for people who don’t want to compete.
Does that vibe with what everyone else is thinking?
Yeah… I entered twice this year too 
You can get a lot from a one line, but I agree it would be best to have some sort of limitation (maybe a min wordcount/code line requirement for the seed?
Maybe mid-January for the deadline? That’d give creators about 1 1/2 month to choose a/multiple seeds and work on a project.
I like the Comp blurb otherwise 
EDIT: def would need guidelines on what’s not appropriate to submit as seed (topics/graphic content?)
Just a few random thoughts…
This has the feel of a game jam, rather than a competition. As such, I think itch.io would be a good platform to use and there’s no need for setting up a web site and doing all the background infrastructure, payment for web hosting and so on.
For phase 1, it would appeal to a whole range of itch.io users, including those that have never heard of interactive fiction. This might help to spread the word if using itch.io as the platform.
itch.io allows you to have multiple categories for voting. For example, you might want to have a category for how well the phase 2 entry implemented the phase 1 seed. itch.io can determine the ratings based on all categories or a single category. The Adventuron and TALP game jams have utilised the latter very effectively. You can also opt to not have your game judged (for the back garden). This was used in the Puny jams so that the organiser could submit a game but exempt himself from voting.
I feel that there should be no limit on the number of entries for phase 1, but a limit of two entries for phase 2.
Keep the rules very simple, but add more verbose guidelines to explain the rules in more detail. As an example, you would need to define what is considered acceptable as interactive fiction. I’m presuming that parser-based games and choice-based games are fair game, but something like Donkey Kong (which is both interactive and fiction) is definitely not!
I, personally, also have a strong preference for itch.io but haven’t brought it up because I wanted to wait till I got all the ‘committee’ in one space to ask what website building experience they all have (I basically have none).
Totally agree, what I wrote was a rough sketch, far far from a final draft of comp structure or rules!
I like this a lot. I also thought about reaching out to the tumblr crowd (never my scene but I guess now that Twitter is crumbling maybe…?) I don’t know anything about that, was thinking about asking @sophia, think she’s in that world?
I entered two games in ParserComp 2021.
Agreed on everything not in itallics, and also agreed that the italicized sections are those items still yet to be decided.
With that said, assuming SpringThing 2023 keeps the same schedule, I’d like for the round 2 submission deadline to line up with the SpringThing intent deadline (March 1st). One, it’s easier for folks to keep straight if they’re the same date instead of two very close yet slightly different dates. Two, I’d like folks to wrap up their submissions before Committing to SpringThing as to not cramp SpringThing’s organizer and participants. At the same time, I’d like to give as much time for round 2 as possible, so I wouldn’t want the submission deadline any earlier.
As for the deadline for seed submissions, I was thinking either Saturday, January 7th (with a reveal of Monday, January 9th) or Saturday, January 14th (with a reveal of Monday, January 16th). This gives participants either 51 or 44 days, respectively, to choose a seed and finish their games.
Ideally, if we can get this figured out and launched by December 7th or 14th, it’d give folks a month to submit seeds as well.
The only reason I suggested a later start was to give us more time to get this off the ground. December isn’t very far away. Which shouldn’t be too much trouble if we’re not trying to build a whole website…
Agreed that the sooner we get this off the ground the better, and @Warrigal makes some good points about outreach and universal appeal. I’ll concede that itch.io may be better suited. I have some concern that hosted comps seem to have some better staying power, but in the interests of getting this moving quicker, and the potential delays with making a website on a cramped schedule, I grudgingly agree that itch.io would be best.
You could still have a permanent web site, if you think this will take off and become an annual event, and provide links from there to the individual jams. I’ve got a hunch that phase 1 and phase 2 would have to be run as individual jams if using itch.io.
itch.io also has a nice community tab, so that people can ask questions, discuss issues, ask for help and so on.
I was thinking about the round 1 seeds. Can there be open discussion about the seeds people are thinking of using? Not claiming exclusivity, just casual chatting. Otherwise I could see, for instance, everybody picking one very good prompt or all but one prompt getting picked. If people discuss it, some people might keep there’s a secret, some might not change no matter what, and some might go for the ‘unpopular’ seeds.
This is a reasonable compromise. It drastically shortens the time needed to get up and running compared to fully self-hosting, while also creating a permanent single home with links to each jam/year. I vote this.
I wasn’t thinking discussion should be prohibited. Some will openly share, others will keep their choice close to their chest. Agreed that “calling dibs” on a seed shouldn’t be a thing.
As for some prompts not getting picked, I feel like that’s likely inevitable. It takes much less time and investment to submit a seed than a fully implemented game; there’ll almost certainly be far more seeds than submitted games. Unless someone does a @Draconis and somehow makes a game using every single prompt (time cave?), some probably won’t be used.
I had an idea about that though. Assuming this sticks, I was thinking we could list all of the unused seeds from each year in a growing “leftovers” category (another good reason for a domain; great place to keep it). That way, 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. Win-win.
I was also imagining it would be a fun way to loop inactive people back in who may have been distracted or preoccupied for a time. Imagine submitting a seed and four years later your itch.io account gets pinged in a mention because someone finally used your seed to make a game. I don’t know anyone that could resist the pull of curiosity in that situation. Certainly not me.
As an aside, how does everyone feel about folks making a game from their own seed? Does it matter?