Announcing a new set of Interactive Fiction Awards

Inspired by Mathbrush “C64 parser game” example, I propose “Best retro IF game”. So that would include any game published to run on a retro machine such as the C64 but also Atari ST, Amiga, Spectrum, Apple II etc.

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I just realized that there are three threads and I though there was only one :upside_down_face:
[will try to clean my posts up - not sure if moving a post from one of the threads to another will only cause more confusion…]

I don’t know if that was just me being too fast but many will not have the time to read through all 170+ posts, and so they might make mistakes like me. So I was thinking of ways to simplify things a bit.

At least for the nomination thread, keeping the first post updated, could avoid too many unnecessary duplicate nominations. For instance, if no more votes are necessary for “Best XXX game” (XXX being any platform like Inform, TADS etc) where all sufficiently popular platforms, that should be stated clearly. Then we know we don’t need to add new categories like Best Quest Game etc.

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I was planning on updating it tomorrow, but I’ll update it today!

The 15th is when I plan on closing the thread, and then discussing any last minute changes before voting begins on Feb 1.

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Maybe you could have some boilerplate in each poll mentioning the key rules. For example:

This poll is to decide the Outstanding Adventuron Game of 2022 in the People’s Choice Awards. Eligible games are listed at this link: [link]

  • Any member of IFDB may vote in this poll.

  • You may vote for up to N games.

  • You may vote only for games you have played. Votes must be in good faith and based on your personal experience with the game.

  • Details and full rules are at [link].

And something similar for the authors’ choice polls, except the part about who can vote could be something like

  • Any game author on IFDB may vote in this poll. For your vote to be counted, there must be a game attached to your IFDB profile.
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Oh–and I suggest that wherever the official voting announcement/rules/details are, that there would also be links to all the polls.

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The link to the newest poll is missing in the announcement thread - at least if it is supposed to be near the top: Poll for new IF awards public discussion/sharing/promotion rules

Also following my mistake on putting the “best retro game”-proposal in the announcement thread instead of the nomination thread, I was adviced not to move it as it would loose the 13 votes it has so far and Pinkunz already linked to its current position: Nomination thread for IF People's Choice and IF Authors' Choice awards - #119 by pinkunz

So it would be good to know if we should try to get these people to vote on it in the other thread or if the 13 votes are accepted? The nomation thread has currently 6 votes but only two of these are unique, so that gives a total of 15 votes.

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Hmm, that seems like it adds up just fine. I’ll add it to the list.

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Great!

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Thank you for not counting my vote among the unique votes on the nomination thread, as I wouldn’t have been able to vote for my own post anyway.

I am dumb. I authored neither post. Doubled disregard.

If I’m parsing this correctly, you’re suggesting that @DeusIrae and @SomeOne2 voted on this post, but not on this post that already had 13 other votes, which are essentially duplicates.

So, you either need the two wayward unique voters on the former post to also like the latter, or you need someone like @mathbrush to agree it should count and hand-waive it. Do I have that correct?

ETA: And it literally resolves itself while I’m typing. Please carry on and disregard.

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Have to go now but Mathbrush will have the final answer - hope to look at this tomorrow. Sorry if I made a mistake - not sure(?)

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Pinkunz indicated I made a mistake, so you better double check. I will have to now - will take a look tomorrow.

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No, it’s fine, I don’t think it’s worth splitting hairs over. It will definitely be included!

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No mistake, just making sure I understood.

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Apparently things are becoming more relaxed now, though Mathbrush might not agree :smile:

In the nomination thread, @pinkunz proposed the name

IFDB Awards

I think that is a good but also honest name considering the approach.

You could also consider calling the main award “IFDB Game of the Year” as “outstanding” is implied in Game Of The Year (GOTY) and as GOTY seems to be an industry standard now, I think.

More so me groping for an on-the-fly handle in my sad attempts at mass communication, but sure, why not; let’s go with that, lol.

I proposed the IFDB Awards. :grin:

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We may have to do another poll. I’ve actually considered ‘The IFDB Awards’; the main reason I didn’t start with that is because I hadn’t consulted with other IFDB mods beforehands and didn’t want to presume I could use the name on my own. I think it would be really fitting.

I’ve also thought to change the name ‘people’s choice’ to ‘player’s choice’, as we’re now (based on the last poll) planning on only having people vote if they’ve played the game they’re voting for.

So maybe we can do one last poll with the different names, but in a few days to give people a break (and a chance to suggest other names).

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I’ve only skimmed the topics about this new set of awards, so apologies if I missed something.

I saw there were talks about awards for works in languages other than English and that there were discussions about how the voting process would take place. If I understood correctly, anybody (satisfying some criteria like being on IFDB) would be able to vote for nominees? I just want to be sure that other languages are not forgotten. (Say, if everything is decided by some kind of jury with only English-speaking people.)


I don’t want to start a debate, but I believe the community as a whole moved a bit away from the term “game” so it might not be the best name? (But then “IFDB IFOTY” is a bit repetitive.)

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The current languages I have planed are German, French, and Spanish. If you know any other languages that have 5 games on IFDB published in 2022, I can add them!

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I’ll think about that. And by the way, thank you all for thinking about languages other than English!

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Yeah, a lot of the best games each year are not in English!

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