While we’re at it, can we please remove horror movies from the Oscars? It’s not fair to them to compete against formulaic romance movies and snooty things like historical dramas since they rarely win anything. People could just not watch them, and not vote for them, which is already the case, but then I’d still be forced to be reminded that they existed, which I find incredibly insulting.
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I think the point has been made. Additional sarcasm is not needed…
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Sorry. I’m sarcastic by nature. But I’ll stop.
Here’s something I chucked into the ZIL group in FB, maybe it would serve as a nice halfway-house.
So next year, IFComp 2021, i’m hoping to convince a small number of people to enter their ZIL/ZILF created games with the incentive being that we will offer one of those special prize funds that IFComp allows (apologies, I can’t recall the exact name they give it). So it may be $100 for the highest placing game created in ZIL/ZILF; something along those lines.
We could have a joint special prize and by crowdfunding we could amp up the fund, so you have a ZIL/Adventuron/DAAD/PunyInform (whatever, or maybe just call it Parser IF) and then have a $250 prize of the highest placing game.
Just a thought.
Adam
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Hi folks. Just a reminder that the answer to this topic is “No, the Comp likely will not be split into categories for the foreseeable future.”
There have been good suggestions. With so many entries it makes sense that we could request that the entry list be filterable in the future and this is productive.
Continued snark is unproductive, so I’m going to close this topic temporarily just to hopefully remove that temptation. Please enjoy all our other wonderful topics or begin a new one at your preference!
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This topic was automatically opened after 6 days.
Snark aside, I think it’s a very real issue that people are overwhelmed with 100+ games. Where do you start, even?
I know judges may even feel they are being unfair looking only at parser or twine games. Or they may feel unfair that they are not comparing parser and twine games fairly enough. So, faced with both of these possibilities, they may just give up.
But the thing is – it’s ok to say “I’m not going to look at this sort of work.” We have to do that every time we enter a library, or a bookstore. But it probably feels more personal to do so if we are ignoring a real live person’s work.
I think a split would be useful for practical reasons, because it would tell judges it is okay to focus, but I also recognize it would factionalize things right away–and of course it could discourage innovations based on pulling the best parts from parser- and choice-based works.
I think the big issue is one we didn’t mention as much. We need more judges and more ways to get them to judge, even if they only do five works, and we need to let them know that’s more than okay, and they don’t have to back up their scores with a thesis.
It’s great to see more authors in the authors’ forum, because I just enjoy talking about what I’ve done and what I want to do and reading others discuss the same. But the flip side is, judges may feel stuck with all this. The Paradox of Choice is a real thing, and we are running into it.
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Perhaps we could try to distribute the releases between the IFComp and the Spring Thing a little more evenly. Maybe we could divide the Colossal Fund between the two events?
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IMO, even ignoring the clear bias towards parser games, there’s a lot to be said about the exposure that IFComp brings to games. Not just during the running of the comp, but years and years after. If you enter, your game is listed on the page of entrants for prosterity, which brings so much more exposure even years later than being buried on IFDB ever would. Kicking choice games out of the comp would deny the devs that exposure, just because a portion of the community doesn’t care for that style of game.
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Who said anything about that?
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Well, I guess they didn’t. I was probably just misreading the direction.
Yeah, it was just a split that was suggested, with the main goal and result of it being to ensure that folks like the OP have the danger of even accidentally clicking a choice based game completely removed, so they can rest easy at night.
e: lol flag all you want mom but it’s literally what what was asked for, reread the OP.
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One possible way would be a tagging system for the mechanics or themes a game contains. It’d allow authors to filter down to a set of games that have common elements that actually interest that particular author. If the most popular tags were published, then it’d also let future authors know what is popular with judges. Entering into a competition doesn’t guarantee that your game will get played. A judges time is valuable 
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Honestly splitting this into two competitions seems like a lot of work.
Ooh I’ve got a great idea for a horror game where it starts off as a parser game but then suddenly, in the middle of the night, IT TURNS INTO A CHOICE-BASED TWINE.
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I would definitely play that
I mean if it’s horror shouldn’t it be the other way around?
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It definitely would be that way if you were on mobile.
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