I want to admit right now out of pre-misplaced guilt that I’m testing out some code currently that may end up in my entry, but I’m writing it in a separate file and will not be copy/pasted, which is not in the same category as writing a regular Ectocomp story.
@Merk : How old is your merkling? I’m sure if you mention her age in the about, people will go easy. This comp is about fun, after all.
[emote]:)[/emote] The little merkling just turned 8 in August. I was hesitant to mention her age in the game because I didn’t want it to seem like I wanted special treatment for her, but that was more to do with making sure it was judged the same as any other. But maybe that would happen anyway, and it would just help avoid really mean comments. I may do that. Thanks.
I wish I’d been writing games when I was 8. No one else would, considering the sort of kid I was back then, but it might be fun to try and recreate the games I would have written had there been a system like Twine around back then.
You didn’t need a system like Twine to write CYOAs. I wrote mine on paper, volumes and volumes of them, in my early teens. I released them in TADS 2 form in 2006 to unanimous derision!
I don’t think I started quite that early, but by 5th and 6th grade I was making little Choose-Your-Own-Adventures hand-written on paper that I would cut in half and fold and staple to make quarter-sized mini-books. What I regret most is that I don’t have any of that now. I might have a few of the stories I wrote in fifth grade because the small town newspaper where I lived would run them as a feature, but none of the CYOA stuff.
I’m glad Addie’s interested in doing this. I also have twins who are 5, but my boy is more into video games and his sister prefers to draw and play princess dress-up games on iPod.
You’re not the only one. Though I was extremely lucky to have some Apple II software to make my own. It let you roll dice and stuff in places too. It allowed sixty whole pages!
I wish I’d saved mine, no matter how awful they were.
I imagine playing others’ games and just being able to say why she liked/disliked them could be really fun for her, too. Sort of another way to see that you don’t have to wait for a certain age or enormous event to be creative, or organize your creativity.
I used to write little CYOA books as a teenager, all of which I was convinced were masterpieces (even though they were all shamelessly copied off Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf) and would make me a fortune one day. I really wish I’d kept them but I think part of my subconscious, secretly realising how bad they were, made me dispose of them.
Well, I’ve finished and sent off my entry, dedicated to the young Miss Addie Snyder (please tell me I got your daughter’s name right Merk). I hope I didn’t screw up anything serious. I was going to enter at least one other entry, but now I’m feeling pretty spent and may not enter another (barring some sudden flash of inspiration). Unless it’s okay to enter Twine adaptions of nearly twenty-year-old Batman comics all of a sudden?
Yeah, that’s right. [emote]:)[/emote]
My entry’s in, too. Play it and despair. No, seriously…
I have an unbroken record of entering the EctoComp and not winning and feel confident I can extend this feat a step further with this year’s entry.
Got my entry in also…first time entering anything…Three hours went fast, had to cut out a lot of what I wanted to put in there. Maybe I’ll come back to it and expand and polish.
Which of your crazy american timezones does the October 30th midnight DEADline fall into? Also, is it midnight as in the midnight between the 30th and the 31st?
Phew! Note that I entered my game under a pseudonym (though I gave all the correct pertinent information in the “About” section, so one wonders why I bothered). If this causes any confusion it’s probably the only Twine game with a dedication.
I can’t believe I actually thought of, and completed, something for EctoComp! wtf?!
Saved some time to playtest and then I’m uploading tonite! [emote]:mrgreen:[/emote]
Rumor has it that this is going to be a pretty jam-packed EctoComp!
There certainly are a lot of participants! It’s generating more interest than the Spring Thing, and I can’t decide if that’d good or not.
I just submitted one as well. Man, three hours is not a lot of time, especially when your Inform 7 is rusty.
Just got my entry in, apologies in advance. Everyone attempts their first (released) parser game in three hours, right? [emote]:?[/emote]
Hm, looks like you got a game in, but for those still wondering…from previous years it seems to be ~20 hours from now, but there’s leeway for lost entries etc. Not that we should push it.
2011: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=3348
2012: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=5943
Just as long as people can play the games Halloween night.
My guess is it’s pacific time (-8 hours for you) … so unless you’re pulling a crazy all nighter it’ll be ok for you. Anyone care to confirm?