For me, if not for the time constraint I never would have finished! I have great difficulty putting the metaphorical pencil down and saying “no more, it’s done”. So the Petite Mort rule forced me to first limit my design to something I could plausibly code in four hours, and then scrap anything that would be cool but too time-consuming, and finally put a stamp of completion on it and stop tweaking things.
In theory the October 31st deadline would have done that anyway, but I know from experience I would have had too many overly-ambitious unfinished ideas remaining the night before the deadline, with no time to test and polish them.
Copypasting into IFDB is probably the most helpful, because it integrates your reviews into IFDB’s various systems. But external links are fine too, if that’s what you feel like doing. Thanks for reviewing!
I’ve been copy-pasting in reviews into IFDB and lightly editing them.
As a note, there’s nothing wrong with dumping all your forum reviews in at once but a lot of people like to use IFDB’s “embargo” feature so that they don’t flood the news feed. I have most of my Ectocomp Grand Guignol reviews in there already, and they’ll start posting two per day as of tomorrow.
At IFDB you can see that it makes a distinction between “editorial reviews” and the on-site normal ones. So, if you have already the reviews here, you can put them there as “editorial reviews” and link to the original thread.
Also, everyone, for the games you love so much, if you have a glowing review, consider reposting it at the very main itchio web page of the game in question, so future people see those beautiful words.
EctoComp has been a great experience for me! I was finally motivated to finish and publish a game. My first! It was mostly a learning experience with Inform 7. I didn’t have enough time to figure out NPC conversations and a real hint system. I brute forced an alternative hint system. More to learn.
My dry humor play on words came across as misspellings. I will have to dial that back from now on. I get a lot of eyerolls from my friends and family.
All of the games were wonderful. Such a great comp!!! Thank you to everyone involved.
Even if it is not a glowing review but you enjoyed the game. Even if it is just one line. If the entry has a comment section in the game page, it is so so very appreciated.
Also, since the Comp is over, you can also leave a rating on itch!
As someone a bit more seasoned on itchio than some others here, I do recommend crossposting your review to the main game page and giving a starred review of the game there! Reviews for the comp are separate from those on the page, and doing both of these can help boost a game so more people can see it.
Also, if someone stumbles upon a game, they’re going to be more likely to look for reviews/comments on the game page rather than the comp page.
You’ve all done really great work for this event, and I want to see everyone’s work be enjoyed!
Congratulations to every organizer, author, tester, player, etc.
Hurrah for Amanda Walker for her 2nd place, well done.
And thanks to Ruber for his dedicación.
Adding my voice to the chorus of congratulations to the winners, all of the entrants, and the organizer for the success of ECTOCOMP this year. Thanks, everyone!
Thanks for holding this comp yet again! It was a fun challenge to create a couple games I’m very pleased with.
Also, I was able to update my EctoComp game from 3 years ago, Quite Queer Night Near, in addition to post-comp releases for my other efforts. I’d be interested to see updates from other entrants–I think I’m following a lot of you, but maybe I should change “a lot” to more.
The TADS forum has a hot pot of coffee and a comfy chair waiting for you. But I think it’s great you’re working in Inform. (You are coming back to TADS, right???)
I chalked it up to the time constraints, then slowly realized there was some fun being had. Good job!
I’ve always thought there was no such thing as a game with universal appeal, but The Good Ghost changed my mind. The dog who was the love of my life died 16 years ago, and I still dream about her all the time and cry about it sometimes. This game tapped right into all those emotions in a good way. So thank you for it.
It’s also really interesting that this was a joint effort. How did that work? I’d love to see a postmortem about its construction.
Hey, hope this isn’t an elephant in the room, or that this doesn’t change the tone too much, but anyone chatted with Dorian Passer? I noticed he’d pulled his entry from the comp, so the votes are still there but there are now only 36 entries. I sent him a PM.
It’d be sad if he moved on. I know I wasn’t the only person he was helpful and encouraging to.
(It’s also possible he just wanted time away. But this is one of those instances where I wanted to ask for more than curiosity’s sake.)
Dorian has not replied to my last message to him and his profile here is no longer accepting messages. I have attempted to find him at IFDB, itch, and even textadventures.uk. It appears that he has deleted all accounts and content at all of those locations.
Naturally, I wonder if my comments on narrative framing in his games played a part in his departure, a thought that makes me quite sad. While I’m not very interested in discussing that possibility publicly, I thought it would make sense to acknowledge it.
I think Dorian got a lot of criticism for his games, starting right off the bat in ParserComp when there was talk of disqualifying his entry. The criticism was largely thoughtful and appropriate (including yours), but there was a lot of it, culminating in his entry placing last in Ectocomp. I participated in that thread of yours as well, and naturally I also wonder if I contributed to his leaving.
When you put experimental work in comps for public consumption, you need to expect some feedback you don’t like, and there was a lot of negative feedback to process. My sense is that Dorian is a very open person who believes in engaging with and listening to critics, but I think anyone might need some time away after running such a gauntlet.
Dorian, if you’re reading this, I do hope you come back. I value your enthusiasm, your willingness to experiment, and your eagerness to engage with people here.
For my part, I’ve seen the game dropped from the comp, and the game and Dorian’s profile at IFDB were “vandalized” by his very hand. So I presumed that was the wish of the author and I retired silently the game from the comp rankings. So yep, it seems he wants a time out of IF.
