In a bid to juggle the timescale a bit and not overlap with IntroComp one possible timetable would be…
April - Register your intent
May - Submission window
June - Voting
That’s actually one month shorter than I had originally envisaged which was (keeping it month ‘agnostic’) - 1 month for voting, 2 months for submissions, 1 month for registering intent.
Would three months work? Is it fine or too short?
Critical question - if I re-jigged it to June for voting versus August then would this (or the shorter duration) mean you decide not to enter?
If I can’t move it, then I can’t. But I promised I’d try so providing it’s possible without losing people then it makes sense to move it a bit.
The important interval is from when people start working on the game until the submission deadline.
If you posted that schedule today, with all the other needed comp info, people would have three and a half months to write a game. If you posted it on April 1st, people would have only two months. Pretty big difference.
Good points. So the reduction of the submission window length from two months to one month isn’t an issue per se, it’s more about getting the timetable published ASAP?
For sure, and if there’s going to be a clash then my thinking is that it’s better with IntroComp because people can opt to enter IntroComp and then enter the same game into ParserComp the next year. BUT I’m having one last go and juggling them.
From my own point of view, I don’t mind if you pull the final submission and judging dates forward by one month. Promotion has effectively started, so there’s still plenty of time to work on a small to medium sized game, even taking the TALP jam into consideration.
I am working part-time on my first parser game so it goes without saying that I would like as much time for development, beta testing, and rework as possible.
I was very excited to hear about ParserComp and made my decision to enter based on its specificity and the fact that a newer competition might have fewer entries (so more chance for my game to get played by more people).
Using the 2/8 date of your Final Rules post as a start date, your original schedule, with a judging start date of 8/1, gives me 25 weeks to get my game ready for submission. Your modified schedule, with a judging start date of 6/1 gives me only 16 weeks.
All my internal dates have been estimated based on your original schedule so I would prefer that it remain the official schedule to give me enough time, but I will still try to make whatever submission date you decide upon.
If you can finalize the schedule as soon as possible I will modify my internal schedule as needed.
If the judging date changes from 8/1 to 6/1 and I cannot make that new date I will probably wait until 2022 to submit my game to either ParserComp or Spring Thing that year (I have no intention of entering IFComp this year).
In my experience, having a deadline for a comp is a good thing as an author and having as much notice to plan for them in the future, the better. Always having yearly IFComp deadlines in summer and fall to shoot for are motivational.
Especially if people can use a comp as impetus to finish something that has been long kicking around, as opposed to speed-IF where you have to write an entire game inside a specific timeframe.
I’ll be a doing a formal announcement post here and other social media over the next 48hrs however if it helps I can tell you (and obviously anyone else reading this) that the timetable has been finalised as - April Registration, May-June Submission, July Voting, August 1st—3rd announce results.
Hope that helps, as I say a formal post will be made soon that will include useful links.
