General overall discussion

Competitions IFComp
1

Where is the discussion taking place?
General remarks? Favourites? Least favourites? Themes you noticed? Predictions?

FYI: I notice from Emily Short’s blog that there will be a discussion about the comp on IFMud on November 22.

Jason Dyer’s round-up suggests that experimentation was the ‘theme’. Agreed. There was so much novelty in this comp that it’s quite staggering actually. He helpfully suggests a few genre categories:

  • kinetic story (e.g. Venus)
  • narrative strategy (e.g. Begscape)
  • traditional adventure (e.g. Hunger Daemon)
  • open-world adventure (Transparent)
  • “puzzle boat” (Missive, kind of)
  • with AlethiCorp in a class of its own (although ARG seems a good enough category for it IMO).

For me this makes a lot of sense out of the diversity and I almost worry that I’m comparing apples to oranges when trying to rate these games. Mostly however I’m just impressed by authors’ creativity and by the sheer diversity of experiences that can be created with the tools at our disposal now. I’ve mostly played traditional text adventures before this, so this comp in particular has opened my eyes to all the other tools that are out there, and the other possibilities that exist for interactive storytelling beyond the interpreter and the parser.

2

I’m not too down on Emily’s term of ARGlike, it’s just I’ve always associated ARGs with community-play so it makes me feel a little off.

I’d also like to connect the genre with the Dennis Wheatley Crime Dossiers, and ARGlike doesn’t fit them exactly.

I’ll roll with it if everyone else is happy, though.

3

I had the same experience. I have always preferred parser-based IF (though not necessarily ‘traditional’ text adventures – I like a good story). But this year my favourite was Creatures Such as We, a ChoiceScript-based game. It made me realise that non-parser based games really can work as well as parser-based ones as games, not just as ‘static fiction with a bit of interactivity thrown in’. (Though I guess this isn’t the best example, as there really aren’t any puzzles to speak of in this game, nor a way to lose.)

I was also surprised at seeing a Quest game that was really good (Jacqueline, Jungle Queen!). It would have worked just as well as an Inform game, of course, but Quest does have some nifty features, like the compass rose (showing which directions/exits could be taken) and the auto-map. I loved the auto-map!

The best games are ones that uses the strength of their media (PataNoir from IFComp 2011 could only ever work as a parser-based game, for example), while avoiding their weaknesses. I really liked The Contortionist, but I think it, interestingly, would have worked better as either a parser-based game or as a graphical point-and-click adventure!

A few games had excellent writing, but didn’t really work as games. In Following Me there were too much text, and too little interactivity (that actually makes a difference in the outcomes), in my opinion. Perhaps it could have been written as just a short story? But interestingly (and I think a reviewer noted this), even if the choices you make eventually doesn’t matter, and you end up with the same ending, the story (and the single ending) feels very different depending on which choices you made.

Missive had another interesting design. You could either 1) play it as an interactive short story, and avoid (or never notice) the puzzles, 2) play it as an interactive story with a single (human relationship) puzzle, or 3) play it as a game with many small puzzles (and a final murder mystery) that you have to solve. (I have written more about this in another thread on this forum.)

BTW, remembering last year’s ‘indescribable hat’ meta-puzzle, did anyone find something similar this year? The only thing I noticed was that there were three games with a globe you could spin, but this could very well just be a coincidence.

4

I’ve updated my reviews to cover most of the games.

In story-focused games personally I prefer it when there aren’t any puzzles and no ways to lose.

I agree, that’s a criterion I use as well - “would this have worked better in a different medium?”
Thing is, kinetic stories (as I’ve taken to calling them now - and the name comes from the so-called “kinetic novels” I think) which have a low interactivity still use all the strengths of static fiction, which is why I would hesitate to downplay them just because they aren’t making use of the ‘interactivity potential’ that they have. You might well ask, why not just do it as a static story? I don’t know for sure but here are my thoughts. First, the experience of actually clicking probably serves some psychological function similar to page-turning. Second, the choice of which word or words to turn into hyperlinks creates an additional sort of ‘poetic pathway’ through the story, putting additional emphasis on certain elements and creating continuity. Thirdly, many of these stories are written in the second person: that applies to The Urge and Venus Meets Venus, for example. Static fiction hardly ever uses the second person, so this is a way for that particular voice to be re-enforced, effectively by asking the reader to ‘confirm’ their own involvement in the story.

Adding more interactivity to these kinetic stories won’t necessarily improve them. For example, The Urge had two endings but one of them was noticeably more interesting and more convincing than the other, so I tend to think it would have been better off without giving the player the choice, even though that reduces the interactivity.

Still, making full use of the interactivity of the medium is rewarding and interesting.

5

“In story-focused games personally I prefer it when there aren’t any puzzles and no ways to lose.”

I don’t know how it is possible to “lose” in story-based games. An ending is an ending even if you don’t like it.

“You might well ask, why not just do it as a static story?”

Yes, for most of them because …

" … actually clicking probably serves some psychological function similar to page-turning."
Right. But this doesn’t answer the question. Using this logic, any book that is converted into a webpage and links to chapters would be interactive fiction.

" … the choice of which word or words to turn into hyperlinks creates an additional sort of ‘poetic pathway’ through the story, putting additional emphasis on certain elements and creating continuity."

Possibly, but I’ve never been able to figure out the rationale and, after reading many reviews, it seems that many readers can’t either, beyond the vague “pacing” defense. Most links seem to be more description, like typing “x object” in parser games, which could have been incorporated into the text or cut completely. Static fiction authors don’t need to use links to pace their stories, so it seems to me that links are unnecessary to do this.

“Static fiction hardly ever uses the second person, so this is a way for that particular voice to be re-enforced, effectively by asking the reader to ‘confirm’ their own involvement in the story.”

Almost never works for me. How do I feel like I’m there when I’m not actually doing anything? The use of second person in Venus Meets Venus was pointless because there was no way the character was me, no way for me to relate, and preventing me from making any decisions only reinforced this point. I’m just reading and clicking to the next part of the story. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Just like turning a page or clicking the second chapter link of a book on a webpage.

“For example, The Urge had two endings but one of them was noticeably more interesting and more convincing than the other, so I tend to think it would have been better off without giving the player the choice, even though that reduces the interactivity.”

I think that is the fault of the author, not the medium.

Neil