I posted this into our ZIL group on Facebook a few days ago.
What I didn’t know, and do now thanks to various replies I had, was that I’m essentially describing something that already happened (I’m 17 years late) in the very early 2000s. Games made for the IF Art Show, particularly The Fire Tower, is exactly what I’ve had rattling around my brain for at least a year now.
Here’s my post anyway…
"I keep coming back to a game/experience that I want to create (in ZIL of course ). I can’t shake it out of my head! The problem is I can’t articulate it properly, it’s not fully formed as an idea.
A type of exploration game, beautifully written, that plays out like an ambient experience - almost like a relaxing sleep story or a meditation if that makes sense.
Not for everyone (possibly not for anyone but me!) Certainly it would bore to death anyone who prefers a good puzzle fest or treasure hunt. Nevertheless I think it would be interesting."
This may just have been a thing that was popular for a while and now isn’t, but if anyone did want to explore this again then let me know. Aside from anything else it would be good to discuss this with others who may be interested. I suppose if there was enough people we could do something, anyways… I’m getting ahead of myself.
Just thought I’d put up the IFWiki for the show. It ran 7 times between 1999 and 2007. The main page for the IF Art Show is reachable from the wiki-page, but the subcategories seem to be broken.
I’ve played quite a few of the IF Art Show entries. Of the ones I’ve played, some of them have beautifully written descriptions, but they’re not much fun to ‘play’, because there’s no adventure and no puzzles, hence no challenge. There are exceptions, of course. (‘Sparky and Boots’ comes to mind.)
The style of the IF Art Show didn’t really die out. It just became mainstream in many Inform 7 games. Lots of verbose, colourful text and nothing much to do apart from type WAIT or follow the linear storyline like an automaton. Or play the game over and over again to see all the different outcomes.
As I said on the Facebook page, this isn’t my style of game, but I’m sure there are others that love it. To each his own.
Yeah, I’m definitely into this type of game! Warrigal is right that that type of game became more popular over time, but the needle has swung back a lot towards puzzles in the last year among parser games.
I think a separate IF Art show or a subcontest among other contests could be fun.
2007 was a year before the original free release of Dear Esther. I’m not sure whether the term “walking simulator” popped up then or in 2012, but it’s solidly established now. (It’s still an excellent Steam search tag, if you’re looking for this kind of game in the graphical style.)
I think we’re on the same stream of consciousness here, because funnily enough what started me on this whole “could I write an IF game that played out like a meditation story” was a chat with David Wehle over Twitter.
David’s games include Home is Where One Starts and The First Tree. He’s stated that Dear Esther was a big influence on him and you can see this in his games.
I’m all ParserComp-ed up at the moment but I would be happy to look into something like this around Autumn time.
Would it work better as a “festival” rather than a comp or jam? Possibly with no official 1st place etc although allowing ratings is a good thing of course.
Haha, well yes actually i’m (very slowly) working on a little fangame that i’ll push into the FNAF community on Reddit If anyone has read “The Ball Pit” then they will know who Jeff is, I thought i’d make Five Nights at Jeff’s.
Scott Cawthon is really supportive of fangames, anything that adds to the FNAF Fanverse, it would be great if other games creators were of the same mind.
Picking this back up (and tagging @Jacqueline as promised I would back in June!)
I could look to run something, a Game Jam maybe, somewhere in the Jan-March range next year? In no particular order I have the following thoughts in mind:
Rather than pick up the “IF Art Show” (although it certainly is in the same genre) I was looking at something around “ambience” and/or possibly “walking simulator”. More or less the same type of game but without the classifications that the Art Show had i.e Landscape. I have Jacq’s “The Firetower” in mind as an example of the type of game.
I don’t think this type of comp/jam would clash too much with the more typical jams & comps, we’re at a point where the calendar year is fairly packed anyway so at some point we are going to have to accept that there will be overlap at certain times.
I can use the ParserComp rules as a basic framework and edit to be more “art/ambience” specific.
). I can’t shake it out of my head! The problem is I can’t articulate it properly, it’s not fully formed as an idea.
If anyone has read “The Ball Pit” then they will know who Jeff is, I thought i’d make Five Nights at Jeff’s.