So I’ve always loved the intra-comp social interaction between players/judges and authors, specifically on Twitter. I know that these message boards will be active, and I will endeavor to be more active on here than in the past, but I like to post my reviews directly to IFDB so I don’t really start my own thread here (maybe I should). I’ve always really enjoyed posting on Twitter about games that I just played and liked, then tagging the author and encouraging other judges to play those games. Plus it was a great place to get recommendations from other judges for my IFComp adventure. But, given what Twitter has become and the exodus of many IF enthusiatists from the platform, I just don’t think it will be the same as in past years. I’m still holding out hope that Twitter might return to its former glory/critical mass, though I can’t say that optimism is warranted at this point. I will still post there as there are still some of us left, but I’m hoping for more robust conversation.
So then, other than right here, where do IF enthusiasts hang out and converse these days? My guess would be Mastodon. I think I saw @VictorGijsbers mention once that he had really been enjoying it there, but I’ve also heard that it is a lot more segmented than Twitter and some of my favorite follows might be hanging out in one area while others are in a different area. Any guidance on that would be appreciated.
Does IFComp have a Discord? Not sure if that is the best platform for what I’m looking for, but maybe.
There are a lot of IF people on Mastodon. As you may know, it’s a decentralised network consisting of many servers. But those servers see each other, so there’s no real need to worry! Also, it’s easy to switch to another server! There’s a fair number of IF people on mastodon.gamedev.place. So you could go there. If you post and send me a message, I’ll boost it!
How big is the IF community on Bluesky? I could see myself signing up for it.
I’ve found a really good sized community on Mastodon in a short time, and there are still quite a few IF folk on Twitter, including many of my favorites.
To answer honestly, I have no idea about the IF community per se, but I can tell you the gamedev community is emigrating en masse to Bluesky (from Twitter, which used to be all-important for gamedev; I can tell you we would NOT be moving if we had a chance to stay. Years’ worth of friends and professional contacts and brand-building going down the drain thanks to Melon Muskito).
