IFComp 2024 Mysteries

Competitions IFComp
1

I know last year we had a whole bunch of mystery games in IFComp. This year, to everyone’s surprise I’m sure, I’m submitting another one.

But I’m curious if it’s going to be a very popular genre again this year, or if another genre will take the lead. Is anyone else working on a mystery/detective game?

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2

Also the boaty mystery. What’s the big theme? Dreams? Meta text adventures? Something completely unexpected?

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No boats in mine this time, I’m afraid. But six detectives, if you’re generous in your counting!

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Encorm and I are working on one as well. Tonally I think it’s more of a thriller, but the gameplay is primarily investigative.

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Mine’s a mystery game :slight_smile: That literally is its set genre in the game code.

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You know, I probably should have done this in the original post. But using the Treaty of Babel genre labels, is your IFComp entry…

  • Children’s Fiction
  • Collegiate Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Erotica
  • Fairy Tale
  • Fantasy
  • Fiction
  • Historical
  • Horror
  • Mystery
  • Non-Fiction
  • Other
  • Religious Fiction
  • Romance
  • Science Fiction
  • Surreal
  • Western
0 voters

Specifically:

  • “Comedy” includes parodies; it’s not called “humo[u]r” solely because nobody could agree on how to spell it
  • “Fiction” means literary/non-genre fiction, “whose essential purpose is literary, in a way which trumps any subject they happen to have”
  • “Surreal” means things that are still fundamentally IF but don’t have an overarching narrative (like Andrew Schultz’s wordplay games)
  • “Other” means things that aren’t actually IF (like Zarf’s “Freefall”, which is Tetris implemented in the Z-machine)

And no, I’m not really sure why “fairy tale” is separate from “fantasy” and “children’s fiction”, but that’s what the Treaty says.

I’m curious which category is going to come out on top this year!

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