I’m planning to enter, and I have a demo I’ve shown to a few testers.
We’ll see what happens!
E: I’ve referred to this on tumblr as my “cave game.”
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I have absolutely no ideas at this point, but if inspiration strikes, I would enjoy joining again. Prince Quisborne hints at a sequel, but if that happens it’s probably several years down the road…
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Don’t worry about reading it all the way through. Just find something where you say “Aha, I didn’t know you could do this,” then build a small demo and expound on it.
Speaking as someone who learned it 10+ years ago, I think this is the best way–or if not the best way, it left me less frustrated with the parts I didn’t understand yet.
Some sections meant little or nothing to me for a while, until I needed them or wondered “can Inform do that?” or “can Inform do that better?” And yes, it could.
Also, look at source code of works you really like and wonder “How’d they do that?” Source code’s more prolific now, what with GitHub being more prominent. I wound up learning a lot of I6 from Friar Bacon’s Secret.
As for the original question, I’m glad someone else asked it. The white whale in this thread seems within reach. But I might have something smaller to write, too.
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Second on this. PYHITPH is basically built on me discovering the “include” function and using it for everything. Right now I’m trying to wrap my head around arrays, because I have no idea what they’re actually good for, but when I find out what, it’s all over for you suckers (pointing threateningly at incomplete game ideas in my head).
Anyway, yeah, definitely see you all next year. The game will probably be Squidaddle, but no promises.
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I have something planned for next year.
The plot is mostly set. The mechanics need some time to iron out.
This one actually grew out of my Bare Bones Jam entry. However, due to what I am planning, Choicescript is no longer the best medium. I am thus switching the medium to parser. Judging from what happened this year, it’s going to be one hell of a ride…
Aim to get into the top 50, I guess? Heard that Tabitha and maybe Kastel and some more newcomers are joining too. This is in the sense of having reviewed but have yet to participate.
First spoiler alert: The title of the game is: Welcome to Hellwaters.
More questions: Which one has the gentlest learning curve: Inform, Adrift or TADS?
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I have a general concept for 2024, some stats, a couple of plots that may or may not be subplots, certain characters, magic-related problems to overcome, and a general sense of the world and setting. It’s a suitable locate for a claw-footed tub, which pleases me. And an optional cat for the discerning reader.
The title is “Miss Duckworthy’s School for Magic-Infested Children”.
Which I thought was the best title ever until I saw “Squidworthy”.
This will be the first time I started writing more than two months before the deadline 
Except for that time I missed the deadline (which doesn’t count since I then disqualified myself the following year, lolz). Will it be my most amazing game ever???
Well, I suspect what I’ll actually do is absolutely nothing from now until exactly five weeks before the deadline, followed by a mad scramble.
But I’ll still be THINKING about it, which 100% counts as writing.
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Ah…
But the whole point of the clawfoot-bathtub/boat phenomenon is that it emerges organically from the swamp of shared subconscious vibes of the authors. A reflection of the underground activity of the interconnecting mycelium between all authors in a given year, giving rise to a reverberating thematic mushroom harvest of motifs.
I’ll shut up now. I might end up in a linguistic swamp myself.
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- The Misadventures of the Knights of the Eight Spittoons;
a collection of farcical vignettes set in the Land of Dwindeldorne
The bumbling trio is just begging for a spin-off. Each with their own skillset, they must work together to overcome a series of increasingly improbable obstacles in the quest to prove their worth to the Lord of Thymeleigh Manor.
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This.
But thanks for the alert about it being a month earlier next year; I was not aware of that.
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Hi all,
Now that I have a bit of IFComp participation experience under my belt, I feel confident I can participate next year as well.
I plan to submit the entry I was working on for Spring Thing 2023 (where have I heard that before, missing deadlines by a mile???) for IF Comp 2024:
Pack Rat
Features:
- “traditional” parser game (with some additional custom verbs)
- Story mode as featured in my One King entry of IFComp 2023
- Quest system to keep track of the puzzles players are working on
- Possibly narrated undo if I can manage it (working on some test cases now)
- Some visual elements (playing with vorple now)
Special mention (my new hint system and also my new “parser voice”):
A tall, thin man suddenly appears, seemingly out of nowhere. “Hey there!” he says, grinning broadly. “My name is R; I beta-tested this game. I am here to offer guidance if you need it. Have you played interactive fiction before?”
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual entities, living, dead, undead, or immortal, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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… either that or any sufficiently large number of works of IF is bound to have some recurring motifs. 
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Critical thought and a basic understanding of statistics trump mystical woo-wah every time. You are most correct, dear sir.
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Given that I started my reflections thread with two paragraphs about Jung, I’m not in a position to complain about anyone positing unconscious shared vibes, to be honest. 
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Yes, I read that. Mighty interesting.
I’ve never read anything by Jung, though I remember a copy of Man and His Symbols in my parents’ library. (Obnoxious title really.)
I am very interested in what I know of Jung through other sources. (Many of which probably garbled and distorted Jung’s original meaning.)
Archetypes, universal symbols, and how these appear in varied forms throughout human folklore and mythology, and actually in just about every story humans tell.
Reminds me of a great Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal cartoon.
(smbc-comics.com)
I have the impression that Jung is a thinker (I hesitate to call him a philosopher or psychologist) who nimbly navigates reason, intuition, poetic thought, thorough observation,… and often sacrifices hard logic and consistency in the search for deeper-felt, intuited meaning. (Again, from what I know about him, without having read the original works.)
I have read Nietzsche’s Jenseits von Gut und Böse and Zur Genealogie der Moral. Nietzsche, too, writes in a very poetic and literary style. Nevertheless, he does employ hard logic as a tool too.
(I remember an argument in which he demolishes Kant’s Kategorischer Imperativ by exposing it, over the length of only two or three paragraphs, as an immensely elaborate excercise in circular reasoning. I’m not qualified to judge the quality of his argument, but the obvious pleasure, the exalted language Nietzsche uses in building what is in essence a hard logical rebuttal argument was very enjoyable and challenging to read.)
I like reading the writings of thinkers such as these, who follow a flow of poetic, literary intuition, while still trying to adhere to reason to structure their thoughts, prevent their arguments from dissolving into mad disjointed ramblings.
(Levinas has a knack for this style of writing too. I read his Totalité et Infini and not only did I have to translate it into Dutch while reading, I also had to rephrase his poetic/literary langage into something that approached an understandable text. Loved every minute of it.)
I’ll dig Man and His Symbols out of my parents’ library and see if I can pick up a copy of Psychologishe Typen from the public library. (Or the university library in Gent.)
(EDIT: Wow. Every paragraph in this post starts with “I”. Sorry about that. Must be my unbridled egocentrism shining through.)
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Probably not, but who knows.
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So we’re all doing mushrooms next year, got it.
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The Lord of Timely Manor. Subtle, but clever.
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Description copied from How Prince Quisborne the Feckless Shook His Title:
<> Thymeleigh Manor <>
You’re on a lane wending through the grounds of the pleasant Thymeleigh Manor. The manor hall stands well away from the lane on a rise northeast of you, and the lane is bordered on that side by a low sod-topped stone wall. One particularly massive spreading tree shades the sunken roadway where you stand.
The lane goes northwest or southwest, and a faint foot-track passes the tree and crosses the field to the west.
Over near the manor, the Knights Arrogant can be seen parading around, dallying with the elegant daughters and nieces of Lord Myrgweth.
The Knights of the Eight Spittoons are in the area, patrolling around on their horses and trying to seem important.
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If we’re looking for rigorous explanations, there is also the human tendency, once a pattern is noted, to try to broaden its significance. The “boatiness quotient” is a constructed concept including boat games, space games, and almost anything set near a navigable body of water.
But we’re being spoilsports. I prefer the magic explanation.
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