IFComp vs. IntroComp

Competitions
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A friend and I have been working on a game that we would like to enter in this year’s IFComp. However, the game is based on a brief sketch that I entered in IntroComp in 2007. On that basis, it appears our new game will not be eligible as an IFComp entry. It’s not a sequel (which would be allowed), it’s the same story concept. The code is entirely new, but the underlying dramatic situation is the same and a few sentences of the text have been retained. (Yes, this is about “Tin.” You can check it out on ifdb if you’re so inclined.)

I’m wondering if there has ever been a community consensus about this particular IFComp rule. It seems to me the rule turns IntroComp into a garbage dump, basically. If you think you may want to develop your idea into a full-length game, entering it in IntroComp would be pretty stupid – and I don’t think that’s what the organizers of either Comp would, or should, want.

It seems to me IFComp should be structured so as to be inclusive. After all, the whole basis of the IF community is that we’re all participating in a free and open activity. A rule that rigidly excludes creative work from a prestigious competition seems to fly in the face of that ideal. At least that’s how it seems to me. I’m wondering how others feel about it, that’s all.

I can certainly see that previously released full-length games ought not to be allowed entry if they have been revised, even if the revisions are substantial. But this is about IntroComp, not about previously released full-length games.

What do you think?

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Not everyone who submits a game to IntroComp intends to submit to IFComp. Some release outside of competitions/jams. Some submit to Spring Thing or one of the other major events. IFComp has a “no prior releases” rule, and we as a community have respected that.

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Your statement is ambiguous. Do you mean, “We have abided by it,” or do you mean, “We have approved of it”? There has been no choice about abiding by it, so if that’s what you meant, there was no need for you to say it. If you mean, “We have approved of it,” that’s what I’m asking: Does the community approve of it? Has the community ever weighed in on the question?

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For what it’s worth, I’m not an IFComp organizer, but I wouldn’t take “all new code, almost all new text, but a few sentences are the same” as violating the previous release rule. Sharing a premise doesn’t make it the same piece. If you’re really worried, adjust those couple sentences so there’s nothing remaining from the Introcomp version except the premise?

A lot of the IFComp rules go back to the 90s, even if they don’t make as much sense now. The two-hour time limit, for example, was a lot more relevant back when people were regularly putting out 20-plus-hour-long epics. Now, even in comps like Spring Thing (which explicitly allow longer games), most entries are well below the IFComp time limit. But the rule has the weight of tradition behind it, and there hasn’t been a compelling reason to change it, either.

Well, IFComp is the only one of the major comps that disallows completed Introcomp entries, right? You can still enter Spring Thing or ECTOCOMP. You can also release it outside a comp and still get the Introcomp prize money.

That’s part of why we have a lot of comps! IFComp also rigidly excludes any games longer than two hours, and any games that use live-service LLMs. ECTOCOMP (Petite Mort division) rigidly excludes anything written in more than four hours. Parsercomp rigidly excludes choice-based IF. TALJ rigidly excludes anything with less than five puzzles. Spring Thing is the laxest of the comps (by design) but even that one excludes LLM-generated text.

The big comp gets the most attention, but there are plenty of reasons to submit your work to other places instead.

I wouldn’t mind having a loophole for Introcomp, but I don’t really see the logistics working out. To get the Introcomp prize, you need to release the full version of your game within one year, right? Which means if you want to submit to IFComp, either you need to have the full version of your game ready in advance (not really in the spirit of Introcomp), finish writing the whole thing in half a month (probably not up to IFComp’s quality standards), or pre-emptively disqualify yourself from Introcomp’s prizes in favor of IFComp’s (feels disrespectful to Introcomp).

Recently, Introcomp hasn’t been getting as much attention as it used to, which is a shame; I’m a big fan of that one. So maybe organizing some kind of “if you submit to the following IFComp, you can be eligible for both” crossover would be good for it? But I’m not really involved in organizing either comp, so I don’t know enough about the logistics to say. I certainly wouldn’t be opposed if it happened, but I’m not in a position to make it happen either.

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Not true. The rule is simply that the judges are supposed to decide on their rating after no more than 2 hours and not change their rating later. (And of course no one is policing their compliance with this rule.) I placed reasonably well in IFComp with “The Only Possible Prom Dress,” and it’s a monstrously large game. I doubt you could finish it in two hours even if you started using the hints immediately. You could get through it in 2 hours with the walkthrough, and maybe a few of the voters did that, but would that give you enough information to judge it?

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This is a quote from Jacqueline’s email to me today: “[W]e do take sequels, and it need not be a sequel [of a game] that previously appeared in the IFComp. If the game is another story with a new name from the same universe or world as Tin, but does not re-use any text or puzzles from the IntroComp game, that would not run afoul of the ‘no prior release rule.’ The basis for this is that IFComp should be a venue for new, never-before-seen works of interactive fiction. Hopefully the game(s) can be made to do this.”

The key problem here, as I see it, is in the phrase “if the game is another story.” There was NO story in “Tin.” It was just a sketch. But the full-length game is not “another story” either. It’s not a sequel. The underlying dramatic premise is exactly the same. The text prologue also has half a dozen of the same sentences – because those sentences set forth the dramatic premise. Changing the prologue in an artificial attempt to disguise it would only make it worse.

But I’m not trying to stir up a hornet’s nest about my WIP in particular. What I’m seeking is a more general view of whether this rule makes sense in view of the existence of IntroComp. I claim it doesn’t.

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I believe Jacqueline, who runs IFComp, also initiated IntroComp before handing it off.

One of the specific prizes of IntroComp (unless this has changed) is a reward if the winning games are completed in a year. This is likely one of the reasons for their ineligibility in IFComp.

Entrants must submit an excerpt of a new, never before seen work of interactive fiction that is not yet complete. This excerpt can be a short or as long as the developer wishes, as long as 1) the submission is a working, playable game and 2) interactive fiction / nonfiction.

Projects submitted must not be intended / promoted as a prelude to a commercial release. IntroComp is an opportunity to build an audience for your work, gather feedback, and improve as a creator – not to promote a Kickstarter, for example.
…
To win [from the cash prize schedule], you not only have to state your intention to enter, and submit your game by the deadline, but finish it within a year of the competition (by September 6, 2026) as well. You also have to let us know that you finished said game – we’re not omniscient (yet). If you complete your game outside of the deadline, we will still be thrilled to SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS WITH YOU, but it is unfortunately no longer eligible for a cash prize.

The goal of IntroComp initially was to encourage people to receive feedback to finish a game. Since IFComp requires a new release, IntroComp specifically conflicts with this - likely since they didn’t want to encourage veteran authors to “prize double” by doing an Intro and then submitting to IFComp. If you’ve received feedback for your Intro from the community, that is not a new game, and the author received feedback to improve the game already and - ostensibly - would have an advantage other authors don’t.

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If you want or need help developing something incomplete into something full length, and don’t believe you would succeed without extra support, it seems IntroComp is the ideal target. That’s what it’s for. Quoth the website:

Want direct, polite feedback on how you might improve an aspect of your game? Worried about how an experimental portion of your title might be received? Wonder whether folks would even want to pursue your story to its end? IntroComp is a welcoming environment to address all of these concerns and more.

IFComp doesn’t guarantee you any of these. Introcomp solicits them. And if someone submits just part of a game to IFComp, I usually start chucking tomatoes.

I think Introcomp’s been weakened a bit just because the volume and spectrum of IFComp reviews has expanded massively. You tend to get some constructive criticism from strangers, even as you dodge tomatoes. So a little of what you had to go to Introcomp for has crept into IFComp. But only a little. And some stuff (game excerpts, games the author doesn’t even know if they want to continue with) have no place in IFComp.

I don’t think Introcomp entries should be allowed in IFComp (or Spring Thing). They’re not new, and Introcomp is still there as its own thing with its own purposes and own ends. Maybe Introcomp could use some reconfiguring, but that’s something else.

-Wade

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“Free and open activity” - but with both contests there are potential monetary prizes involved which changes the dynamics a bit.

Not that experienced authors can’t use IntroComp strategically. If you have an interesting but potentially unworkable idea that you don’t know if would make a great game, it’s a good venue for a tryout and to receive public feedback. To accomplish this requires the author to disclose the unpublished concept, which then invalidates it for IFComp as a contest of “new works.”

It’s a similar reason beta-testers are disqualified from voting on IFComp games they tested for the author - they had more opportunity to evaluate it than the specified 2-hour window judges get.

I’m surprised more people don’t enter IntroComp because it’s basically open-mic to workshop a fragment or an idea, and if it catches on, you have an entire year to finish it. It’s a Comp where you can submit a workshop spec project and potentially gain financial and emotional motivation to complete it.

IT’S IF SHARK TANK

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I’ve wondered for a while why IFComp doesn’t allow IntroComp games; it’s always seemed a bit of a shame not to have the extra inducement to finish (timing issues aside), given the lack of IntroComp prizes awarded. So I went looking through r*if archives for rationale.

The rule has been there since Neil deMause’s original IntroComp in 2001–2:

WHEN I FINISH WRITING MY GAME, CAN I SUBMIT IT TO IFCOMP?
Nope. Stephen Granade [then the IFComp organiser] and I discussed this, and agreed it would run afoul of the spirit of the “no prior release” rule. You may be allowed to enter it in other minicomps, though - ask your local minicomp dealer.

Jacq (the current IFComp organiser) facilitated the 2nd IntroComp onward for many years, and kept the rule in pretty much the same form.

I didn’t find any noticeable querying/discussion of the rule at the time, slightly to my surprise.

I did find some rationale from Granade in a 2010 thread (which the OP may remember), which was discussing the Spring Thing’s analogous previously-unreleased rule:

I haven’t allowed fleshed-out IntroComp games in the annual IF Comp because I expect that the ratio of new material to previously-seen material would be too low.

(the context was contrasting games which were 25%-existing-material vs 75%-existing-material; and in earlier times, IFComp games with their 2-hour play limit were considered “short”, whereas Spring Thing works tended longer)

Incidentally, I also came across this 2008 assertion by Granade about a motivation for IntroComp (which I haven’t tried to track down to a more original source, but we know Granade and deMause were in correspondence when IntroComp was hatched):

I think IntroComp has benefit beyond people turning specific intros into games. Neil deMause started the competition because so many games’ openings were terrible, and he wanted people to think more about how they hook players. I know that playing through IntroComp entries has taught me a lot about what does and doesn’t work.

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Introcomp does have a long-standing deal with Spring Thing to allow Introcomp games to be entered into the Main division of Spring Thing. This was to provide a forum for the publication of Introcomp games and to avert the negative consequence Jim Aikin mentioned above. The reason that Spring Thing was picked was because both Introcomp and Spring Thing originally were designed for longer games. Like you said, IFcomp has had long games quite a bit recently but that’s not a central feature of the IFcomp experience.

I do feel that this problem is somewhat of your own making. You aren’t reusing the puzzles or the story. The continuity with the original game exists only in your head. I don’t think anyone else views it at the same game. So you’re kind of creating your own prison while railing for being imprisoned in it.

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My thinking back then, in consultation with Neil, was driven in large part to keep the tradition of judges knowing next to nothing about entries going into them, and the overlap between “likely to play Introcomp games” and “likely to judge in IFComp” at that point was nearly complete. The ratio of new-to-seen content was also a factor.

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Ohhhh, I didn’t know that.

-Wade

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I think it’s come up only a few times. I could have sworn Blue Lacuna and The Weight of a Soul both went this route, but they actually had their intros in Spring Thing and then released the full game later (Weight of a Soul full game was also Spring Thing).

Looking on IFDB for games tagged Spring Thing Game and Introcomp, I only see 5 games. The first one was my game, Sherlock Indomitable (I was deadset on getting the introcomp money for completing a game; the Introcomp runner at the time had been told not to worry about prize money too much since nobody ever actually finished the games).

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Stannum, IFComp Version

If you've never played IF before type "help".
If you've not played the previous entry in the series, it is bundled with this game for convenience, type "tin". 
Otherwise, type "start". A selected state of your character and world at the end of "tin" will be automatically chosen.
We encourage to play "tin" to get a better sense of the universe.
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I feel as though this is perhaps a slightly-too-rigid interpretation of that rule. Sure, it’s more of a second attempt at the basic idea than a sequel, but if the code is new and only a few sentences have been retained then it strikes me as a “new” game rather than the same thing being submitted twice.

I see that Jacqueline has specifically said that not reusing “any text or puzzles” from the other game would allow this one, but I wouldn’t necessarily take that to mean that even a few sentences would disqualify it. I’ve reused quite a bit of text in my Bubble Gumshoe IFComp entries (they share characters and locations, and I honestly think this makes them work better as sequels than if I rephrased descriptions just for the sake of newness) and none of the reviewers who’ve commented on this have ever suggested it violates the rules.

In terms of whether the rule is a good one in the first place, I’m actually not all that keen on it myself. The fact I’m “using up” a game by submitting has put me off IntroComp in the past (and led me to submit weaker entries when I have). I’d quite like to fling a rough WIP into IntroComp to see what people make of it, and then turn it into a polished IFComp entry a couple of years down the line. But I’m not seriously opposed to it either: it is quite nice to see the IFComp entries released and know that they’re all brand spanking new.

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That seems to create a path where I have a game idea, enter the opening to IntroComp, complete it, win a cash prize, and then I’m also allowed to resubmit that completed game to IFComp and potentially win another cash prize?

That seems like it creates a loophole which allows experienced authors who know they can finish game projects a significant advantage to get paid for submitting a draft and then the completed game to two competitions as “original” with potential cash prizes.

I understand the concept of “wasting” a good idea on something that has IFComp potential, but if you can gauge an idea has potential and is good enough to not “use up” on anything but IFComp, you probably don’t need feedback from IntroComp.

[Insert usual “ideas are cheap” boilerplate here.]

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What if games from IntroComp were to be allowed in the IFComp but not be elligible for the cash prize, and possibly be in a sort of separate category within the IFComp?

[recycle Hanon’s boilerplate even more cheaply here]

(personally I never saw IFComp as the holy grail of release grounds, but I understand that many authors do)

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At that point you’re running a separate competition which is confusingly called “part of IFComp”. I doubt the IFComp admins want to take on that extra work.

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I’m still confused about your fixation on IFComp, when there are plenty of other competitions.

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