If you don’t know me, I’m Xalavier Nelson Jr., head of IntroComp. The annual, accessible feedback-gathering competition is indeed back for another year, and you can submit your intent to enter starting today, June 6th, on the traditional site!: http://introcomp.org
For those unfamiliar with what IntroComp is: IntroComp is an annual competition where authors can submit portions of their in-development interactive fiction for feedback and profit. This can run the gamut from parser fiction, to visual novels, to hypertext, and beyond.
For those who were looking forward to the comp this year and wondering what the hold-up was: thanks for your patience. Some new weird technical glitch seems to crop up every year the moment we try to hit the big red button, which has again been fixed thanks to the fantastic support of our fellow organizers.
There are still cash prizes, and the rules can be found on the website above. Take a look now in preparation for July 1st (when you can start submitting your entries), or get ready to play the games and vote this August.
Sounds great! So many fun games have come from this. I was talking about Gallery Gal with some people last month (the one where you have the power to permanently turn into an art museum exactly once in your life). So cool!
I am so looking forward to this! Feedback is absolutely my drug of choice
While looking through the website rules, I saw this amazing question in the FAQ:
WHAT’S TO STOP ME FROM JUST ADDING “AND THEN THEY ALL DIED — THE END!” TO MY ENTRY AND THEN CLAIMING MY PRIZE? BWAHAHAHA!
And it reminded me of back when I was in college (majored in theater directing and playwriting), I had one writing teacher who insisted that when we gave feedback in class, we started our feedback with the phrase, “If this was my play, I would…” and while I appreciated the good intent behind this formulation, it always irked me, as that is an AWFUL perspective to approach feedback from. So as my own little passive aggressive protest, anytime I gave feedback in class, I would always finish it with, “but then none of it matters, because a meteor crashes down on the planet, killing everyone,” which I probably wouldn’t have done so frequently if I wasn’t always vindicated by her shrieking, “No! You can’t do that to someone’s play!!!”
All that to say, is if I do enter a submission into IntroComp (likely), and I do finish my submission within a year (hopefully likely?), that if it does end with everyone suddenly dying, a) I promise you it will be earned, b) it would be very on brand for me
