One game is in the can, the other can’t be far behind, so there’s little left but anticipation – and wondering how that last-minute polishing and bug-fixing went! It’s true that these are often the least-visible pieces of an IF project, but in my experience they’re very high-impact. Of course, no one wants to deliver a buggy game that doesn’t work, but things like customized responses to plausible but incorrect puzzle solutions, tweaking the parser’s default narrative voice to match the vibe of the authored text, and filling each scene with just the right number of props to evoke a mood and keep puzzles from being too obvious, are absolutely critical to keeping a parser game from feeling too mechanical. It’s actually one of my favorite pieces of the process too, oddly enough – no individual bit of this is especially hard work, usually, so there’s a pleasant correlation between time spent and improvements made, even if none of this is as splashy as the big set-piece narrative beats or climactic puzzles.
As for the anticipation, it certainly looks as though both competitors will be turning in meaty, flavorful dishes executed according to their own styles, so I think they’ll be plenty of fun to play. I confess to a bit of trepidation about my judging, though – unlike many of my esteemed colleagues on the panel, I’ve never approached my reviews with even the faintest hint of a rubric (I have a rough explanation of what my star ratings on IFDB are supposed to mean, but reader, I barely ever remember that it exists, much less consult it). I think the rubric we’ve landed on is a helpful one that will provide scaffolding for our evaluations, but part of me fears that my critical judgment will stand revealed as arbitrary and capricious when forced to justify itself via rigorous and worked-out explanation!
That’s a problem for tomorrow, though – for now I’ll just offer plaudits to Pacian for finishing this mighty task (and a wish for restful sleep!) and good wishes for the last of Draconis’s efforts. You’ve both engaged in heroic labors to create something wonderful for us judges, though of course only one of you will claim the laurel!