To Max Fog, known as SomeOne2, the Iron ChIF of ZIL:
The battlefield lies quiet. The dust has settled, and the judgment has been made.
I, Lancelot, do hereby acknowledge the outcome of our contest of the mind.
Your creation has prevailed, and victory is rightfully yours, by virtue of skill and craft.
Your command of ZIL has proven mighty indeed, and your title has been well defended.
Yet hear me, O mighty Iron ChIF of ZIL:
Though this battle is lost, the war is far from over.
My forge still burns, and my spirit of creation grows ever stronger.
So take your victory and wear it with honor.
But keep your armor close and your code ever ready, for I shall return.
Before this competition, I had never truly done speed coding. And now, well, I have grown as a person. I also learnt about macros in ZIL, something I hadnât ever used. Maybe now in the future, I will!
Thank you so much to otistdog, for creating this entire championship; thank you to the judges for battling against your lack of understanding of ZIL and still being vibrant and extremely friendly; and thank you to the audience, for being lively and incredible as always.
Now, I turn to Lancelot: a fearsome opponent indeed, and furthermore a valiant one. You learnt the entire language in five days to code a game with it! So, no matter what they say, you have won this competition in my heart and nobody can change my mind. But I will be ready, waiting, scouring the lands⌠So to all you waiting out there, you can run but you canât hide.
I must say, I admire the gallantry of our chefs just as much as their dishes!
Before I leave the Keyboard Stadium, Iâd like to thank everyone â the Chefs, our technical advisor, my fellow judges, and of course otistdog for putting a ton of effort into this show, and convincing me to participate. I was originally hesitant to judge a ZIL episode, but it was a blast! I learned a lot, and following the development of both dishes was exciting. As I mentioned, I was on holidays with friends the entire last week, but even on mountain trails Iâd check this thread and sometimes reply! (I managed not to tumble and fall down while doing that). I enjoyed telling my friends about the show, too; they donât play IF, but three of them work as programmers and they were fascinated when they learned about ZIL â one of them immediately started reading an article about the system and was impressed people are still making games in it to this day.
Iâm waiting for the next episode â Iâm planning to enjoy the show as a member of the audience.
J. J. Guest looks up from the judgesâ panel and realises that it has all gone quiet. He grins, and unfolding himself elegantly from behind the desk, ambles over to the centre of the Keyboard Stadium.
âIâm not one for long speeches,â he begins. âWellâexcept when I am. But today I find our brave Chefs have used up all of the best words. To our Chefs, I give my hearty congratulations. To our technical advisor, and to my fellow judges, I give my utmost respect. To you, the audience, I give my thanks, and, to our esteemed organiser OtisTDog, wellâyouâre a persuasive fellow, arenât you?â He grins.
âSir, it was a pleasure. I feel as though I know all the participants a little better, and this whole forum feels somehow a little moreâlike home. I shall come here more often, perhaps, but for nowâit only remains for me to sayâgoodbye!â He bows, turns on his heel, and exits, pursued by a bear.
What a wonderful show! Judging this has began to whet my own creative appetite. I was imagining how you might make a game in the Time Swap setting with the Arkanen device and vice versa⌠Maybe leave that one as an exercise for the audience.
Warning: anything you might have seen in this episode was performed by seasoned amateurs. Do try this at home!
Charm Cochran returns to the front of the Keyboard Stadium stage, this time standing far away enough from the mic to prevent any feedback.
âWell, what a ride this was! It almost makes me want to try coding a game in ZIL myself. Almost. Itâs been an honor to serve as a judge in this illustrious arena. I want to thank my fellow judges, our technical advisor, our Iron Chef, our challenger, and most of all OtisTDog for making this such an excellent experience. I was hibernating during the first few episodes, so Iâm really looking forward to experiencing the next one as my first from the stands! Good night, everyone, and good luck!â
Well, last in, last out, I guess! Seeing things from this side of the fence was interestingâI definitely now see what Ryan said about the judgesâ commentary sometimes being pretty disjoint from the dish he was actually makingâmany of my guesses about what was going on were pretty different from what actually emerged from the kitchen. But hopefully it was entertaining and possibly even insightful anywayâjust about different dishes! Thanks again to OtisTDog for making this happen. Itâs a brilliant idea, brilliantly executed.
And one last hearty congratulations to our chefs, for going above and beyond and creating two genuinely entertaining dishes. I hope to see new versions of both in the futureâafter some time has passed and youâve gotten a chance to recover!
Stepping out of the role of âchairman,â I want to thank:
@Lancelot, whose determination to press on in the face of adversity is appreciated â it would have been very easy to despair. We admire his grace in defeat and look forward to a post-competition version of Time Swap that fulfills his creative vision.
@SomeOne2, whose unflappable attitude in the heat of battle was a marvel to behold, and who has proven beyond a doubt to be someone who, as a modern adept of ZIL, warrants the title of Iron Chef. There is no room for complacency, however! None can say what fierce new challenger might appear in a future seasonâŚ
Our exceptional panel of judges: @agat, @J_J_Guest, @Joey, @lpsmith and @OverThinking, who, though equally entertaining, proved to be a much more sympathetic crew than the Five Apocalyptic Riders that preceded them. Special thanks to lpsmith, whose last minute agreement to fill in for severedhand saved this episode and brought a uniquely new viewpoint to the panel! You all have my thanks, and with a little luck youâll be hearing from me about the possibility of returning for a future episode.
@vaporware, who, in addition to being an excellent technical advisor for this episode, contributed the most essential pre-requisite for its existence by creating ZILF in the first place. I can only hope that future episodes have technical advisors as dedicated and knowledgeable as the three weâve seen so far.
@rh, who submitted this episodeâs challenge ingredient, making it the second in a row that the competing chefs have selected. Weâll be seeking more audience suggestions in future episodes, and if this keeps up, Iâll have to start a leaderboard for Tasters submitting ideas! If you have challenge ingredient ideas that you would like to suggest, see the FAQ for details about how to submit them.
All of the challengers waiting for their turn, who will undoubtedly be refining their skills in preparation for their time under the spotlight. At an episode every three months, the pace may seem glacial, but your turn is comingâŚ
You, the audience, whose interest and participation are the fuel that powers this whole idea. Hopefully you enjoyed the show, despite the setbacks experienced by our challenger. (Lancelot should be making an updated version of Time Swap available shortly, so be sure to check that out.) If you had fun and learned something, then this thingâs twin aims have been achieved.
As for what comes next:
Iâm pleased to announce that challenger FLACRabbit has decided to switch platforms and take on Iron Chef Adventuron dee_cooke! Given what weâve seen in FLACRabbitâs previous work, we can be sure that Adventuronâs multimedia capabilities will be put through their paces, but dee_cooke surely has tricks up her own sleeve, plus a wealth of experience on which to drawâŚ
In other happy news, Thomas Mack (@tmack) has signed on as a challenger for Inform 6! Iron Chef Inform 6 Warrigal can be heard sharpening his knives in anticipation, but the co-author of The Owl Consults, Vain Empires and Speculative Fiction is no slouch. How will he do as a solo author on a tight deadline? Weâll find out before Season One is finishedâŚ
Though we now have challengers for every platform, weâre still short one Iron Chef! After the unfortunate loss of jnelson, we still have no replacement Iron Chef TADS. It will surely be a pleasure to have jjmcc back on as a judge in the future, but donât forget that he signed up as a challenger and was the #2 audience pick! Where is the distinguished champion who will give this stalwart and venerable platform its turn in the spotlight?
As mentioned above, the work of assembling the cast for the next episode is already in progress, with a planned episode start date of Aug 21 and a development period running Aug 23 to Aug 28 (with dishes available to play a few days before IFComp starts). Iâm hoping to be able to announce the full cast by the end of this month, so keep an eye out for updates.
