There are more IF adaptations than one might think - consider the Vampire: The Masquerade game jam and the Public Domain game jams, and I hope the Goncharov games would also count here.
4 Likes
Outstanding Ludonarrative, maybe? Or Outstanding Storytelling Through Mechanics? I like this ideaâŚ
7 Likes
Outstanding game home page/instructions/help/tutorial.
6 Likes
Would it be fair to suggest that this post:
And this post:
Are both advocating for roughly the same thing?
Because I think we may have done each other a disservice crossposting.
The first has 12 likes, the second has 7.
Only two of those are duplicated and only one is from the author of the other post.
Taking those out, thatâs still 16 unique likes.
If Iâm correct, is there any way I can good-naturedly encorage some of the folks that liked the second post to also like the first? We only need 3 more -only 1 more!- to tip it over.
@malacostraca (thank you!)
@slugzuki (thank you!)
@Graham
@ChristopherMerriner
It also occurs to me that @adventuron might have an opinion here as well.
If Iâm off the mark, just disregard.
(Or if 8 folks from the first post are interested in liking the second, I suppose that would technically work as well, but that seemed like more of a stretch.)
4 Likes
I think there should be a clear distinction between Inform 6 and Inform 7, as they are completely different languages. The former is a conventional object-oriented programming language that tends to be used for puzzley games. The latter is a verbose English-like language that tends to be used for narrative games.
Should we make a distinction between the Inform 6 standard library and the PunyInform library? What about Dialog and ZIL? That got me thinking. Rather than most outstanding Inform game, maybe we should haveâŚ
- Outstanding Z-code game
- Outstanding Glulx game
So, it depends on the interpreter, not the programming language or library. That fits in well with the other platforms:
- Outstanding Adrift game
- Outstanding Adventuron game
- Outstanding TADS game
- and so on
4 Likes
@Warrigal - That seems sane in terms of distinction.
As for how many of these get categories and which of them donât, @dee_cooke 's suggestion seems the the easiest in practice. Either >= X number of a particular type is made and uploaded to IFDB in a year, or it doesnât make the cut that year. Creates some additional incentive for proponents of any specific authoring engine/interpreter(/genre?) to keep busy throughout the year.
As an aside, XYZZY is specifically NOT an IFTF venture (I checked on the IFTF slack to verify. Maybe because it predates the IFTF?). As the IFDB has been adopted by the IFTF, would these new IFDB awards be at least tangentially under their umbrella, or is it expressly independent?
4 Likes
My gut feeling is 5 or more during the year. If there are less than 5, they would still be eligible under something like âOutstanding game for other platformsâ.
2 Likes
I think my plan for both platforms and genres is to have one big poll and allow people to state in the polls which platform or genre they are nominating the game for, and only handing out awards for platforms or genres with enough games and enough votes.
I just made up these awards on my own; I have plans for determining future governorship (allowing anyone to take over if the awards donât start by February if each year, for instance). I havenât discussed this with anyone else. I put out a message to other ifdb admins today asking for feedback on something with the comp, but thatâs the first message Iâve made. Iâd be happy to have IFTF involvement, but I think itâs be worth seeing if we can get a successful years competition done first before we can decide if this is something we want to keep having in the future
4 Likes
Fair enough. Your shindig, lol. Have you put any thought into the what sort of thresholds youâd like to see? Like, if 12 Adventuron games get nominated with over 200 votes in total, that obviously passes muster. But if 2 âWesternâ games get nominated with 11 votes in total, thatâs likely not good enough. How many games need to be nominated with how many total votes for a platform/genre to be a thing?
1 Like
My threshold would be five games total, with the top game getting at least five votes.
We could do separate votes for each category, but with platforms and genre combined it would be 20-30 polls, which I could see being exhausting. I might be wrong about that, though. And it wonât be my shindig for long; if it works well this year, Iâd like to form a committee so that multiple people are in charge.
2 Likes
If you do this, maybe in the poll description you could give some guidance to help keep people from voting at cross purposesâsome people voting for best Inform 7 game and other people voting for best Glulx game, for instance. Or people voting for overlapping genres.
Maybe you could set up a test poll on IFDBâsort of an open beta test to see if it works out the way you want.
2 Likes
I wonder if there could be a catchier name for this award. I thought of âhidden gem,â but if the award ends up going to a commercial game that wasnât entered in a comp because it wasnât part of the hobbyist scene in the first place, it might not actually be very hidden. 
3 Likes
Outstanding Work in Progress
(This is mostly for the tumblr/CoG circles, as they have a strong culture of WIPs.)
10 Likes
Out of curiosity, how would this work with Spring Thing games? Mostly because authors have the power to turn down ribbons, which could create a weird incentive loophole regarding eligibility.
I doubt anyone present would actually do that, but itâs possible.
4 Likes
Here is a practice poll people can use to see if my idea would even work well. This poll is for your favorite games of all time in different languages (so favorite twine, favorite inform, etc.)
1 Like
I might be in a minority here, but the only languages I can recognize are Inform and Adventuron. I donât check to see what program a game uses, and even if I did, I wouldnât remember that a month or a year later. So I would never vote in such a poll.
5 Likes
Most games have their systems listed on their ifdb page, so that might help.
1 Like
Itâs possible to do a search by specific authoring system, and by year published, at the same time. Then you could see what the options are. Maybe the poll could link to each search.
Example:
published:2022 system:tads
2 Likes
Yes, that would help. Iâm probably not going to sit down, remember my favorite games, look them up to see what their programs are, and then decide which is best. But if there was a helpful list of all TADS games or all Twine games, that would make it easier.
Edit: I donât know a lot of people IRL who play IF, but of the ones I do know, none of them would have any clue what TADS or Twine or Inform even was. Unless this is made very user-friendly, nobody outside of the codey people on forums will know how to vote, or will assume that this is not a poll for them to participate in.
4 Likes