Well, once it’s out there, it’s out there, and artists don’t get to decide their audience. I’d say it’s still legitimate to look at it.
Anyway, I’m sorry that the author has decided to remove their game from the competition, whatever the reason may be.
If a software is released under creative commons liscense for example, once released, this version is under that liscense no matter if you take it off. Whoever has that version of the software can use it under that terms.
But that is not true for copyrighted work. That can not be distributted without the consent of the owner.
Legaly speaking, if not with other liscense stated, it is copyrighted.
I was talking in my previous post about ethics, anyway.
I neither can know the reasons for removing it, but I can suspect what they are (and I’m not very clever).
Elaborate?
Apparently all their games, as well as their entire account, were removed from itch? If that’s the case and there was no specific withdrawal or communication with the organizers I feel like it’s challenging to figure out what’s behind the disappearance (I dunno if there’s been any conversation on the various itch pages and forums about the game or that the author participated in? I confess I’ve had a hard time trying to track that stuff so largely haven’t).
At any rate, having read Kafka and the Aeneid despite their author’s wishes that I hadn’t, I’m likewise with Christopher in thinking an author’s desire to take a work out of circulation shouldn’t automatically be dispositive to the question of whether it’s ethical to engage with that work, especially when there’s no profit motive at play (participation in a contest is of course a different question!)
It looks like it … I was actually quite happy to see Sylfir in the comp, as they had an interesting interpretation of the Canterbury Tales for one year’s EctoComp entry (2020). (This from someone who can be a bit suspicious of reinterpretations of classic works.) So there may’ve been other things at play.
Certainly I’ve had that “oh geez why did I” feeling after publishing a work. My moods can swing quickly from “yay I did this” to “oh geez it had too many bugs.” And I can’t be the only one. I guess theirs swung that much further.
I’m hoping and guessing it’s just a general sort of moving on, as the reviews seemed to have been favorable. I had a hard time tracking them, too, when I did some rudimentary checks. But it was sad to see they’d gone and I don’t know them, so doing a deep dive would probably be uncomfortable for me and them.
An update to the “who’s reviewed ParserComp” thread on top of what Dorian found:
@DrkStarr, who’s reviewed and entered comps before, is back with more reviewing. There are three entries so far.
Dear Friends,
It seems scarcely believable, but ParserComp is nearly over! Who would ever have imagined it would prove to be such a rollercoaster ride, with technical calamities, disqualifications, requalifications, ruminations, perambulations, and mysterious disappearances all conspiring, against the backdrop of the hottest summer on record (which we may as well blame on ParserComp too), to make our humble competition possibly the most exciting thing that has happened in the world, ever.
BUT, with just a week to go, we do still need people to go and vote on the games. We’re thankful for all the ratings that have been submitted so far, but a glance at the table show that they’re not evenly distributed.
Let’s try our best to get some more votes in for those games languishing near the bottom of the league for number of ratings given - all excellent games and very worthy of your attention - before the competition finally closes and we begin the awesome undertaking of processing the results (@fos1 by supercomputer, @ChristopherMerriner by haruspicy), to divine the winner of the unique and fabled ParserComp 2022 first place trophy.
Thank you
fos1 & Christopher
I let other things get in the way, so I stopped midway through. I also got tangled up in planning the post-comp release, which doesn’t have huge features, but it (and the idea for an IFComp game) was still surprisingly distracting.
I appreciate the reminder. One more thing: I’m going to be That Guy asking for the whole weekend to take care of stuff. As-is, it ends 6 PM Central time, and I often take weekend evenings to play that one last game. Can we tack on 24 more hours to the judging period, to get the full weekend?
I know that making the commitment to judge or review has been big for me. Instead of playing some boring game I didn’t want to play, or one I was already sick of but didn’t know it (you know the type – you just move around and generally get lots of points but never learn anything) I feel more reward exploring someone else’s creativity.
Even when they don’t fully hit the mark, it’s still a thrill to see what they shared. (Note: I hope this isn’t a backhanded compliment, as even if/when I don’t fully hit the mark, other people like it too.)
The link to the table is very helpful – perhaps we could even have a brief page classifying entries based on interpreter (e.g. Inform, Dialog, ADRIFT, etc.) This may not seem like much, but I know when I judge I try to tackle, say, all the ADRIFT games at once, then all the web-based one, then all the parser homebrews.
Thanks Andrew.
Yes, I don’t see why not. I’ll extend the window a little.
We’ll put something together.
Awesome, Chris! Thanks for (another) quick response!
Now I have a general question for anyone who’s looked at certain games. Dorian Passer's ParserComp 2022 Reviews (Up: October 31st.) - #7 by DorianPasser brought up Windows flagging ADRIFT .exe files as having viruses. This seems like a false positive, but to be sure of things, which interpreters actually are able to process the ADRIFT blorbs? I have what I think is the latest version of Gargoyle, but it doesn’t quite work. I will probably be voting on the ADRIFT games, but just in case someone else is put off by the message, it’d be neat if they had a way around it.
I know you’re probably asking for Windows. But for reference FrankenDrift plays ADRIFT blorbs nicely on the Mac. Though in some cases where a Mac blorb was provided I couldn’t get that to work properly in FrankenDrift on my Mac. Whereas the general / Windows etc blorb loaded and ran fine. I was very grateful to have FrankenDrift this time. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.
There are a handful of options for ADRIFT 5 games. On Windows, you can use the standalone executable of the game (if the author provided it), or you can use the official ADRIFT Runner, but they’re fundamentally the same application and will both suffer from random bouts of virus alerts that seem to pop up for no good reason. Alternatively, you can use the ADRIFT online runner, but it only works for games that can be accessed through a direct link (which means that games that are only published on itch are not available). Which means you can play The Euripides Enigma, but not October 31st. Beware that the ADRIFT online runner runs your games on the server, so expect some lag in command processing. Lastly, you can use FrankenDrift, which runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You do give up some functionality (such as sound and the automatic map) when using it, but it should get you through most (if not all) ADRIFT 5 games.
Pleased to see some more ratings are coming in. Keep going folks!
I am happy to give fellow Mac users tips on running ADRIFT and Windows games.
FrankenDrift works very well on the Mac and can load in the ADRIFT blorb game files you can download.
For Windows games CrossOver (if running later than MacOS 10.14) can run some of the Windows games. Though you will probably have to tell your MacOS system settings security sub section that it is ok to run each of the .exe files! CrossOver has a fully functional free 14 day trial. I bought me a license years ago mainly to play IF Windows games! If running MacOS 10.14 or earlier you can download and run the free Wine which has the same Windows emulating functionality as CrossOver.
You put something really nice together. Folks, go have a look, if you haven’t. I was impressed when I went to check, and you all will be, too!
Bumping this to remind everyone of the home stretch … and also begging for another day so I can have a Sunday evening of playing and having some assurance my ratings are fair/consistent with my playing experience!
I think itch’s wobbly voting system may have cost a few votes early on but it looks like there’s still an outside chance of hitting 300 votes, which would be very cool. (Note: I have ratings to send in on games I played but didn’t rate, so if I get through all games, that’s 12 right there.)
As I write this, there are 230 ratings. That’s not too bad. I’ve got two games to go. I’m hoping to play them tomorrow, then I’ll get all my ratings in.
An extra day would be appropriate. Narrascope is this weekend. It is incredible and well worth the time.
I will see about adjusting the end date…
Thanks for doing this!
And holy unexpected vote dumps, Batman, … we’re up to 272. And I still have a few ratings to get in. I think we could/should hit 300!
One thing that’d be neat is if all games got at least 10 ratings. I haven’t rated the 2 with 8 (Uncle Mortimer, ConText NightSky.) So we’re close there!
I got all my ratings in, except for one. As the rating period has been extended, I didn’t want to rush it, so I’ll get that last one finished tonight.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Last call!
: D