It’s with great pleasure that we announce the results of ParserComp2022!
(Apologies for the delay - Sandra in the front office wouldn’t release the figures until we’d signed all the paperwork in triplicate. You wouldn’t believe the bureaucracy over at ParserComp HQ…)
Here is the main ranking:
Overall Score
Game
Rank
Score
The Impossible Stairs
1
19.862
Of Their Shadows Deep
2
19.613
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
3
18.231
Improv: Origins
4
16.415
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
5
15.491
Alchemist’s Gold
6
15.434
Gent Stickman
7
15.297
Midnight at Al’s
8
15.264
You Won’t Get Her Back
9
15.027
October 31st
10
14.392
The Muse
11
13.800
The Euripides Enigma
12
12.438
Radio Tower
13
12.073
(out of contest) Cost of Living
(14)
11.175
Anita’s Goodbye
14
10.641
Desrosier’s Discovery
15
10.477
Kondiac
16
8.555
ConText NightSky
17
7.769
Python Game
18
5.620
…and here are the rankings for each category:
Writing
Writing Score
Writing Rank
Of Their Shadows Deep
4.750
1
The Impossible Stairs
4.500
2
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
4.389
3
Improv: Origins
4.300
4
Midnight at Al’s
3.722
5
Alchemist’s Gold
3.565
6
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
3.455
7
The Muse
3.385
8
You Won’t Get Her Back
3.385
8
October 31st
3.364
9
Gent Stickman
3.083
10
The Euripides Enigma
2.923
11
(out of contest) Cost of Living
2.923
(11)
Desrosier’s Discovery
2.765
12
Radio Tower
2.650
13
Anita’s Goodbye
2.333
14
Kondiac
2.250
15
ConText NightSky
2.182
16
Python Game
1.308
17
Story
Story Score
Story Rank
Of Their Shadows Deep
4.350
1
The Impossible Stairs
4.231
2
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
4.000
3
Improv: Origins
3.350
4
Midnight at Al’s
3.167
5
The Euripides Enigma
3.154
6
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
3.091
7
October 31st
3.091
8
Alchemist’s Gold
3.043
9
Gent Stickman
3.042
10
The Muse
3.000
11
Radio Tower
3.000
11
You Won’t Get Her Back
2.846
12
Anita’s Goodbye
2.667
13
(out of contest) Cost of Living
2.615
(14)
Desrosier’s Discovery
2.529
14
Kondiac
2.000
15
ConText NightSky
1.909
16
Python Game
1.077
17
Characters
Characters Score
Characters Rank
The Impossible Stairs
4.385
1
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
4.222
2
Improv: Origins
4.150
3
Of Their Shadows Deep
3.800
4
Gent Stickman
3.458
5
October 31st
3.182
6
Midnight at Al’s
2.944
7
Alchemist’s Gold
2.913
8
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
2.818
9
You Won’t Get Her Back
2.769
10
The Muse
2.692
11
The Euripides Enigma
2.538
12
(out of contest) Cost of Living
2.538
(12)
Desrosier’s Discovery
2.412
13
Radio Tower
2.350
14
Anita’s Goodbye
2.083
15
ConText NightSky
1.818
16
Kondiac
1.500
17
Python Game
1.077
18
Implementation
Implementation Score
Implementation Rank
The Impossible Stairs
4.538
1
Of Their Shadows Deep
4.400
2
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
4.056
3
Alchemist’s Gold
3.913
4
You Won’t Get Her Back
3.846
5
Gent Stickman
3.708
6
Midnight at Al’s
3.556
7
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
3.455
8
Improv: Origins
3.250
9
The Muse
3.000
10
October 31st
2.909
11
The Euripides Enigma
2.692
12
(out of contest) Cost of Living
2.692
(12)
Radio Tower
2.500
13
Desrosier’s Discovery
2.353
14
Anita’s Goodbye
2.250
15
Kondiac
1.750
16
Python Game
1.385
17
ConText NightSky
1.364
18
Puzzles
Puzzles Score
Puzzles Rank
The Impossible Stairs
4.308
1
Of Their Shadows Deep
4.000
2
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
3.818
3
Alchemist’s Gold
3.565
4
You Won’t Get Her Back
3.462
5
Improv: Origins
3.450
6
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
3.389
7
Midnight at Al’s
3.333
8
October 31st
3.182
9
Gent Stickman
3.000
10
The Muse
2.692
11
Radio Tower
2.600
12
Anita’s Goodbye
2.583
13
The Euripides Enigma
2.538
14
Desrosier’s Discovery
1.706
15
Kondiac
1.667
16
(out of contest) Cost of Living
1.538
(17)
ConText NightSky
1.273
17
Python Game
1.154
18
Use of Media
Use of Media Score
Use of Media Rank
Gent Stickman
4.500
1
The Muse
4.000
2
Of Their Shadows Deep
3.700
3
Radio Tower
2.750
4
Kondiac
2.750
4
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
2.727
5
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
2.500
6
You Won’t Get Her Back
2.462
7
Alchemist’s Gold
1.957
8
Midnight at Al’s
1.889
9
October 31st
1.818
10
The Impossible Stairs
1.808
11
(out of contest) Cost of Living
1.769
(12)
Improv: Origins
1.250
12
ConText NightSky
1.182
13
The Euripides Enigma
1.154
14
Desrosier’s Discovery
1.118
15
Anita’s Goodbye
1.083
16
Python Game
1.077
17
Help and Hints
Help and Hints Score
Help and Hints Rank
Of Their Shadows Deep
4.150
1
The Impossible Stairs
3.846
2
Gent Stickman
3.708
3
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
3.636
4
October 31st
3.636
5
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
3.556
6
You Won’t Get Her Back
3.231
7
Midnight at Al’s
3.111
8
The Muse
3.077
9
Alchemist’s Gold
2.609
10
The Euripides Enigma
2.231
11
Radio Tower
1.950
12
Improv: Origins
1.950
12
(out of contest) Cost of Living
1.462
(13)
Python Game
1.385
13
Kondiac
1.167
14
ConText NightSky
1.091
15
Anita’s Goodbye
1.083
16
Desrosier’s Discovery
1.059
17
Supplemental Materials
Supplemental Materials Score
Supplemental Materials Rank
Uncle Mortimer’s Secret
2.636
1
The Impossible Stairs
2.308
2
Of Their Shadows Deep
2.200
3
You Won’t Get Her Back
2.077
4
Midnight at Al’s
2.000
5
Alchemist’s Gold
2.000
5
Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge
1.833
6
Radio Tower
1.550
7
(out of contest) Cost of Living
1.538
(8)
Gent Stickman
1.458
8
Improv: Origins
1.400
9
October 31st
1.364
10
Anita’s Goodbye
1.250
11
The Muse
1.231
12
Kondiac
1.167
13
ConText NightSky
1.091
14
The Euripides Enigma
1.077
15
Python Game
1.000
16
Desrosier’s Discovery
1.000
16
Many congratulations to the overall Gold 1st place winner, the mighty @mathbrush with The Impossible Stairs. Brian receives the coveted, fabled (and perhaps even apocryphal) solid gold lamp trophy [AU content not guaranteed not to revert to base metal during transit]:
and an official ParserComp2022 Participation Certificate, in hard copy!
Congratulations also to our Silver and Bronze winners, @AmandaB with Of Their Shadows Deep, and @dee_cooke with Things That Happened In Houghtonbridge respectively. They each receive a hard copy official ParserComp2022 Participation Certificate to commemorate their fabulous achievement in this year’s competiition.
Finally, congratulations to all the other entrants who individually bought all manner of excellence to the competition. Each participant receives a digital official ParserComp2022 Participation Certificate as a thank you from all of us at ParserComp HQ.
We’ll release a spreadsheet of the raw scores once we’ve tidied it up a bit, which won’t be for a little while as we’ve got to have tea and feed the cat and things first - it really is non-stop around here - but in the meantime, well done to everyone!
A deserving winner! I enjoyed ParserComp very much this year, and I enjoyed all the games that placed ahead of me. Thanks to all who participated, with reviews or votes or testing or whatever.
And thanks to the organizers for putting out the unexpected fires they had to put out.
Congratulations to @mathbrush and everyone else! What a great comp - thanks so much to all involved (and for the awesome-sounding certificates - looking forward to that!).
Congrats to Mathbrush on the back-to-back wins! Thank you to everyone who submitted for sharing your creativity, and thanks so much to the organizers. I think ParserComp deserves an implementation score of 5.001.
Congrats to everyone, especially to Brian! I tested The Impossible Stairs, and although I would never have said this to Brian at the time (because it puts a lot of pressure on a person to say this when their game isn’t finished), I was already pretty sure then that it was going to win. And back-to-back wins is pretty fantastic!
And getting a game out into the world is a big accomplishment, so kudos to everyone for having the guts to put something out there.
Congrats to everyone who entered, and especially the winners! I’m looking forward to checking out more of this year’s games, and hopefully entering again next year.
Thanks so much to those who voted and my testers! I purposely haven’t tried most of the other games yet (so I could review them after the comp), but both the ones that I tested were, I thought, comp-winning material. Houghtonbridge was a thrill to play and deeply interesting, with great implementation and fun characters. Shadows Deep was beautiful and poetic and emotionally deep, and I think all the close scores show how much everyone liked them.
I look forward to playing all the other games, I’ve heard a lot of great chatter during the comp!
My next plan is to work on a very large (hopefully 10+ hour) parser game for a couple of years, so this will probably be my last big comp game for quite a while.
Congrats to Brian, Amanda, Dee, and all the authors, and cheers to @ChristopherMerriner and @fos1 for putting on the competition! The winners were all well-deserving, I think, but many of the games lower down on the list were lots of fun or gave me a bunch to think about too, and really showed off the diversity of what’s possible with parser games.
I would like to congratulate the people at the top of the ranking. I would like to, but I won’t :o)
What I really want is to congratulate the people at the bottom of that list.
Each of us has his own vision of which games should be higher or lower on it, and not being fully finished or polished don’t make games worst. I like it very much more than one of those in the queue. But even if it wasn’t, it’s just an opinion.
Listen what other people say, with their votes, opinions, or reviews, because there’s much to learn for people who listen the right things and the wrong ones.
But never let that leave a mark you. Marks sometimes become wounds, which become infected and steal our joy and our desire to do things.
Look again to the ranking: It can be in fact read the way you want. It was not the goal, but your games or parsers coming to life were the goal! I hope you enjoyed so much like me being part on this. Doing new friends. Perhaps new enemies. Remember: That’s life. That’s what all people say.
I Toast to all of you! God save the queen! Or whatever!
Congratulations to all who found the creative spark to write a game, the necessary stamina to actually complete it, and the nerve to show it on a public stage.
I couldn’t follow ParserComp a closely as I would have wanted this year, but I’ll be playing and reviewing most games in the near future. (I’m making good headway with Uncle Mortimer’s Secret now.)
An extra thumbs up for @mathbrush , @AmandaB and @dee_cooke . You may need it to thumbtack your certificate above the hearth.
Congratulations to all the competitors! It’s been a marvellous competition, and that is due in a large part to the variety and imagination of your games. Thank you!
Thanks also especially to the organisers. You did a great job.
And thanks to all the playtesters, judges and reviewers. I was especially pleased to see all the games got a good number of ratings in the end, so everything got its chance to shine.
As a fellow parser author I feel inspired by this year’s entries. As a player I feel I’ve been given a real treat! Thank you again.
Nail it, you mean. In its massive, heavy, baroque gilded frame. In the place you’ve especially cleared for it by relegating all the family portraits to the space under the stairs.
Anyone caught thumbtacking their certificate is immediately disqualified. I’ll be making spot checks.
