Yeah, it’s tricky – though I’d think submitting decades-old games whose authors published them and never gave any sign of wanting to make unavailable, but which haven’t been archived because Internet archiving wasn’t a thing at the time they were made, is different from the situation where folks have intentionally tried to pull stuff back. Dunno if any Archive folks have thoughts on the question?
Wait, wasn’t Garry one of the winners last year? And Amanda the other?
I posted a minor correction. Two out of the three winners opted out.
Hang about. One of those was me, wasn’t it? I recall giving some thought to this and decided against it because I wanted players to have the full experience with a pretty web page, full instructions and ability to play online or download. I may also add a blog, hints, map, solution and disk images for 8-bit and 16-bit computers (when time permits). itch is a much better place to do this and have it all in one place. And the source code is available on my GitHub page where it’s easier (for me) to maintain.
As it is now, it takes me a day to do all the updates to multiple web sites whenever I publish or update a game. Adding another one just adds to the headache.
I will reconsider that this year, as I now include the link back to the itch.io page in my games, so that players can get the full instructions, all the extras and the latest version if there’s an update.
FWIW, I added a rule in the Text Adventure Literacy Jam this year to ensure that all submitted games can be submitted to the IF Archive. I know of one author who will not submit anything because of this, so we’ll see if it affects the total number of entries a week from now.
Well, I’m sure you had your reasons, and the other winner had reasons as well, but I hope you do decide to archive your winning entry some day.
But the point is that there’s no particular reason to think that games entered into ParserComp will be archived, especially not the winners.
So it might not make sense to review them, if, as has happened multiple times this year, the author can decide to just delete their game from itch, thereby deleting all public copies of their game, and then request that we delete their IFDB entry, including all of its reviews.
Maybe better to wait and see which games, if any, do wind up making it to the archive, rather than waste time reviewing games that the author might just delete later on.
I agree that itch provides authors more independent control. But that’s kind of the point; being community-minded requires giving up some individual control. Different internet cultures can prioritize cohesiveness or individuality. When a game is released, does the game and the discussion around it belong to the author alone or to everyone? Recently people have been emphasizing having sole control over the game, but if that’s the case, then necessarily others have less investment in it.
I feel like there was also a discussion about how the Play Online button on IFDB works, and I don’t remember the details… is it possible to have IFDB’s Play Online button go to Itch or some other external link, and have the IF Archive copy just be a backup for posterity?
IFDB can be a little finicky about it, especially when there are links to both the archive and Itch.io, but as long as the Itch.io link is the first link, and as long as the “This is a playable game” checkbox is is checked on the Itch link, the Play Online button will will just link to Itch.io.
(Often people forget to check the “playable game” box on the Itch link, but and do check the box for the archive link. In that case, IFDB thinks that the Itch link is just a non-playable homepage, and so the “Play Online” button will link to the archived version instead.)
Of course, if Itch.io is the only link, as is the case for “Poetic Justice,” then of course IFDB simply links to Itch.io, and that’s that.
FWIW, my main objection to IFDB hosting is lack of ease of update. If I have an update, I want to update it!
Itch has this really handy “butler” thing, which takes care of all updating and making things live with just one command. I don’t even have to login to Itch to update.
That’s the sort of update I’d like to see at IFDB.
Huh? If you’re the author, you 100% need to be logged in on your account to update your game. You can’t change the state of a game, whose files are hosted on itch, while not being connected to your account. It might not be on the itch website itself, but the butler still need access to your account.
You don’t manually login. Butler knows your credentials
I have been following this thread and the argument on whether comp games should be archived automatically on the IFArchive / IFDB.
It comes down to community participation vs author’s rights. I need to give this more thought and potentially set up a poll for ParserComps author’s feelings on this subject.
PS. Author’s rights in addition to a dedicated website…
If you click “Edit this Page” and “Upload it to the IF Archive,” it will take you to a page like this:
You can upload your file right there. IFDB does ask you to sign in, but, if you check the box to “Remember me on this computer,” you’ll only have to login one time, ever. Quick and easy.
If you really want to do it from the command line, you certainly can. No login required! (Please do update the email address below to your own, actual email address, so the IF Archive team knows how to contact you.)
curl \
-F file.1=@Murder_at_the_Manor.zip \
-F "name=Jkj Yuio" \
-F "email=you@example.com" \
-F $'filedesc=Murder at the Manor\n\nAuthor: Jkj Yuio' \
-F "rights=author" \
-F "directory=games/html" \
-F "tos=on" \
-F "tuid=qk7qwasgpawa90xu" \
https://upload.ifarchive.org/cgi-bin/upload.py
I don’t recall what I opted for last year, but I’m not opposed to putting my games on the archive. I think the bigger issue for me is that I tend to write games in straight html5/JS, which means you’re not really downloading a single file to be run in an interpreter–you’re getting a bunch of web files which run in a browser. ParserComp submission last year was actually designed to run on itch because I thought it made some sense.
I guess I wouldn’t mind submitting my games’ source to the archive. (It’s terribly written code, so maybe I do mind.)
Is that something I should consider?
I have entered two games into jams, one written with Punyinform and the other Inform 7. My code certainly isn’t inspiring but they are both in the basement on IFDB. 
Since your code is not written with “main stream” IF development systems, it may be more study worthy than mundane code like mine.
fos1
There are lots of HTML/JS games on the IF Archive!
The only sort of games that really can’t be archived are those that require a custom backend server. But the great majority of HTML IF games don’t. (But even for them you could consider archiving the server software, so that future people could try running their own server if the original one goes down.)
Hey, thanks for the example script. I’m going to give this a go. I would definitely do this as a script.
What does it do exactly?
Assuming I’m uploading an HTML game, will it automatically enable the “play online” link.
And if so;
does it unpack the zip into games/html or does the host keep the zip and run from that (somehow).
Can the zip contain a whole file subtree?
Should the top-level file be called index.html
Will relative paths to media from root index.html work?
What does the upload do to files already present? overwrite?
What happens to files already present but no longer in the new zip.
What is tuid
Do old versions get kept
Is there a way to specify a version number
Thanks for your answers.
Remembering that IF Archive ifarchive.org and IFDB ifdb.org are separate entities, it’s just submitting the form that you’ll find here: https://upload.ifarchive.org/cgi-bin/upload.py
No, but if you’re updating a game that already had an IF Archive link that already had the “playable game” checkbox checked, then the Play Online button will keep working.
IF Archive hosts zips, and has a tool “unbox” than unzips zips and hosts the files unzipped on a separate domain. The zip can contain a whole file subtree. Your top-level file can be called anything, but index.html is often a good choice. It’s best to have just one HTML file at the top level, and then the unboxer will know to open that.
When updating a game, I believe your old zip will be moved to an old directory.
“TUID” is the IFDB ID of the game. For Murder at the Manor, the TUID is in the URL https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=qk7qwasgpawa90xu and in the page as: “TUID: qk7qwasgpawa90xu”
You can specify a version number by typing it in the “about this file” box on the upload form, or, if you’re using curl, in the filedesc line of my sample scirpt.
We can submit old games as long as they haven’t been published anywhere before, right? I made a tiny thing years ago that’s been sitting on my hard drive for ages, so I figured I might finally put it online for this, if it’s allowed.
Yes. If it is an unpublished game and has been unavailable to the public, you are free to submit it to ParserComp.