Dear Friends,
We’re pleased to announce the final results of ParserComp 2025.
Firstly, some disclosure: the initial results published in this thread were not quite right. The original ranking was derived from a simple sum of all scores given to each game, whereas the intention was to rank by an average of the sum of all scores given to each game divided by number of votes. We’re apologise for this oversight which was due to a bit of a rush to get the results out and a lack of double-checking on our part. If this had been left to Sandra on the front desk then it would never have happened but, sadly, she is out of action with a slipped Microdrive, and so we had to work it out for ourselves; matters were made worse by the fact that, although you’d never believe it, ParserComp HQ is so vast that fos1’s and Christopher’s separate suites are in different time zones with a gap of around 7 hours between them! This means that we are only able to interact briefly over breakfast/supper, and for the rest of the time, fos1 feeds lithium to the supercomputer while Christopher sleeps, and Christopher polishes the silverware while fos1 dozes, the two doomed never to meet (it’s rather like being in a less-exciting version of Ladyhawke, except set in a secret bunker, beneath a mountain, in [state redacted]). The corrected ranking produces a different result when the games are considered together in the same category, which you can see in the spreadsheet linked further below.
Secondly: we noted the concerns around the primary use of AI in two of the games submitted, Mystery Academy and Last Audit of the Damned, both by thoughtauction, alongside the heavy promotion of the games on reddit. On the first point, as we said in the other thread, the decision to allow the games into the competition was the organisers’ and we take responsibility for that. On the second point, we have looked at the timestamped data in the voting form and don’t see any very strong evidence of chicanery there, so, while not wishing in any way to delegitimise peoples’ strong opinions on this, which we’ve heard in the other thread and don’t feel we need to rerun here, we’d like to extend benefit of the doubt to the authors of those games and draw a line under that speculation. The games will not be disqualified from the competition.
However, we have decided to retrospectively reinstate the ‘other’ category (most recently know as ‘Freestyle’) that was originally omitted from this year’s competition, and place these two somewhat contentious games in there. They are therefore still winners in their category, but are not in direct competition with the rest of the games (which remain in the extant ‘Classic’ category).
We hope all is now settled, and clear. Congratulations to all the winners and a huge thank you to everyone who voted, particularly those who provided all the very valuable and constructive feedback in response to the questions in the form. For many authors, the written feedback is far more valuable than any numeric score, so we’re sure it will be very much appreciated. We will find a way of getting it directly to the authors, along with the certificates and recklessly promised fabulous prizes, in due course.
(Phew! Now that’s all said and done, I think we must have a little lie down with a damp cloth across our brows and a decanter of sweet sherry to hand. We’ll see you all next year.)
Best wishes,
fos1 & Christopher
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Complete results can be viewed in this spreadsheet, and are summarised below:
