We’ve never (as far as I know) hosted a competition at Intfiction. Discussion in another thread gave me the idea of a Roomless Comp.
Here’s the proposal (open to revision):
[size=150]Roomless Comp[/size]
[size=125]Rules[/size]
1. No physical locations, interior rooms or exterior spaces are modeled by the game. This includes places like living rooms, closets, dresser drawers, phone booths, outer space, underwater, in the air falling from an airplane, ‘physical’ locations in dream sequences, etcetera. The character can be in one or more locations, but there isn’t any physical interaction with locations during the game. Atmospheric messages or descriptions based on the locations are OK.
2. What does this leave us? Epistolary games, CYOA games, trials, radio communication, interior monologues, seduction, breaking up, wiretapping, development of cultures, discovering history based on artifacts, etcetera.
3. The game can be as long or as short as you wish.
4. The time limit will be about 1 month from when the comp starts.
[size=125]This is a general survey of interest. Thoughts?[/size]
I think it would be great to run a competition here at Intfiction. I might even think about entering something short, spontaneous, and surreal (the only kind of game that I could perhaps finish in any specific time frame). Otherwise, I’d enjoy casting my vote. I’m still a little bummed about the Spring Thing, even though I suppose I have plenty of other things to do.
I don’t really understand exactly what counts as truly “roomless” for the purposes of the official rules. I did read through the first three pages of the thread that inspired this proposed competition, but I’m not sure if I can picture what such a game would look like.
What about a game with a blind PC? The game world would have to be described in terms of hearing and touch. Would that count as “roomless”?
Also, are CYOAs allowed? I think a good way to make a nonstandard IF game for a competition like this would be to use multiple-choice format and make the options different from standard imperative commands in some way.
I should revise the OP to be more clear, I think roomless means that the world isn’t mapped, basically. So a blind PC, but still with standard exits, doesn’t count. A CYOA definitely fits, since usually you have no freedom of movement through a mapped space – that is to say, a choice might lead you east, but usually you can’t go back west.
There’s some hints of another CYOA comp happening, so I’m sort of holding off on this until I see what happens with that. Though I don’t see this as just a CYOA comp of course, or one restricted to a single development system.