Bumped into the BBC’s version of H²G² while following some link or other because I was lost in a rabbit hole. I didn’t know what to make of it, but it intrigued me and I started looking up stuff about the medium.
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One thing about Once and Future that firmly dates it in my opinion is that, like Perdition’s Flame, it has no response to TALK TO. It seems like the paradigm up till the 90s was to use ASK ABOUT and PERSON, GO NORTH style conversation.
A lot of games in the 90s and after still don’t use TALK TO, but among popular games I think it’s much more common now to at least have a response like “TALK TO doesn’t work in this game. Use ASK ABOUT instead” or something similar.
The intro of Once and Future also requires learning through dying multiple times early on, which is not popular now (although some games do it well!) and went against Graham Nelson’s Player Bill of Rights (so at least some people back then thought it odd too).
There’s a lot to like about Once and Future, but those are the things that stuck out to me when thinking about its place in the great IF timeline.
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This was definitely the expectation within the rec.*.int-fiction scene, which used Infocom’s games as the model to follow. My memory of the early 2000s was that expecting games to handle TALK TO was seen as rather gauche, in the same vein as typing USE X WITH Y rather than finding a more specific verb.
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I was first introduced to IF by a teacher, who had the class play some short parser games together during a class. I think I checked out some of his game recs on my own later, but it didn’t click with me and I don’t actually recall what any of them were.
In 2019 I came across Stay? by ejadelomax because I followed their fanfiction writing and they linked their new free game in author’s notes. Absolutely loved it, still one of my favourites, but I wasn’t aware of the wider IF scene until one of the authors on Moondrop Isle posted about it in a Discord server I was in.
Relevant to the current voting, Never Gives Up Her Dead by @mathbrush was the first parser game I’d played in many years and I thought the wide variety of gameplay styles it includes provided a great introduction to what modern IF is capable of. I wouldn’t recommend it as a first parser game for anyone, but it clearly didn’t scare me off!
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I’m finally getting around to trying Dr. Dumont’s Wild P.A.R.T.I., and I’m noticing that – unlike Once and Future – the game has normal copyright announcements with all rights reserved.
I had been assuming from the “former commercial” licensing status on IFDB that this game also had been formally released to the public after Cascade Mountain Publishing became defunct. Was there any announcement anywhere to this effect? Or is there something in the game or its materials to indicate this that I’m missing?
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Thank you very much, ausgerechnet – that seems sufficient. I’ve added a link to that post on the game’s IFDB page.
Thank you to the anonymous nominator of The Golden Heist, which I had never played prior to the tournament. The juxtaposition of images from ancient Rome and dialogue beats from noir/heist films took a bit to get used to, but the authors pull it off.
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A quick poll:
Which matchups do you think are the most interesting in Round 2 across Divisions 1 and 2?
- Six vs Illuminismo Iniziato
- Tales from Castle Balderstone vs Buggy
- Heretic’s Hope vs Submarine Sabotage
- The Legend of Horse Girl vs Augmented Fourth
- Lime Ergot vs Nightfall
- A Change in the Weather vs Over Here!
- Taco Fiction vs Inevitable (2003)
- The Edifice vs Sand-dancer
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voters
Wow! Time’s up with two ties and two squeakers!
It’ll be a while before the official observer can get here for the coin tosses, but in the meantime I’ve started up Round 1 for Division 4. See you there…
EDIT: OK, the official coin tosses are complete, and the updated scoreboard and match summary have been posted.
Also, BadParser let me know that I screwed up the start/end times when setting up the calendar event for this segment. Sorry about that – it’s corrected now even though it’s after the fact. The scheduling information on the main post and FAQ are correct, so hopefully this didn’t cause any significant problem for anyone.
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I am just tickled that WHHoGG gave Dreamhold such a run for its money. I didn’t expect that and was mentally prepared for a major ass-whooping. Thanks for all the votes, y’all! Feeling pretty satisfied there. One day I’ll clean that game up now that I know something about how to use Inform.
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Holy mackerel! I share Amanda’s feelings exactly. Thanks to everyone who voted for To Hell in a Hamper, I’m glad it still entertains!
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I just want to remind everyone that, despite this subforum being placed under “Competitions,” this tournament is highly unlike normal competitions because the authors did not voluntarily submit their games as contestants.
The rules allow for authors to veto their games, but AmandaB and J_J_Guest were brave enough to let them be put to the test. Let’s hear it for them and the other authors on the forum for their good sportsmanship!
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On this specific tourney, if someone has entered my published work, I would not have questioned the entry, nor vetoed it, because this comp don’t have a scoreboard; which IS now the first and foremost criteria in deciding if entering or not. hence I will never partecipate to the IFComp, period. In simpler words, a direct-elimination comp is fair game in my playbook.
Now, your post objectively raise a nagging question: perhaps someone has not entered my published work because of worries about my reaction ? pls answer sincerely, even in private, if one prefers.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
There are 14282 total games on the IFDB. You have 4. Each player can nominate up to five games, so there were a total of 105 nominated games, out of which 64 were selected (coincidentally, that made for 105 different authors with games in the tournament). Statistically, not every author got a work nominated. You were able to nominate for your own work if you wished.
I doubt anyone chose not to nominate any of your works because they were worried about your reaction. Authors could always rescind a nomination, so players were free to choose whomever they wanted. In my case, I chose based on games that I’ve played in the past, skewing towards more niche games. I haven’t played any of your games, so I didn’t nominate any.
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If I had wanted to enter one of your games, I probably would have just entered it, haha! I don’t think many people chose not to enter any of their games because of that.
(Or, if I was worried about that, I probably would’ve PMed the author checking beforehand, instead of outright avoiding it…)
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