Time’s up… and it looks like someone cast a vote in the final hour for Nightfall, giving us three ties this segment!
It will take a while to resolve all of those and get the summaries ready. In the meantime, on to Round 2 for Divisions 3 and 4…
EDIT: The big board has been updated and the match summary posted. Lots of surprises this time!
Author Wade Clarke was quite quick in responding to the questions that I sent, so here is his interview for Six’s Round 2 victory over Illuminismo Iniziato, hot off the press!
Q: According to IFDB, you’ve been writing IF for a long time – since 1991. What drew you to the art form back then? What prompted you to become an author?
WC: When I was a kid, I’d draw and write and make storybooks and comics. My dad bought an Apple II+ around 1982 and I started to program games on it after he’d taught me some Applesoft BASIC. Two of the first games he bought were the first two graphic adventure games, Mystery House and Wizard and the Princess. We’d sit together and play them. So I got the taste for parsers and adventure games at the same time I was getting my taste for making all those other things. I was very fortunate in this, and had lots of praise and support for what I created in and out of home. I tried to make my own adventures as soon as I could. Getting the Usborne book Write Your Own Adventures For Your Microcomputer was key.
Q: Was Six written specifically for a young audience? If so, did you have any actual particular youngsters in mind, or was it just targeted generally toward children?
WC: It was broadly targeted at children and a G-rated audience the same way Matt Wigdahl’s Aotearoa had been the previous year. The 2010 IFComp was my first contact with new IF since the Apple II days, and Matt’s winning game opened me up with the possibilities of what you could do now. That’s what spurred me to learn a new programming language and make a new game, one in sort of the same area as his.
Q: Did you consult any actual children in the development of Six? If so, in what ways did it help, and did they contribute any ideas to the game?
WC: Only my inner child was consulted.
Q: Six features both graphics and music, a relatively rare combination in 2011 (and even today). What about this game called for both? Do you think that graphics and music are generically desirable in IF, or only in special cases?
WC: It’s funny, I can’t remember what prompted me to add audio. I mean it’s one of my home bases via music production, and I recall that in 2011 I participated in-person in the Global Game Jam, producing music and sound effects for my team’s game. Creating audio for Six probably just seemed instinctually right at the time. Which is unusual, because for most IF games, I don’t think it is.
I always enjoy cover art and title pages. For Six’s, I asked Katherine from my game jam team to do them after I saw how good she was with a graphics tablet. As for graphics per se, I think using them is a decision that can only be made on a project by project basis. What’s a mistake is thinking you definitely need them.
Q: How did you decide on the musical style for Six? Was it inspired by something else, or just what seemed natural to you as the composer?
WC: Cartoons were the inspiration. I feel some of Six’s music is like the incidental music from a Looney Tunes cartoon. It’s all done with squishy-sounding softsynths. They can be by turns cute, funny or cheesy.
One bit that always makes me smile is the massive victory theme when you win your game of tip. That’s from my adult perspective that winning a game of tip is not such a high stakes activity. To the PC, and to a child player, the sincerity and excitement of winning will match the music, and it’s all triumphant and truthful. So this reminds me that in writing the music, I wrote from the emotional perspective of the kids.
Q: Your games written both before (Leadlight) and after (Ghosterington Night) are both horror-themed, and per your posts on the forum you are a fan of the genre in film. What draws you to horror? What makes it art?
WC: I’ve always loved horror films, and once we hit the Playstation era, horror games. I’m galvanised by them and their atmosphere. They can encompass elements of anything and everything else. They show what’s hidden, they test things, they dig around in our shared subconsciousness. Aesthetically they can be beautiful and they have great capacity for abstractions, and for abstract delivery. Even highly commercial or formulaic horror films can tap those wells.
I’ve been gratified reading comments from players of my Music Room contribution to Cragne Manor saying they were disturbed, made to feel sick or scared to play on.
Something funny is that horror has a little background hand in Six, too. The idea of having two different PCs negotiate the same circumstances was inspired by the Playstation game Resident Evil 2.
Q: While not part of what fans dubbed “the fierce division” (Division 3), Six started in a very tough corner of the competitive ladder, immediately facing Alabaster and then Illuminismo Iniziato. What did you think when you saw that placement? Are you surprised that Six has made it this far?
WC: Overall, I felt it was no sure thing, but I’m not entirely unsurprised.
With the first match against Alabaster, I thought it could go either way. The games are so different. Dark fairytale versus children’s birthday party. Lots of ASKing versus TALK. Multiple authors versus one. And Emily Short has a really solid following that she’s earned. The result turned out to be close with lots of votes for both games. I felt Six’s newer qualities might have helped it.
Against Illuminismo Iniziato, that’s where I thought Six would lose. Illuminismo has so much positive feedback, elaborated upon at length in reviews, and I thought if it’s that sophisticated, this is where the idea of Six as a kid’s game could hold it back. You know, we all make these impossible weighing ups of factors when we’re reviewing things or judging IFComp. And this PCT you’ve conceived is a more overtly fun excuse to do this kind of thing, just like Eurovision is for music.
So for Six to catch up to Illuminismo in voting, I was already glad. Then when the coin toss went my way, that was the cherry on the birthday cake. Maybe Six’s special power is that when the scores are tied at six all, Six wins.
Q: What do you think are the things about Six that are winning people’s votes?
WC: It’s now fourteen years since I wrote it but I always think of it has having a solid core of implementation. It’s sensitive to little changes of state, to the order you do things. With the commands it knows, it can say something about almost everything to do with its situations. I think this makes it an experience that flows. You’re not fighting the parser or anything. You can stay in the heads of these little kids and what they’re focused on. And the sounds and jokes and graphics are flourishes that help create a certain atmosphere. That’s how I feel when I play it.
Q: Six’s next opponent is Buggy in Round 3. Is there anything that you would like to say about the match in advance to Brian Rushton or the PCT Fans in general?
WC: Buggy has been quietly bulldozing its way through. I’d be a fool to underestimate it. Still, my inner smartarse is hard to suppress, and it told me to say this: Buggy, you are going down to Funkytown.
Q: You are Australian, as are several other prominent IF authors. Is there anything that separates the Australian IF “scene” from the rest of the world?
WC: I guess I’d say we don’t have a scene due to small population and geographical spread. If I grab a few of us as examples, we’re all doing our own things. I’m making Inform 7 games. Garry Francis is making classic puzzle-styled games in I6 and he oversees TALP. Felicity Banks has made choice games and recently ran IF workshops in Indonesia. Dannii Willis is an Inform, tech and programming whiz overseeing a lot of code and interpreter projects. We’ve all only ever talked to each other on intfiction.org, and never with any Australian focus, just as individuals.