The People's Champion Tournament: Round 2, Divisions 3 and 4 (Voting/Discussion)

Competitions People's Champion Tournament
1

Welcome to the latter half of the second round of the People’s Champion Tournament! (See here for details and ground rules.)

This post is for second round matchups for Divisions 3 and 4. All matches are based on the competition ladder and previous wins.

681x500
681x5001134×832 95.5 KB

681x500
681x5001134×832 92.9 KB

Match 41: The Weapon vs. The Dreamhold

  • The Weapon
  • The Dreamhold
0 voters

Match 42: First Things First vs. Hunter, in Darkness

  • First Things First
  • Hunter, in Darkness
0 voters

Match 43: All Things Devours vs. Never Gives Up Her Dead

  • All Things Devours
  • Never Gives Up Her Dead
0 voters

Match 44: To Hell in a Hamper vs. Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!

  • To Hell in a Hamper
  • Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!
0 voters

Match 45: Babel vs. For a Change

  • Babel
  • For a Change
0 voters

Match 46: Thin Walls vs. Scroll Thief

  • Thin Walls
  • Scroll Thief
0 voters

Match 47: Bogeyman vs. Please Answer Carefully

  • Bogeyman
  • Please Answer Carefully
0 voters

Match 48: Things That Happened in Houghtonbridge vs. Metamorphoses

  • Things That Happened in Houghtonbridge
  • Metamorphoses
0 voters

Vote in the matchups above, and put in a good word for your selections on this thread. Voting will close and Round 3 for all divisions will begin in two weeks.

4 Likes
2

This segment’s contestants were nominated by the following people (in alphabetical order):

  • AmandaB
  • BadParser (x2)
  • dfranke
  • Hellzon
  • Hidnook (x2)
  • simpsong00
  • SomeOne2 (x3)

… along with others who submitted their candidates anonymously (but can claim them publicly if they like). Let’s see how these contestants do as Round 2 finishes out!

3 Likes
3

I usually like to point out similarities between games in matches but honestly each match here is pretty distinct from each other! Except that I think it’s pretty funny that my game Never Gives Up Her Dead and its matchup All Things Devours have the same central mechanic (moderate spoilers).

For the other matches, here’s why I consider them big contrasts in at least one area:

The Dreamhold vs The Weapon
The Weapon is a relatively short one-room game while the Dreamhold has a sprawling world map and is pretty lengthy.

Hunter, in Darkness vs First Things First
Hunter, in Darkness is not too long, primarily story-focused, and linear, meant to drive the action forward. First Things First is puzzle-focused, pretty big, and very much non-linear.

To Hell in a Hamper vs Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!
While these games are similar in both being very popular comedies, we again have a one-room, two-character game vs a big-map, many-character game.

Babel vs For a Change
While both popular games from the early 2000s (isn’t there a name for that time period? Silver Age of IF? Experimental era? idk), Babel is a serious game relying on well-worn but beloved tropes like ‘amnesia’ and ‘arctic base’ while For a Change is surreal and requires (quite literally) thinking outside the box.

Scroll Thief and Thin Walls
These have almost nothin in common outside of being well-made. One is a big Infocom-tribute puzzly parser game and the other is an emotion-evoking twine game about a transforming building that serves as a metaphor for change in and loss of friendships.

Bogeyman vs Please Answer Carefully
Okay, these two have a bit in common; both are well-made creepy Twine games with good CSS. But Bogeyman is long and highly character- and relationship-focused while Please Answer Carefully is short and relies more on atmosphere.

Things that Happened in Houghtonbridge vs Metamorphoses
The first game is a classic-style adventure with normal take/drop/use gameplay and codes and combination locks, with a real-life setting that turns more surreal, while the second is a physics playground puzzler that allows you to modify properties of objects like their composition and size, all set in a bizarre surreal world.

Edit: None of these matchups are very short. If you’re pressed for time, Bogeyman vs Please Answer Carefully is shorter than the others. Every other matchup has at least one puzzler that could reasonably be expected to take two hours to finish or longer.

7 Likes
4

A special announcement: I had not planned to do author interviews for PCT like I did for FIFP, because without the Top 100 seed ranking to go by I couldn’t think of how to objectively judge what constituted an “upset” victory.

The other day I was looking over the data from the prediction game, and I realized that several of the matches so far have gone remarkably against the combined opinion of the “betting” crowd. It seems reasonable to use the outliers there as the basis for determining upsets. Using that yardstick, the results of the following matches constitute upset victories:

  • #07: The Legend of Horse Girl vs. Aisle
  • #11: A Change in the Weather vs. A Dark Room
  • #18: The Dreamhold vs. What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed
  • #28: Scroll Thief vs. The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen
  • #33: Six vs. Illuminismo Iniziato
  • #34: Buggy vs. Tales from Castle Balderstone
  • #40: Sand-dancer vs. The Edifice

Yesterday, I reached out to the authors of the victors in those matches, and I’m pleased to report that @Draconis, @severedhand and @mathbrush have already agreed to field interviews. I’ve also sent out invitations to @bitterkarella and @aaronius to see whether they would be interested, and they may respond by the end of the tournament. (@zarf, I skipped you because you didn’t seem to want to be interviewed for FIFP, but you qualify twice if you decide to change your mind.)

I expect to get the first interview questions out around the middle of the week, and I’m hoping to be able to post the results of those who’ve already agreed by the end of this segment (i.e. end of the month). Additional invitations may be sent out based on the outcomes from this heat, but those would be the last since there is too much disagreement in the prediction data by Round 3.

While everyone is waiting for those, here are some quick polls:

Have you ever tried to introduce someone else to IF?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
If yes, how many people have you tried to introduce to IF?
  • 1-2
  • 3-5
  • 6-10
  • 11-20
  • 21-40
  • 41+
0 voters
If yes, approximately what fraction of those whom you introduced to IF are still playing?
  • 0-10%
  • 11-20%
  • 21-30%
  • 31-40%
  • 41-50%
  • 51-60%
  • 61-70%
  • 71-80%
  • 81-90%
  • 91-100%
0 voters
5 Likes
5

(Random comment from the peanut gallery) Way to go Sand-dancer!

2 Likes
6

I’ll speak up on behalf of Brain Guzzlers from Beyond!, which is the second of my picks that were selected in the lottery.

The IFDB review by @CMG pretty much nails it, describing it as a self-aware spoof with satiric overtones that’s all about having fun. I personally found it to be far superior to Zozzled, which seems to be generally considered Cherrywell’s best work, and it’s definitely my favorite among the games of hers that I’ve tried. My reason for choosing it was that it is responsible for the single hardest laugh I’ve ever experienced while playing IF.

Given its current standing against To Hell in a Hamper (a game I definitely admire, making it hard to choose), it doesn’t seem likely that Brain Guzzlers will make it past this round, but I encourage anyone who likes spoofy comedies to add it to their to-play list. (If you’ve never seen the original 1958 version of The Blob, you might want to check it out prior to playing; it’s definitely one of the sources of inspiration.)

3 Likes
7

FYI, thanks to @severedhand’s very fast reply to the interview questions that I sent, his interview is already up on the thread for the last segment. Enjoy!

8

I’ve been thinking ahead to the end of the tournament (less than six weeks away now), and one thing that occurs to me is that it probably will not be desirable to have a special subforum dedicated just to this tournament once the tournament itself is over.

On the other hand, it does seem useful to have a dedicated place for this type of activity, if there’s going to be more of it in the future. Also, if people are having fun with this type of thing, then there really should be room for people other than me to be running “events” like this.

Some quick polls:

Would you be interested in participating in more forum games in the future, such as the proposed IF Olympics, Great Play Marathon, or other new ideas?
  • Yes, that sounds like fun, and I would participate!
  • No, thank you.
0 voters
Would you support changing this subforum to a generalized format for “Forum Games”?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
Would you be interested in running a “forum game” of your own, or in seeing more of them run by new people?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

EDIT: I see that I worded that last poll poorly, making it ambiguous what “yes” and “no” mean. The question I meant to ask was: Would you be interested in either 1) running your own forum game, or 2) seeing more forum games run by other people? So “yes” would be the “logical OR” of those two questions, i.e. you answer yes to either or both, and “no” would mean not being interested in either possibility. Sorry for any confusion!

1 Like
9

A reminder to all fans and observers: After this segment (ending soon on Saturday May 31), every remaining segment will be only one week in duration. The schedule will be:

  • Round 3 for All Divisions (8 matches) - Sat May 31 to Sat Jun 07
  • Round 4 Division Championships (4 matches) - Sat Jun 07 to Sat Jun 14
  • Round 5 Semi-Finals (2 matches) - Sat Jun 14 to Sat Jun 21
  • Round 6 Championship Match - Sat Jun 21 to Sat Jun 28

Once this round’s winners are determined, there will be only 16 competing games left. If there are any games that you’ve put off playing in this top quarter of the field, be sure to try them in time to cast your votes!

3 Likes
10

Sweet Sixteen… Final Four… Championship… Who are you looking to see in the finals!!

1 Like
11

Less than twelve hours to go in Round 2. If current leads hold, this will be the first segment to end without any ties.

An update on the interviews:

  • Draconis has provided a whole bunch of well-considered answers, and I’ve just posted them on the thread for Round 1 Division 4.

  • As anyone who pays attention knows, mathbrush is pretty modest. Following the same pattern that he did for his interview during FIFP, he prefers to wait until Buggy is no longer in the running to respond, so the delivery time for his interview is TBD.

  • I haven’t received any response from the other two invitees. If anything results in the long run, they’ll be posted!

  • Although some of the likely wins come close, none of the results from this segment could meet the “upset” criterion of defying at least 80% of predictions, so there won’t be any more interviews coming out of this round.

2 Likes
12

Who were the other two invitations sent to?

13

(@J_J_Guest: They were sent to Aaron Reed and Bitter Karella; see post above.)

Round 2 has finished! There were no ties this time, so the action moves right to Round 3. Don’t forget that this week will be the only week for voting in the current heat – all remaining segments will last only one week.

The match summary has been posted and big board has been updated with the results of this heat. Good luck to the remaining 16 contestants!

2 Likes