The bugles have sounded early, and the tournament has begun! Voting and discussion for Round 1 of Division 1 is open at this thread.
It looks like a surprise beginning to the event hasn’t kept things from starting off with a bang!
A couple of hours into it the hot match is Winter Storm Draco vs. Augmented Fourth, with a combined 7 votes (5-2 in favor of the latter) just two hours after voting went live. This edges out even the highly-anticipated match of Six vs. Alabaster, which currently has 6 votes evenly split between them.
Not far behind is The Legend of Horse Girl vs. Aisle, with the alternate universe Western trailing the high-profile experimental work by just one point with 5 votes between them.
DAY 1
We’ve firmly crossed the 50-vote mark, but there is still plenty of time and opportunity for more votes to be added. With 36 registered fans playing, up to 288 votes are possible in practice, though I would not expect actual voting to get very close to that since not everyone will vote on every matchup.
Alabaster has moved ahead of Six, with the match now at 7-4 in its favor. The hot match remains Winter Storm Draco vs. Augmented Fourth, where the latter has attained a commanding lead of 8-4. The match between Tales from Castle Balderstone and A Trial has also been heating up, with a combined 11 votes making it tied for second-hottest alongside headline match #01.
The largest lead by far is that of Illuminismo Iniziato over Everybody Dies, currently at 8-1. Heretic’s Hope vs. Tapestry has so far been another lopsided match, now standing at 5-1 in the multimedia Twine work’s favor.
DAY 2
Heretic’s Hope has extended its lead over Tapestry and is now 5 points ahead. Aisle has likewise lengthened its lead over The Legend of Horse Girl by another point, now at 6-4 in a match drawing more interest than expected.
The contest of Six vs. Alabaster has taken the torch of hottest match as the Aussie birthday party simulation steadily regains ground lost earlier to the fractured fairy tale. Six has put up 6 points so far and is now just one behind.
Winter Storm Draco vs. Augmented Fourth continues to be a hot match, and Draco currently trails Fourth by 4. With just a third of registered fans having voted, there is still a chance for Veeder’s mystical, meteorologically-oriented psychodrama to catch up.
Buggy vs. The Abbey has been one of the quieter matches so far, but the faux horror metacomedy entry by mathbrush is currently in front at 4-2. Meanwhile, in the slowest match of the segment to date, The Bible Retold: Following a Star has finally picked up a point in its run against Submarine Sabotage, but the underwater thriller is still up 3-1 after a triple-vote opening streak.
DAY 3
We’ve hit the 75-vote mark, and points are still coming in as fans explore games and cast their votes. With the extended two-week segment duration, even players who are just signing up will have time to play many of the games in this heat. For some matches, both contestants can be completed within a few hours.
In what continues to be the hottest match, Six has now caught up with Alabaster and surpassed it by one, with a score of 8-7.
The two contestants by Ryan Veeder in this heat are seeing mixed results, with Tales from Castle Balderstone ahead of A Trial but Winter Storm Draco trailing Augmented Fourth. Enough votes are still out there to change the fortunes of one or both games.
Buggy has picked up another point over The Abbey (1993) and is now 3 ahead at 5-2. Likewise, Illuminismo Iniziato has gained another notch, putting it a full 8 points ahead of slice-of-afterlife slacker drama Everybody Dies. Heretic’s Hope has also increased its lead over Tapestry, with that match at 7-1 in its favor.
DAY 4
Scores continue to move as players cast their votes, and another player has entered the stands, bringing the total possible vote count of this heat to 296. New players are welcome to join at any time; see the FAQ near the top of this thread for details.
In a surprise move, weird west dramedy The Legend of Horse Girl has picked up the pace and pulled even with opponent Aisle at 6 all.
The Bible Retold: Following a Star earned a second point, threatening to close on Submarine Sabotage, but within hours the military mystery had slipped away with another point of its own, leaving its lead unchanged at two ahead.
Six has held steady with its narrow single-point lead over Alabaster; scoring remained unchanged all day at 8-7.
Augmented Fourth widened the gap between it and Winter Storm Draco again, with their match now at 9-4. The music-themed Zorkian fantasy now vies with Illuminismo Iniziato to see which will be the first game to reach 10 votes.
DAYS 5 AND 6
Scoring remain unchanged during a mid-week slump in activity. With another weekend and up to two-thirds of registered fans having not cast a vote, the action is surely not over yet!
DAY 7
Moving into the weekend, Augmented Fourth picks up another vote over Winter Storm Draco, making it the first game in the tournament to reach 10 points. With a combined 14 points scored, match #08 is the second-largest crowd draw in the segment, and another vote there would place it at a tie for hottest match.
The Legend of Horse Girl vs. Aisle remains deadlocked at 6-6, with neither side able to score. Polling suggest that a tiebreaker vote may be coming soon – if not, the match will be decided by coin toss when time runs out.
DAY 8
Scoring unchanged. If the current match leaders hold steady through the remainder of the week, then one individual will be at the front of the pack for the Official Prediction Game, regardless of the result of a coin toss in match #06.
DAY 9
Six has gained another vote, extending its narrow lead over Alabaster and leaving it two up at 9-7 in what continues to be the hottest match of the segment. With 9 points on the board, Six is poised alongside Illuminismo Iniziato to break into double-digit scoring. Alabaster has five days left to close up the gap; new fans joining (and abiding by the honor system) could tip the balance.
DAYS 10 AND 11
Scoring unchanged, with only a few days left before the segment ends. Several matches are close enough that late voting could result in a tie or even a change in the leader.
Close matches include: Six vs. Alabaster with the former up by two, The Bible Retold: Following a Star vs. Submarine Sabotage with the latter up by two, and The Legend of Horse Girl vs. Aisle where the score is tied.
DAY 12
Late game motion on two matches! Alabaster picks up a vote, leaving it just one behind Six at 9-8. Also, Augmented Fourth expands its already seemingly insurmountable lead over Winter Storm Draco, with the score there now at 11-4.
DAY 13
A late vote for Aisle has broken its tie with The Legend of Horse Girl and placed it one ahead at 7-6.
Also, The Bible Retold: Following a Star has picked up a vote, leaving it just one behind Submarine Sabotage and bringing the total scoring for the match to the same level as that of Buggy vs. The Abbey (1993).
With just one day remaining, there’s still a chance for these close matches, as well as Six vs. Alabaster to change.
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FINAL RESULTS
Match #01: Wade Clarke’s Six edged out Emily Short’s Alabaster in the segment’s most popular match, ending with a narrow win at 10-8. This match was rated as most interesting by fans in advance polling, so it’s not surprising that it ended up drawing the most activity. The light-hearted, playful simulation of a day at the park was favored 3 to 1 in fan predictions, though Calculon predicted a win for Short’s dark fairy tale drama. Three other works authored in whole or in part by Short are competing in the tournament, appearing in Divisions 3 and 4, so we will soon see more from this highly-accomplished author whose masterwork Counterfeit Monkey dominated all challengers in the Free IF Playoffs.
Match #02: Michael Coyne’s Illuminismo Iniziato took a strong lead early and kept it, finishing the match 8 ahead of opponent Everybody Dies at 10-2. Although Everybody Dies took third place in the 2008 IFComp and has twice been included in the Interactive Fiction Top 50 of All Time, this lopsided result was in keeping with predictions – fans heavily favored Illuminismo (winner of the 2018 Spring Thing’s Main Festival) to come out ahead, and Calculon agreed. The sequel to Risorgimento Represso, a notable Infocom-like fantasy puzzler that was nominated twice but not chosen in the lottery for the tournament, Illuminismo will face Six in round 2. Everybody Dies was the only work in the tournament by Jim Munroe, but he has written several other games – most notably the ASCII-animated Guilded Youth. Fans are encouraged to check it out.
Match #03: Ryan Veeder’s Tales from Castle Balderstone surpassed B Minus 7’s A Trial with a score of 8-5. The Halloween spook story sampler proved popular despite being out of season, and was able to gain a significant lead by the end of day 1. The surreal Twine tale of a bureaucratic dystopia never managed to catch up in one of the more active matches in the segment. Fans universally predicted this outcome, though Calculon disagreed. A Trial was the only contestant written by B Minus 7, and has drawn praise from prominent author Chandler Groover. Fans seeking similar works can explore Inward Narrow Crooked Lanes and other works by the same author.
Match #04: Brian Rushton’s Buggy earned a win over The Abbey (1993) by Art LaFrana, scoring 5-3. Fan predictions were split between the short but sweet fake horror entry and the venerable DOS entry with a custom parser, and Calculon lacked enough data to make a guess. The Abbey was the oldest game competing in the tournament, written almost 30 years before its opponent. It was Art LaFrana’s sole competing game; fans who enjoyed it are encouraged to check out Hampton Manor, the only other game found in IFDB by the same author.
Match #05: Heretic’s Hope, a Twine work by G. C. Baccaris, handily won against Tapestry by Daniel Ravipinto, scoring 7 points to its opponent’s 3. Both contestants are high profile: The illustrated, musically scored drama set in an alternate universe society dominated by giant insects took 5th place in the 2019 IFComp and received the XYZZY Award for Best Setting that year (also tying for Best Use of Multimedia), while the three-part tale of afterlife temptation took 2nd place (and Miss Congeniality) in the 1996 IFComp and won that year’s XYZZY for Best Story. Despite the comparable achievements of these two works, fans and machinery universally predicted the former’s win. Tapestry was the only competing work by Daniel Ravipinto, whose better-known Slouching Towards Bedlam (co-authored with Star Foster) is currently ranked #50 in the IFDB Top 100.
Match #06: Submarine Sabotage by Gary Francis proved the victor over Justin Morgan’s The Bible Retold: Following a Star, but only with a little help from fate. The final score was 4-4 in one of the slowest matches of the segment overall. Perhaps buoyed by discussion in its favor, late voting brought Following a Star up to a tie, letting the religion-themed comedy puzzler overcome the short-form undersea mystery thriller’s opening streak. Nonetheless, Lady Luck gave the win to Sabotage, and that game glides away into Round 2. Fan predictions were 3-to-1 in favor of this outcome, and Calculon called the match’s winner correctly. No other work by Justin Morgan is in the tournament, though he has other published works on IFDB, including Spiral, which took 6th place in the 2012 IFComp.
Match #07: In another evenly-matched contest, Bitter Karella’s The Legend of Horse Girl eked out a win over Sam Barlow’s Aisle, ending the match with the segment’s second tie score at 7-7. The well-known experiment, first mover in the subgenre of one-room games, took a strong lead over the quirky, stylized western early in the match, but, like its determined protagonist, Horse Girl made progress slowly but surely over time. The two games were dead even at 6-6 for a full week before a tiebreaker vote appeared to decide the contest for Aisle. However, a last-minute vote for the underdog evened the score, and the first official coin flip to land “heads” (i.e. lantern) lets the dark horse continue to the second round. Most fan predictions and Calculon favored Aisle, so this may be the most surprising outcome of the first heat. Author Sam Barlow is a noted designer of many games including Her Story, which is not found on IFDB, but he has no other works competing in the tournament. We salute the historical impact of Aisle on the art form as it retires from the field.
Match #08: In the final match of segment, Brian Uri’s Augmented Fourth prevailed over Ryan Veeder’s Winter Storm Draco with the scoreboard showing 11-5. Fan predictions were divided in this match between a classic music-themed magic puzzler and a short and stylized “slice of life” adventure recounting paranormal events during a major snowstorm, but Calculon chose the former. Fourth kept and slowly expanded its sizable early lead in this match, which drew more discussion from fans than any other in the segment. Three other works by Ryan Veeder are competing in the tournament, including Taco Fiction in Division 2 (playing now).
With the dust settled, PCT Fan @bg has emerged at the front of the pack in the Official Prediction Game, with 6 out of 8 correct calls for this segment – congratulations on the great start! This heat has knocked out nominees by @AmandaB, @CMG, @Dissolved, @Hellzon, @Joey and @rovarsson, but each of those fans still has other champions in the running. The action now moves to Round 1 of Division 2…