We’ve reached the final segment of the first round, at the end of which we’ll be at the halfway mark in terms of individual matches completed. Let’s see how it goes among the last batch of untested champions…
DAY 1
The headline match of Winter Wonderland (1999) vs. Metamorphoses looks like it might be a tough bout for both contestants. As of now, each has scored three points.
The hottest match is perhaps surprisingly The Moonlit Tower vs. Bogeyman. The harrowing no-win tale of a child trapped by a real-life bogeyman has taken a commanding lead over the lyrical short fantasy at 7-2.
For a Change is the current leader in the race for the biggest lead, with Search for the Lost Ark trailing it 6-0.
Babel is up by three over Delightful Wallpaper at 5-2 in another match drawing crowd interest.
DAY 2
After ending Day 1 at a 3-3 tie, The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen has pulled one point ahead of Scroll Thief. (Note to readers: the former will be referred to as just The Little Match Girl from here on.)
Please Answer Carefully scored four points unopposed against match rival Scents & Semiosis on Day 1, with an additional point added today bringing the score to 5-0. Having been flagged in discussion as a pair that are both very quick to play, this contest may begin to attract more votes over the course of the segment.
Things That Happened in Houghtonbridge vs. Captain Cutter’s Treasure was at 4-1 in favor of the former as of the end of Day 1, with unchanged scoring over the last 24 hours. There was also no change in the slowest-moving match, in which Yes, Another Game With a Dragon! is still leading Thin Walls at 2-1 after a lackadaisical first day.
In more new scoring, The Moonlit Tower earned a vote, leaving it four points behind opponent Bogeyman at 7-3 in what continues to be the segment’s hottest match. For a Change also gained another point while opponent Search for the Lost Ark remains stuck in the starting gate.
DAY 3
In this segment’s headline match, Winter Wonderland (1999) has put another point on the board, breaking the tie with Metamorphoses and taking a minimal lead at 4-3. Against such a comparable opponent, the triple nominee may still be on thin ice this early in the segment.
Scents & Semiosis has scored its first point against Please Answer Carefully, ending the latter’s strong opening streak. Now four points behind at 5-1, the intricate procedural text generator still has a long way to go to catch up with the situation horror match leader, but past matches have shown that it just might happen.
Captain Cutter’s Treasure also picked up a vote, letting the comp-length all-text pirate adventure shave off some of the gap between itself and semi-graphical adventure mystery Things That Happened in Houghtonbridge. The score there is now 4-2.
DAY 4
Thin Walls has caught up with Yes, Another Game with a Dragon!, and the score in that match is now 2 all. The choice-based tale of alienation with relevant social commentary is holding its own against the clever sendup of classic fantasy tropes in this quietest contest of the segment.
Please Answer Carefully gained another vote, erasing yesterday’s gain by Scents & Semiosis and restoring its five-point lead at 6-1. This match featuring two quick-to-play experiences is now one of four tied for second-hottest in the segment.
DAY 5
Scents & Semiosis has put another point on the board, signaling that it’s not to be counted out yet. It still has four points to go to catch up with Please Answer Carefully in its current place, however, and it’s not clear that the match leader is done scoring. The match currently stands at 6-2 and second-hottest of the segment.
DAY 6
Scroll Thief has earned a vote, reaching a new tie with The Little Match Girl at 4-4. Fans so far are evenly split between the punchy riff on a 19th century fairy tale and the clever rules-bending puzzler rooted in Infocom’s Enchanter series and ur-game Adventure.
DAY 7
Yes, Another Game with a Dragon! gained a point in its match against Thin Walls, breaking their second tie, but within hours Thin Walls had evened things up. As we begin the weekend, the score there is now 3-3 and running close.
DAY 8
Please Answer Carefully has scored against Scents & Semiosis, leaving it once again five points ahead. With less than a week to go, it seems safe to say that the scent of possible victory is now fading for the latter.
DAY 9
Metamorphoses has pulled even with Winter Wonderland (1999), and the score there is now 4 all. This change made it the third match of the segment to be at tie status, alongside the matches of The Little Match Girl vs. Scroll Thief and Thin Walls vs. Yes, Another Game with a Dragon!. However, later in the day Scroll Thief put a new point on the board, breaking its second tie with The Little Match Girl and taking the lead at 5-4.
Please Answer Carefully also picked up another vote, extending its lead over Scents & Semiosis to six points for the first time in the segment. That match now has a score of 8-2 and is tied with The Moonlit Tower vs. Bogeyman for hottest of the segment.
DAY 10
The Little Match Girl has received another vote, tying back up with Scroll Thief for the third time with the scoreboard now showing 5-5. This is now one of three matches tied for hottest in the segment.
DAY 11
For a Change has increased its lead to 8 points over opponent Search for the Lost Ark. Although other matches have ended with larger margins of victory, the fact that Lost Ark has yet to score means that this match may end up being the first “shutout” in tournament history. Three days remain until voting closes.
DAY 12
Please Answer Carefully continues to score and now holds a seven-point lead over opponent Scents & Semiosis. With the new point added to the board, this match has become the hottest of the segment.
DAY 13
After four days running even against Winter Wonderland (1999), Metamorphoses has earned a vote, giving it the lead at 5-4. With just one day of voting left, the triple nominee may yet catch up.
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FINAL RESULTS
Match #25: Babel handily beat Delightful Wallpaper with a score of 5-2 in a match that pit conventional tropes and gameplay by a (then) first-time author against an experimental format by an (already at the time) established master. Although the two works were running equally in the match’s early hours, a burst of votes on Day 1 gave Babel the 3-point edge that it maintained until time ran out. The majority of predicting fans chose this result, and Calculon agreed with the them. At least part of the experiment of Delightful Wallpaper was successful: The movement-only format of its first half was later used as the basis of crowd-pleaser Inside the Facility by Arthur DiBianca. Author Andrew Plotkin still has three other games competing in the tournament, all of which have advanced to Round 2, including A Change in the Weather which is competing against Over Here! in Division 2 right now.
Match #26: For a Change set a new tournament record in its match against Search for the Lost Ark, achieving a “shutout” for the first time in tournament history (including FIFP) with a score of 8-0. The hyperfantasy with a unique prose style obviously wowed fans when compared to the classical structure and play mode of its opponent, which despite the title has no relation to Indiana Jones. Again, both the bulk of those submitting predictions and Calculon agreed that this outcome was expected. The author of Lost Ark, Garry Francis, began with four works on the rolls, but only Submarine Sabotage, which is currently competing against Heretic’s Hope in Division 1, is still in the running. (See match #31 below.)
Match #27: The contest between Thin Walls and Yes, Another Game with a Dragon! was a close one, ending up at a tie of 3-3 with a coin flip determination making Thin Walls the winner. Fans were torn between rewarding the engaging critique of market-based housing policies and the mild skewering of well-worn fantasy tropes. More prognosticators than not expected this outcome, and Calculon concurred. Author John Kean has no other games competing in the tournament and only a single other work listed on IFDB: Downtown Tokyo, Present Day, which is another satire, this time of old-style Godzilla films. We salute this author’s commitment to creating fun gameplay and the crowd applauds as he and his work retire from the field.
Match #28: In another clash of well-matched contenders, The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen and Scroll Thief reached a draw several times. Each of the pair spent time in the lead over the course of the segment, but when time ran out the scoreboard read 6-5 in Scroll Thief’s favor, the deciding vote having been cast on the last day of the match. Scroll Thief outperformed expectations, since predictions favored The Little Match Girl at a 3-to-1 ratio, and even the forecasting machinery backed the origin story of the petite time-traveling assassin. The Little Match Girl, by Hans Christian Andersen is one of four works by Ryan Veeder that made it through the lottery to become contestants in the tournament, two of which – Tales from Castle Balderstone and Taco Fiction – were victorious in Round 1 and are now competing in Round 2.
Match #29: Bogeyman dominated The Moonlit Tower with a final score of 7-3; voting fans strongly preferred the dark edge of the former’s nightmare scenario to the dreamy symbolic journey of the latter. Bogeyman achieved its full score on Day 1, and The Moonlit Tower was able to pick up only one more vote over the remainder of the two weeks. Fan predictions were split evenly for this match, but Calculon called it correctly. Author Yoon Ha Lee is listed as a co-author in Scents & Semiosis (see next match) and has created several other works of IF in systems other than Inform variants, such as 2012’s Winterstrike (StoryNexus) and 2021’s The Amiable Planet (Twine). We salute this very talented writer as both author and work retire from the field.
Match #30: In a match pairing two experimental works, Please Answer Carefully methodically defeated Scents & Semiosis in a running battle drawing some fan discussion. Up by four unopposed at the end of Day 1, the former continued to outpace the latter into the second week, ending with a score of 9-2 that did not change after Day 11. In this case, the better part of humans making predictions and the automatic forecasting algorithm disagreed on expected result, with people largely backing Scents & Semiosis while the machine correctly predicted the winner. Author Sam Kabo Ashwell originally produced Scents & Semiosis as a gift for Emily Short, and its credits list Yoon Ha Lee, Cat Manning and Caleb Wilson (author of Lime Ergot, also competing in the tournament) as contributors. Ashwell is a well-known community figure who acted as organizer for the XYZZY Awards for many years. We salute his contributions and the technical skill shown in this work’s mechanics as they retire from the field.
Match #31: Things That Happened in Houghtonbridge proved the victor in its bout against Captain Cutter’s Treasure in a slow-paced match ending at 4-2. The multi-layered mystery in a contemporary setting took a strong three-point lead by the end of the first day in its bout against the straightforward pirate adventure, and by the end of the match that lead was mostly intact. Humans were largely in agreement that this outcome was to be expected, and Calculon also backed the winner. Captain Cutter’s Treasure was the second work by author Garry Francis competing in this division, along with two others in divisions 1 and 2. (See match #26 above.)
Match #32: Triple tournament nominee Winter Wonderland (1999) encountered strong opposition by Metamorphoses, eventually being defeated by the slimmest of margins at 5-4. The two highly atmospheric works from the turn of the century were tied at 3-3 by the end of Day 1, and though Winter Wonderland pulled ahead on Day 3, Metamorphoses closed the gap almost a week later. It wasn’t until Day 13 that the winning vote was cast in the latter’s favor. Despite the unusual popularity of Winter Wonderland during the nomination stage, the betting crowd strongly favored its opponent, as did Calculon, so the win by Metamorphoses does not count as a surprise to oddsmakers. Winter Wonderland was the only competing game by author Laura Knauth, whose only other published works listed on IFDB are Travels in the Land of Erden and Trapped in a One-Room Dilly. The crowd cheers for this popular pick and its respected author as the pair retire honorably from the field… and trumpets sound to announce the start of Round 2!
Here, just past the halfway point in terms of scheduled matches, PCT Fans @mathbrush and @FLACRabbit still share the lead in the Official Prediction Game with 22 out of 32 correct calls to date. Calculon, the automated prediction algorithm, was one of the worst performers, and due to lack of data in some cases, it was not able to make functional projections past Round 1.
This heat has knocked out nominees by @CMG, @Denk, @Dissolved, @Joey, @Morningstar, @rovarsson, @simpsong00 and other fans who submitted their nominations anonymously. In addition, PCT Fans Dissolved, who had only two nominations make it through the lottery, and rovarsson, who had four, are now out of champions. Of the 22 fans with champions remaining, two have 4, three have 3, eight have 2, and nine have 1. (Note that due to a spreadsheet error, the eliminations of two games in the last segment – The End Means Escape and The Golden Heist – were not reflected in the update at the end of the last segment. The error is now corrected above, and the current report should be accurate.)
The action now moves to Round 2 for Divisions 1 and 2. Stay tuned…