Round 3, the first of the one-week segments that will finish out the tournament, has begun, and the votes are piling up! Let’s see which competing games will go on to Round 4, the Division Championships!
DAY 1
In the closely-watched match of Six vs. Buggy, the two contestants seem to be feeling each other out. So far, Six is in the lead by one at 3-2, but Buggy has been matching it almost point-for-point in a slowish start.
In the second court, things have begun at a snail’s pace, with only three votes cast by fans in the matchup of Heretic’s Hope vs. Augmented Fourth. Although the first point went to Heretic’s Hope, Augmented Fourth is currently ahead by one at 2-1.
The match of Nightfall vs. A Change in the Weather seems to be finely balanced, with each contestant having scored three points so far.
In the heat’s most active match, Taco Fiction put the first three points on the board in its match against Sand-dancer, but the latter has since regained some of the lost ground. The score there is 6-4 in favor of the former.
First Things First had a solid opening streak of four points against The Dreamhold, but the latter scored twice by the end of the day, leaving the score at 4-2.
Never Gives Up Her Dead has taken a substantial lead over To Hell in a Hamper despite the latter running close behind in the opening hours. A burst of votes for the large-scale long-form work has left it up by four at 6-2.
Babel had the largest unopposed opening streak of the segment against Scroll Thief, putting up four points before the latter’s first. Since then, each contestant has scored once, leaving the board at 5-2.
In the final match, the second-hottest of the segment, Bogeyman is barely outrunning Metamorphoses in a very close race. At the moment, it leads by one at 5-4.
DAY 2
Six has gained another three votes, but Buggy has also scored once, with the net change leaving Six now significantly ahead at 6-3.
Augmented Fourth has tipped the scales further in its favor in its match against Heretic’s Hope and now leads 3-1.
Nightfall and A Change in the Weather both notched another point each, running neck-and-neck until Nightfall scored a second time. The score in that match is now 5-4.
Sand-dancer has been scurrying to make up lost ground and is now hot on the heels of Taco Fiction, just one behind at 6-5.
The Dreamhold has caught up and surpassed First Things First, having added third, fourth and fifth points unopposed after the latter’s four-point opening streak. The score there is now 5-4 in its favor.
Never Gives Up Her Dead earned another vote, expanding it’s large lead over To Hell in a Hamper to five points at 7-2.
Babel extended its lead over Scroll Thief by one and now leads by four at 6-2.
Metamorphoses continues to give as good as it gets against Bogeyman and has now taken the lead for the first time in this bout, currently at 6-5.
DAY 3
Six has picked up another point, securing a sizable lead of four points over Buggy at 7-3.
First Things First has pulled even with The Dreamhold, breaking the latter’s unopposed streak in the process. The two heavy-hitting long-form puzzlers circle each other warily at 5-5.
Heretic’s Hope has picked up the pace and scored a second time; it is now one behind Augmented Fourth at 3-2.
DAY 4
To Hell in a Hamper has picked up a point, chipping a bit off the lead of Never Gives Up Her Dead and leaving it four behind at 7-3.
Likewise, Scroll Thief has earned a vote, drawing a bit closer to match leader Babel and now trailing by three at 6-3.
DAY 5
Scroll Thief has earned another vote, stealing ever closer to rival Babel but also running out of time to make up the difference. The score in that match now stands at 6-4.
Augmented Fourth has earned a fourth vote, giving it a bit of space in its grinding contest with Heretic’s Hope. With three fewer total votes than the next slowest match, late voting may have an impact here.
Sand-dancer has now successfully tied up with Taco Fiction in the hottest match of the segment with the board there showing 6 all. This makes the second match at tie status, alongside First Things First vs. The Dreamhold, which is still stuck at 5-5.
Likewise, A Change in the Weather has caught up with rival Nightfall, and the match hangs in the balance at 5 all.
DAY 6
Nightfall and A Change in the Weather both scored in a quick exchange early in the day, moving the score there to 6-6 but maintaining a tie.
A new vote for Bogeyman evened things up with Metamorphoses and brought a fourth match to tie status, but by the end of the day Metamorphoses had also scored again to reclaim its lead. The board there now shows 7-6.
Heretic’s Hope notched a third point, bringing it to just behind Augmented Fourth at 4-3.
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FINAL RESULTS
Match #49: Six continued its surprise winning streak with a victory over Buggy in the first match of the segment. Although the two games ran about even (and a bit behind the pack) in the opening hours of the heat, by the end of the first day Six was a point ahead at 3-2. The energetic and charismatic tale of a chaotic kid’s game at the park gathered momentum over the next 24 hours, however, leaping ahead to 7-3 by around the end of Day 2 and retaining that lead for the remainder of the match. Predicting fans have been caught entirely off-guard by this match; not a single person correctly foresaw either contestant. Buggy, which also beat the odds with an unexpectedly strong performance in the tournament, was the first of two competing games authored by Brian Rushton, the other being triple-nominee Never Gives Up Her Dead competing in match #54 (see below).
Match #50: Heretic’s Hope scored the first point in its match against Augmented Fourth but ended up narrowly losing the contest at 4-3 in the slowest-moving match of the segment. By the end of Day 1, the crowd-pleasing music-themed parser puzzler was two points ahead of the highly-styled choice-based drama featuring both music and graphics, and though Heretic’s Hope was able to score twice more over the rest of the week, a fourth vote for Fourth kept it just ahead when the whistle blew. Betting fans universally predicted that Hope would make it to this match, but only one person anticipated that Fourth would be its opponent and correctly called the winner. Heretic’s Hope was written by G. C. Baccaris, none of whose other works were competing in the tournament. Fans will be pleased to know that IFDB lists nearly a dozen entries authored (or co-authored) by Baccaris, including DEVOTIONALIA and Excalibur (2021). We salute the exceptional craftmanship put into this work, which won the 2019 XYZZY Award for Best Setting and shared the XYZZY for Best Use of Multimedia, and the crowd cheers for it and its author as they retire from the field.
Match #51: Nightfall and A Change in the Weather fought a grueling game of inches that never showed more than a point’s difference between the two after the first 90 minutes of the match. Although Nightfall scored twice before Change managed its first point, the latter soon mobilized its own support and briefly took the lead before ending Day 1 at a tie of 3-3. Additional scoring on Day 2 saw Nightfall ahead by one, and its slim lead at 5-4 seemed to have some staying power over the next two days. Then, on Day 5 Change tied things up again, and scored its sixth vote almost simultaneously with its rival. Nothing could move the needle for either party until time ran out, leaving the final score at 6-6. Though Nightfall was graced by Lady Luck in Round 2, in the first coin toss of the segment she gave the nod to its rival. No fans making predictions expected these two works to face each other here, though half of them did anticipate a win by Nightfall against other opponents. Nightfall, a popular contender which placed 2nd in the 2008 IF Comp and was nominated for five XYZZY Awards (winning two), was the only competing work by author Eric Eve, whom IFDB credits with full or partial authorship of a dozen other works, including Alabaster, The Elysium Enigma, Blighted Isle and All Hope Abandon. Fans cheer as the author and the work retire honorably from the field.
Match #52: Taco Fiction started out strong in its bout with Sand-dancer, getting as far ahead as 5-1 on the first day of the match. By the end of that day, the slower-to-start Sand-dancer was showing some life, however, and had closed much of the gap, continuing to press in the early hours of Day 2 until it was just one behind. The quick action drove this match to the hottest of the segment, a status it would keep only briefly before other matches drew similar crowds. The score was stable at 6-5 until Day 5, when Sand-dancer tied up at 6-6, and there things stayed until the whistle blew. Lady Luck was called in to resolve the standoff, and – perhaps after Coyote called in a favor – granted the win to the lesser known of the opponents. Sand-dancer’s arrival in this match was a surprise to oddsmakers, none of whom guessed it would come to pass. Although three-quarters of predictors expected Taco Fiction to be paired off against other opponents, the majority of these anticipated a loss to The Edifice while one marked down a win against Pogoman GO!. Taco Fiction, winner of the 2011 IF Comp and triple XYZZY Award nominee, was the last of four competing works by author Ryan Veeder, whose author credits extend to over 50 (!) works listed on IFDB. Fans will be pleased to know that a sequel to this work, Dial C for Cupcakes, is available on IFDB alongside many additional episodes in the Little Match Girl and Balderstone series. We salute this crowd-pleasing “game about crime” as it retires from the field along with its prolific and popular author to thunderous applause.
Match #53: In another close-fought contest, The Dreamhold and First Things First battled to a draw ending at 5-5, with the coin toss of the record-setting third tie of the segment going to the latter. Although First Things had the strongest start in the matches opening hours and gotten as far as a four-point unopposed lead, by the end of the day Dreamhold had closed half of the gap. Dreamhold continued to score on Day 2, tying at 4-4 near mid-day and briefly taking the lead in the second half before First Things caught up to make the score 5 all. Undecided fans remained undecided until the end of the match, so Lady Luck called it at her whim. Only a single prognosticator predicted both contestants for this match, and also called the winner; everyone else expected other games in both slots. The Dreamhold was the third of author Andrew Plotkin’s competing works to fall, but fellow contestant A Change in the Weather carries the author’s torch into the Division 2 championship round (see above).
Match #54: Never Gives Up Her Dead did not give up its winning streak to opponent To Hell in a Hamper, winning the match at 7-3. Although the tense dramedy about an overburdened balloon was hot on the heels of the sprawling sci-fi epic in the match’s opening hours, a burst of support in the later parts of Day 1 put Never Gives Up ahead 6 to 2. Additional scoring was slow to come for both games, each gaining just one more point before the clock ran out. Only a quarter of predicting fans called the paired contestants and the winner; while Never Gives Up Her Dead was universally expected to be here, all others anticipated different opponents. To Hell in a Hamper was the only competing game by author J. J. Guest, whose other works listed on IFDB include the thematically-linked To Sea in a Sieve, the award-winning Alias ‘The Magpie’, and Renegade Brainwave. We salute this author and this classic work as they retire honorably from the field to crowd applause, and we look forward to the third entry in the Captain Booby series in the future.
Match #55: In the match of Babel vs. Scroll Thief, the former came out the victor with a score of 6-5. After a rocket-like start giving Babel a 4-0 lead in the heat’s first hours, Scroll Thief put two on the board. Babel was quick to respond with two more points of its own, leaving the score at 6-2 by the middle of Day 2. Day 4 saw Scroll Thief pick up another pair of votes, cutting Babel’s lead in half, and on Day 7 that lead was halved again, but the complex magical puzzler wasn’t quite able to catch up before the buzzer sounded. Just one fan foresaw the correct pairing and winner for this matchup; another expected Babel to be present but lose to The Little Match Girl. Daniel Stelzer, author of Scroll Thief, is well-known as a technical wizard of Inform and Dialog and as a moderator of this forum. He had no other works in the tournament, but he is credited as author or co-author of no fewer than eight other works listed on IFDB. These include Miss Gosling’s Last Case, Familiar Problems and Death on the Stormrider. The crowd cheers as he and his work depart the field.
Match #56: In what was ultimately the largest crowd draw of the segment, Metamorphoses narrowly defeated Bogeyman at 7-6. While Bogeyman scored the first point and briefly held a two-point lead in the match’s early hours, Metamorphoses was soon hot on its heels and reached a tie at 5-5 early on Day 2. The philosophy-tinged atmospheric puzzler pulled slightly ahead in the ensuing hours, leaving Bogeyman watching hungrily from just a step behind. The disquieting abuse-themed horror finally caught up around the start of Day 5, yielding 6-6, but Metamorphoses escaped its clutches and regained the lead some hours later. The score remained unchanged until the end of the match. Half of predicting fans expected this matchup to occur, but opinions were split about which game would come out on top; another quarter thought Metamorphoses would prevail against The Moonlit Tower here. Bogeyman, winner of the XYZZY Awards for Best Game, Best Story and Best Individual NPC in 2018 (plus one of two games awarded Best Writing), was the only entry by author Elizabeth Smyth. While this is Smyth’s best-known work, IFDB lists six other solo works by the same author, including LIDO and ZOINKS! among others. We salute this extremely memorable and well-crafted work and its highly-skilled author as they leave the field.
Here, now half way through the tournament in terms of rounds, PCT Fan @mathbrush continues to hold a narrow lead in the Official Prediction Game with 32 out of 54 correct calls to date.
This heat has knocked out nominees by @AmandaB, @BadParser, @Hidnook, @mathbrush, @SomeOne2 and other fans who submitted their nominations anonymously. In addition, AmandaB, Hidnook, SomeOne2, and two anonymous nominators are now out of champions. Of the 11 fans with champions remaining: 3 have two and 8 have one. We’re down to the Excellent Eight in Round 4, from which four division champions will emerge!