Viv Dunstan's ParserComp 2022 playing notes

Looking ahead to the last week of judging it’s very likely I might not manage to play any more games before the end. Bearing that in mind I’d like to thank all the authors of the games I’ve played, and also all the authors of the games I haven’t. Sorry I didn’t get to yours! Partly due to time and energy limits with my neurological disease. Partly due to technical problems running some of the games, especially some of the Windows ones, which I couldn’t persuade CrossOver to run on my Mac.

I have very much enjoyed the variety and ingenuity of the entries I did play. All have given me fresh ideas about interactive fiction, including things that I want to feed in to improve the games I write myself.

I am sad however that some games still have relatively few ratings. If I may make a plea for more players of one game in particular, it’s Uncle Mortimer’s Secret, which I found a delightful old school parser game that sees the player gallivant through time, encountering lots of historical characters and having adventures. It is generally well implemented, very creative, and has comprehensive hints and a walkthrough. I got it running on my Mac under CrossOver. Happy to give fellow Mac folk tips on how to do that if you can’t run the provided MacOS version which only works on MacOS Monterey.

Anyway thanks again so much! It’s very likely I’m going to have another neurological downturn in September or October. So I may not be able to actively participate as a judge and reviewer in IFComp. But ParserComp has given me such a buzz. Thanks all.

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Thanks so much, Viv! It’s such a gift to authors and the community for you to take the time and effort to write these reviews.

I want to echo this. There is one week left in ParserComp, and there are currently 160 ratings, 30 short of an average of 10 ratings per game. And there are still five games with 5 or fewer ratings. This cannot stand, y’all. Please take some time this week to play and rate some games.

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Thanks for doing so much, Viv! Your work is very much appreciated. And it’s nice to have a recommendation. I want to get to all the games, but UMS seems particularly promising.

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