Who is planning to review Parsercomp games?

Competitions
1

I’m really excited about the competition and one of the highlights of the IFComp was seeing all the analysis and reviews. I wondered how many of those reviewers were planning on covering the Parsercomp entries.

Also–will there be a private board for Parsercomp entrants like there was for the last one? It was great to have a spot for discussions of each other’s games and the reviews. Like being in a secret club!

2

I’m planning to review ParserComp.

3

I’m planning on doing reviews. The voting-on-specific-qualities system should make for a nice straightforward way to structure reviews, so I’m looking forward to that.

I wouldn’t expect anywhere near the volume of reviews that the IFComp gets, though - IFComp still stands alone in this department.

4

I am: playifreviewif.wordpress.com

5

I’m glad someone asked this question, because I’ve been very curious myself!

I will be recusing myself from the game I betatested, but I will be judging the other games.

There will not be a private board for ParserComp entrants, as that’s specific to IFComp.

6

I AM EAGER so I am sketching out my voting standards. (Really they are not much more complicated than 1 = terrible, 3 = fine, 5 = amazing, but regardless.)

Writing:

  1. A conspicuous problem. Could be substantially improved with basic editing.
  2. Weak, but not broken. Worse writing has sold millions.
  3. Perfectly fine; does the job.
  4. Strong. An asset to the game.
  5. Makes me jealous.

Story:

  1. Thin justification for gameplay.
  2. There’s a functioning story, but nothing that really interests me.
  3. Makes sense, provides a little motivation, not entirely predictable.
  4. Compelling. Makes me care about its world.
  5. Compelling; strong interactive integration.

Puzzles:

  1. Not present, or unplayably bad.
  2. Trivial, unfair, or tedious.
  3. Functional, conventional; yer basic IF lock-and-key puzzles.
  4. Distinctive and enjoyable.
  5. Fun; fair; strong narrative integration.

Theme:

  1. No apparent use of the theme.
  2. Used as a minor detail or cameo.
  3. A significant element.
  4. Central to the game; pretty cool handling.
  5. Central to the game; deep or transformational interpretation.

Technical:

  1. Bugs totally sabotage play. (Including, but not limited to, serious game-killing bugs.)
  2. Serious problems, but still playable.
  3. Competent, unexceptional. Bugs minor and few.
  4. Polished; or, ambitious and mostly-good.
  5. Ambitious and polished.
7

Maga I like your review standards.

My question is, how does one become a reviewer? Do I go to the Parsercomp website and sign up to play the games? I’ve already beta-tested two of them and I entered one myself. Does entering a game disqualify me from reviewing others’ games?

8

You are indeed disqualified from judging (and from discussing anyone else’s games during the judging period, though you are allowed to talk about your own). You will have to sit back and bask in your glory.

For more info, here’s the link to the ParserComp judging rules.

9

Nice approach, maga!

(Although I would suggest that games without puzzles maybe deserve an N/A in that category instead.)

10

Nice standards, maga! Mind if I borrow them?

11

Well - OK, I see both a 1 and an N/A as ‘it really doesn’t make sense to me for this game to get an award in this category’, except that an N/A doesn’t get counted.

I mean, each category vote only matters for that category, right? Or am I missing some average-score thing?

…sure, if they line up with your own intuitions? I’m generally in favour of people constructing their own standards according to their own priorities, though. (There’s no particular reason why everyone should care about strong narrative integration as a feature of puzzles, say, and not everyone would want the ‘ambitious’ requirement in Technical, although that seems pretty important to me.) I’d infinitely prefer that people go with gut instinct rather than adopt a set of standards that are alien to them.

12

Oh man, this sounds exciting [emote]:)[/emote]

13

I guess you’ve got a point. Since the scores aren’t released anywhere, and there’s no average-score thing, giving a 1 to a puzzle-free game has the same effect as giving it a N/A. I just hadn’t thought that through.

14

Bonus realization: It’s a good thing N/As don’t matter, because it turns out adding N/A on a scale in a Google form does not happen smoothly. (It does work smoothly with Surveymonkey, but Surveymonkey will only allow me to ask 10 questions, which are not enough.)

15

I’ll be reviewing. I also hope to add postmortems for the games I tested but can’t review.

13 games looks like a nice size. Not too little/much. It’s neat to see new names. And also to see all the games on IFDB already.

16

Yeah… looks a bit premature, though, I kept looking for the place to download them. Are they available for download yet?

17

I think they’re coming out in one zip file whenever it gets to be today in Carolyn’s timezone.

My one was already released and was only slightly amended and bugfixed before the competition and is already available. Probably easier to wait for the zip with everything in it though, doubt it’ll be long. The IFDB page for the compo’s up - ifdb.tads.org/viewcomp?id=b2mlgrfgactge6xg

[emote]:)[/emote]

18

Here’s a question: As an entrant, once the voting period is over, is it gauche to discuss the work of others in the competition? Should I just keep quiet for all time about these particular games?

19

I believe one of the rules is that entrants can’t discuss any entries other than their own until the comp is done.

It’s on the compo page - sibylmoon.com/parsercomp-2015/

20

What I mean is, once that rule is no longer in effect, does it look bad to go ahead and dump all your thoughts on everyone else’s work?