Annual IF Comp 2018

[Lumin]

:claps: Just letting you all know that I have just submitted my entry to the Annual IFComp 2018 …

Awesome, congrats! Maybe I'll actually vote this year, it's been awhile.

[ralphmerridew]

To my knowledge, the only alternative to the official ADRIFT 5 runner is currently Fabularium for Android. It still has a few bugs in it, but I think they will soon be fixed. Other programs produce blorb-files, e.g. Inform, though they are usually called zblorb or gblorb, but blorb is also allowed. Such blorb-files can be played by e.g. Gargoyle, but Gargoyle cannot play blorb-files generated by ADRIFT. Gargoyle does play ADRIFT 4 games though.

This all seems so ridiculously convoluted for 2018, it makes me sad.

Blorb is just a container format (similar to a .zip file, in that it stores a number of files in one place, although blorb doesn't do any compression).
So think of a .zblorb as essentially being a zip file that happens to contain a .z8 file and some image and/or audio files.

And any problems are solely Campbell's fault. There was a lot of effort put into specifying the Zmachine and Glulx; Campbell has long blown off similar efforts at specifying ADRIFT. When he was doing the full redesign of ADRIFT 5 would have been a good time to do that, but he squandered the opportunity.

[P/o Prune]

Denk and myself, have uploaded our games to the IFComp.
Anyone else?

The0didactus, Rotter, Saabie? Comments?

[Lumin]

Theo's is essentially done but not sure if he's submitted it yet. I'm interested in seeing what the finally tally will be.

[P/o Prune]

Theo's is essentially done but not sure if he's submitted it yet. I'm interested in seeing what the finally tally will be.

Wouldn't it be great if there were 5 FIVE!!! games this year?

[The0didactus]

I am submitting my game tomorrow after another full day of playtesting. I'm not anticipating it will be very well received, but it's definitely the game I wanted to make. You can probably find references to making this game on the forums going as far back as 2009-2010 or so, and I FINALLY took the time to make the game.

yep I'm stoked.

[saabie]

I'm really rushing to try to get mine done now
I only have this last week for testing and I'm going to be working day and night trying to finish before I run out of time.
Incidentally, the IfComp site says games are due by 11:59 PM (Eastern time) on September 28, but the eastern time of which country exactly?

[Lumin]

Saabie, what's your game about?

You pretty obviously know v5 inside and out so I've been curious to see what a game from you would be like for awhile.

[ralphmerridew]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Time_Zone (Canada, US, Mexico, ...)

[saabie]

Saabie, what's your game about?

This one is a short action-adventure game where you are thrust into a save-the-world scenario without warning.
It is not the huge adventure/zork like game that I have been working on for the last few years, as that uses features that don't work in the current runner and will need my new runner to be completed before I can release it.

[The0didactus]

Following a computer crash that almost sank the whole thing, I have now submitted my game to IFCOMP in both .exe and .blorb formats.

I am debating adding a hint file, but it all depends on how much time I get tomorrow.

[saabie]

I ran out of time. Too many weird bugs that each took longer to fix than they should have. Probably a good thing as what I had was rushed and I wasn't very happy with it. I probably spent too long tweaking the standard library when I should have just been writing the game.
At least now I can give it a bit of polish and get some actual beta testing done before I release it.
It also looks better and works more reliably in my own runner, so I would rather get that finished first and release the game with it.
The good news is that I will have at least TWO games done and fully polished in time for the next comp. (possibly 3 as I have part of another one done as well).

[P/o Prune]

Maybe this is a little
But I just received this in my email this morning and since it's about the IFComp 2018 (or at least slightly related ) I thought I'd post it here.

One of the players sent me this:
I can't get your game to run for some reason. It says "this blorb file seems to be invalid". Should I be able to use Glulxe or do I need a different interpreter?

Anyone have a solution? I have replied and asked him if he has the Adrift runner installed, but I don't know if that could be the reason.

[David Whyld]

Doesn't v5 have an option to download everything in an exe file to save the hassle of installing an interpreter?

[saabie]

Most antivirus programs hate ADRIFT exe files because they contain a zip decompressor that looks like a virus, and that causes even more problems for players than a BLORB file.
Glulxe is not able to run an ADRIFT game. Players must download and use the ADRIFT runner to play the game.