Annual IF Comp 2018

[Denk]

That's why it's more important than ever to get reliable online play sorted out.

I fully agree. Let's hope that Saabie will prioritize online play in his new runner.

[The0didactus]

I have received numerous emails in response to my game. All are some variation of

"I can't play your game because virus!"
or
"I can't figure out how to download the right runner for your game"
or
"Hey, how can I play this on Mac or Linux"

It is very troubling after many months of works on what is, I believe, the longest/largest game in the competition, or tied with Anno 1700, another ADRIFT game, for the longest/largest.

[P/o Prune]

Things should have become easier now that the runner is available as a single file. (yes, the website needs a thorough cleaning up)
As for the virus warning, it only happens when you export your game as an .exe file. The runner will run just fine by itself.

[R2T1]

Has Fabularium been updated to support v5? It didn't when I last checked it out and only ran v4 games.

Yes, Fabularium now supports V5 including blorbs with music and graphics.

Actually Fabularium doesn't like ADRIFT .Blorb files. Or at least the version I have V1.4.0 running on Android V7.0

[Denk]

Actually Fabularium doesn't like ADRIFT .Blorb files. Or at least the version I have V1.4.0 running on Android V7.0: cry:

That's strange. I have also installed v1.4.0 and it plays blorbs just fine. Also, someone on intfiction mentioned that they ran the blorb of Anno 1700 in Fabularium without problems ( https://www.intfiction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=26637 ).

[R2T1]

Thanks Denk.
Well I checked all my settings for the umteenth time but couldn't see anything I could adjust.
So I uninstalled Fabularium and also removed its folder. Then reinstalled and reloaded my games including the .blorb ones and now they all work fine as expected. Crazy!
Let's hope it stays that way but I'll recheck after the next update of the APP.

Just found out that if you create a folder called .nomedia inside the Fabularium/ gamedata folder, it stops all the cover pics from showing in my Gallery. (Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?)

[David Whyld]

There's a list of IFComp reviews at http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/24th_An ... y_Reviewer

I see one for Anno 1700 but none for the others yet.

[P/o Prune]

Thanks David. I've been looking for a list like that.
Trying to find a review of your game through the IntFiction.org is more than a pain in the butt.

Speaking of reviews, is there a common "template" the reviewers judgde by or is it kind everybody for themselves?
I've tried to see if there was some kind of thread as to how the various games are judged and it seems like there isn't a common scale.

[David Whyld]

I think it's just a case of judging however you see fit instead of any set template. At least, if there is a set template they're using, I'm not seeing what it is.

[ralphmerridew]

The IF Comp has had always minimal restrictions on how judges are supposed to vote. Other than the first year, it's been "10 is the best score you can give; 1 is the worst score; you must base your vote on at most 2 hours of play".

[Lumin]

We have till the 15th on these right?

[Denk]

We have till the 15th on these right?

That's right. You need to play and rate at least 5 games, for your votes to count.

[Herr M.]

I just stumbled over this thread (and forum) while searching for opinions on the IFComp, and there are a couple of thoughts that I, as a reviewer, would like to share with you.

As you may have noticed not each and every game gets the attention it probably deserves, but with 77 games it is really hard to play each and every one of them. At least to a degree were it would be fair to make a reasonable judgement.

Personally I mainly stick to my personal shuffle list, and only skip games when I cannot get them to run or when I really do not feel in the mood for whatever is standing in the description. So far I skipped one ADRIFT game and it was 'Six Silver Bullets'. The reason being that my current Linux distro is rather outdated and buggy and I could not get the Linux client of ADRIFT to run. I know this is superunfair (my sincere apologies) but now that I have read about your disappointment I will try to seriously get your games running and put them on a higher priority. I prefer covering games that are not on all the other reviewers lists anyway.

And just as a hint: If you want some feedback, why not simply ask for it? As you might have noticed there are several people who try to tackle as many games as possible and share their thoughts. And I am only speaking for myself, but whenever someone asks me for my opinion, some feedback and suggestions for improvements I gladly give it to them. It is even a lot more interesting to play a game when someone asked me to do so.

[dfabulich]

Hi! I've come here trying to improve the state of affairs for IFComp's ADRIFT documentation.

It's not well known, but the IFComp website documentation is available online on Github. https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifc ... formats.tt

This makes it very easy for anybody to suggest edits, using pull requests. So I did! I skimmed through this thread and came up with this pull request. https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifcomp/pull/155 Comments there are welcome.

The differences are listed here: https://github.com/iftechfoundation/ifc ... d112b95315

- Mention .taf file extension
- Link directly to the runner
- Mention the non-functional Linux build
- Link to Fabularium

If y'all have any additional feedback, please go to Github and reply to the pull request thread.

[David Whyld]

I was actually intending to enter an ADRIFT game into the IFComp this year (subsequent grumblings about the updates rule ruining the comp aside), but ended up running out of time. In hindsight, considering the problems the other authors have had, I'm thanking my lucky stars that I ran out of time. I feel like the guy who was booked onto the Titanic but missed his taxi so ended up getting the next ship instead.

There's nothing worse than trying your best with a game, only for people to run into problems with the system you wrote it in that are totally out of your control. I hate to say it, but right now ADRIFT is the worst system to write an IFComp game with. The WebRunner has been very hit and miss since it first launched, Campbell himself has pretty much abandoned us and the future of ADRIFT is largely up in the air with no one seeming to know whether anything will happen with it again. The website is horribly out of date and, as can be seen from the recent problems IFComp players have had getting hold of the correct Runner, confusing to boot.

Which is a crying shame. ADRIFT used to be a great system to write IF games with, but these days it’s badly behind the times. Until all the issues with it are fixed, it seems people would be better off not entering any outside competitions with ADRIFT games.