Annual IF Comp 2018

[Denk]

Hello, interesting.

https://ifcomp.org/comp/2018

I list the tools used by contestants. ( From the 1st place winner to the 30th place winner.)

Welcome bdmoon

Yes, it is interesting to see, how twine dominates top 10 and that Inform clearly is the most popular parser tool.

If it is any comfort for us 'drifters, more games have been made with ADRIFT than TADS since 2017 (according to IFDB).

[bdmoon]

If it is any comfort for us 'drifters, more games have been made with ADRIFT than TADS since 2017 (according to IFDB).

Hello, good!

[David Whyld]

As fond as I am of CYOA games, I always find it kind of disappointing how much they seem to dominate competitions these days. I'd much sooner they had their own category in the comp - maybe Best Parser Game and Best CYOA Game - although a lot of that might be because I don't really consider CYOA to be proper IF in the traditional sense.

[The0didactus]

As fond as I am of CYOA games, I always find it kind of disappointing how much they seem to dominate competitions these days. I'd much sooner they had their own category in the comp - maybe Best Parser Game and Best CYOA Game - although a lot of that might be because I don't really consider CYOA to be proper IF in the traditional sense.

This is a periodic topic of discussion. I might be the one on this site that is most opposed to it, but even I am a little dismayed by how many there are, relative to the traditional parsers.

[P/o Prune]

I'm with David on this one, although I'm not at all fond of CYOA games. Maybe I'm just an old fart but to me IF is a parser based game.
Two categories in the comp would be nice and I can't see why not. There are so many other categories in the IF Comp that one more couldn't possibly hurt.

[Denk]

I am a bit divided on this subject because I think that younger players did not grow up with parser games as we did, and so they may learn about parser games through the IF competition. Another problem is the games which are kind of a hybrid between parser and CYOA. For instance Detectiveland which won in 2016 ( http://versificator.net/detectiveland/ ) has more in common with a parser game than CYOA even though you cannot type, but you can click on all objects and choose what to do with them, e.g. READ BOOK. The corresponding parser command is thus shown in the left window. A solution to that could be that the author chooses which category to be in.

[David Whyld]

I'm not suggesting kicking CYOA games out of the comp, but merely putting them in their own category. However you stand on the whole "is CYOA proper IF?" debate, they are two different things so they should be judged on their own merits. On one level, TV shows and films are the same thing - a bunch of actors following a script - but they're always judged in separate categories. Why should IF and CYOA games be any different?

[Lumin]

I'm a fan of both, but I don't see how it's possible to compare the two. I can get a solid idea of the quality of a CYOA in under five minutes, but you can't approach an IF game the same way at all.

But since it's much easier to play a CYOA, they're almost guaranteed more votes which just skews things further.

[The0didactus]

I'm not suggesting kicking CYOA games out of the comp, but merely putting them in their own category. However you stand on the whole "is CYOA proper IF?" debate, they are two different things so they should be judged on their own merits. On one level, TV shows and films are the same thing - a bunch of actors following a script - but they're always judged in separate categories. Why should IF and CYOA games be any different?

On one level, all actors do the same thing. They act. But what makes a good comic actor is categorically different than what makes a good dramatic actor. One can imagine commesurate categories, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to compare them role-for-role or even actor-for-actor. We can still meaningfully discuss a "best actor" category for the oscars, even though this often involves say Brad Pitt's role in moneyball getting compared to Demián Bichir's role in "a better life" (84th academy awards) or Meryl Streep's role in Florence Foster Jenkins getting compared to Natalie Portman's role in "Jackie" (89th).

As another question: do we propose splitting ALL award categories like this in two, or just the "best game" category. For example, is there a parser "miss congeniality" award and a CYOA one? Is there a parser "golden bandanna of discord" and a CYOA one? Do we split the main prize pool exactly in half if only 10 people make parsers and everyone else makes twine games, and the twine games get 6 times the votes but the parsers receive better average scores? If the categories are utterly incommensurate, it makes since to split them...but that produces absurd results pretty quickly.

You might argue that I'm just splitting hairs by focusing on trivial dissimilarities, but I would consider a lot of the differences between a parser game and a CYOA to be similarly trivial from the perspective of simply picking a "best" one by blind popular vote (which is how IFCOMP picks its winners)

If I'm wrong, you should probably try to educate me on the general topic of my concern: Is Tingalan a Parser or a CYOA?

[Lumin]

Really, just kick out Twine.

[David Whyld]

That's not really the point I was making, though, and you're comparing an actor in one film to an actor in another film. I said that TV shows and films were different and apparently the rest of the world agree with me as I've never known a TV show be nominated at Best Film or a film be nominated as Best TV Show.

As for whether Tingalan is parser or CYOA, I don't know as I've never played it, but as a general rule I'd say if the majority of the game is played by typical parser commands being entered - north, south, get lamp, kill goblin, search table, etc - it's parser, whereas if the majority is played by clicking on links or entering an option from a list, it's CYOA. If it's half and half, then it's a hybrid parser / CYOA which is a whole different ballgame.

Don't get me wrong. I like CYOA games and I've written quite a few myself, but I don't consider them to be IF in the traditional sense and I doubt I ever will.

[The0didactus]

should ALL award categories in IFCOMP be split in two like this, or simply the "best game" category? Should the prize pool be split perfectly in half if everyone makes CYOA games except six people who make parser games? What if the parser games get way more votes and activity but the parser games get rated higher?

[Lumin]

(David, he's a lawyer IRL, you don't want to do this.)

[David Whyld]

should ALL award categories in IFCOMP be split in two like this, or simply the "best game" category? Should the prize pool be split perfectly in half if everyone makes CYOA games except six people who make parser games? What if the parser games get way more votes and activity but the parser games get rated higher?

a) don't know; b) don't care; c) beats me.

I'm not really that sure why you find the idea of separating parser and CYOA into separate categories to be such an issue. On one hand, they're different so it makes sense and on the other hand, they're different so it makes sense. If I was the guy who wrote the number 2 game in the IFComp last year, I'd have won if parser games were in their own category. Likewise, if I was the guy whose game came in 11th (assuming that's a parser game, I haven't checked), I'd have come 3rd in the comp if the CYOA games were in their own category. Or what about the guy whose game came in at 31? He'd have made it to 13 or so without CYOA games being in there. You'd think he'd be all in favour of it, now wouldn't you?

[Lumin]

I'm not really that sure why you find the idea of separating parser and CYOA into separate categories to be such an issue.

Probably because he is 500k into writing a game that could be both, or neither.