Annual IF Comp 2020

[Lazzah]

I submitted my game, Return To Castle Coris, as well. Just after I did, P.O.Prune found a bug in it which I have had to correct. Will submit new version after I upload the game to the ADRIFT website.

I don't suppose it will get many votes, but it would be nice if I got a few!

[Denk]

I don't suppose it will get many votes, but it would be nice if I got a few!

Just in case you don't know, the game with most votes doesn't win. It is the game with the highest average score. Thus a game with 10 votes can easily beat a game with 100 votes, if the voters give many points (max. 10 points per game) to the game with least votes. It isn't even the sum of points that is important, but the average number of points given.

So if one game gets 10 points by ten voters, its average score will be 10.
And if another game gets 5 points by 100 voters, its average score will be 5.
The game with the highest average score wins, which in this example is the game with 10 votes.

Having said that, I think it is still nice if many people play our games, even if some of the scores may be low.

[Lumin]

Best chance to get varied feedback anyway, regardless of the ratings. Although I do wonder how many people voting in the IF comp really even know their way around a classic puzzler anymore. I was browsing some of the entries from years and years ago and it's pretty incredible how much has changed.

[P/o Prune]

I'll admit that the IF Comp is the best place to get your game out there and reviewed. Only, I'm not so sure about the value of the review. Don't get me wrong. I'm only too glad to get a review of my game, but if you take into consideration that the review is written by someone who (probably) hasn't played the game through, which is quite understandable considering the number of entries and the limited time each judge spend on a game. It can only be a superficial opinion / review of the game in question.
A game where it takes a relatively long time to get things started is more likely to get a "bad" review than a game that drops you right into the "action"

[Denk]

I just heard episode 1 of this IFComp 2020 podcast. In this first episode they just went quickly over the blurbs. With 104 games this year, they did not have a chance to comment on all games this first episode, but they did manage to touch briefly on an ADRIFT game

https://www.patreon.com/posts/2020-episode-1-42339524

[Denk]

This spreadsheet is constantly being updated. It shows which games have been reviewed and where to find the reviews:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

From this, I can see that at the moment, the reviews of the two ADRIFT games this year have been posted in the "Author's forum" which is only accessible to this year's authors. If you are an author this year, but cannot find the author's forum on intfiction.org, you must follow the instructions here to get access:

https://intfiction.org/t/regarding-the- ... orum/47284

[Lumin]

I pruned all these down list of 30 games, but realistically I'll portably only get to a third of them.

I swore I'd rate every game about depression, anxiety, or politics a 1 this year but I've only seen three possible contenders so far. There's a lot of promising games I'm seeing, and then that 15 hour one I'll have to try just because somebody had the cojones to enter a 15 hour game in the IFComp.

I wish Po had included some cover art with his. The title itself is a little generic and with a list this size you need to use every trick possible to get people's attention.

[P/o Prune]

I really wanted to include cover art. But I really suck at drawing and I simply didn't have time to look for an artist.
Speaking of artists, Lazzah was kind enough to suggest Freelancer.com and I can highly recommend it if any of you guys need an artist.

[Lumin]

Fiverr is also a good place to look, I've got a friend working on a visual novel and he's been getting some amazing art from a guy in Indonesia for cheap enough he feels super guilty about it.

They won't even let a lot of artists from other countries sell their work in the art commission reddits because they undercut the "starving" American and UK artists with cheaper and faster work that's generally better quality too.

[Denk]

The first public IFComp 2020 ADRIFT game review has been written:
https://mikespiveyif.home.blog/2020/10/ ... tle-coris/

[Lakanar]

I really wanted to include cover art. But I really suck at drawing and I simply didn't have time to look for an artist.
Speaking of artists, Lazzah was kind enough to suggest Freelancer.com and I can highly recommend it if any of you guys need an artist.

I'm paying my cover artist(who creates covers from my printed books) $50 and he'd said he'd do it. Normally he charges several times that.

[P/o Prune]

I'm paying my cover artist(who creates covers from my printed books) $50 and he'd said he'd do it. Normally he charges several times that.

$50 is a lot of money, especially if you have a game with a lot of pictures (like D-Day)
May I suggest that you check out Freelancer and Fiverr?
I have had two pictures made through those websites. One cost me $19 and the other one a little over $5
At Freelancer you post your request and the artists bid into it. Then it's up to you to choose which one you want to go with. Fiverr is pretty much the same.

[Lazzah]

The first public IFComp 2020 ADRIFT game review has been written:
https://mikespiveyif.home.blog/2020/10/ ... tle-coris/

When I read this review I was quite pleased with it. However, I was annoyed with his criticism of the solution to the puzzle at the rift. I have to ask myself what he meant by "standard IF commands" and I wonder what he typed in to try to solve this puzzle, as there are several commands you can type in, not just the one in the walkthrough, and I would regard some of them as being "standard IF commands". Also, I was amused at his comment that the game is "huge". Compared to some of my earlier efforts (e.g. The Axe of Kolt and (especially) The Fortress of Fear) it is positively tiny.

[Denk]

When I read this review I was quite pleased with it. However, I was annoyed with his criticism of the solution to the puzzle at the rift. I have to ask myself what he meant by "standard IF commands" and I wonder what he typed in to try to solve this puzzle, as there are several commands you can type in, not just the one in the walkthrough, and I would regard some of them as being "standard IF commands". Also, I was amused at his comment that the game is "huge". Compared to some of my earlier efforts (e.g. The Axe of Kolt and (especially) The Fortress of Fear) it is positively tiny.

I just took a look at the walkthrough. One can quickly get the impression that non-standard commands are required. However, as you mention, the commands in the walkthrough are not the only ones possible. For instance:
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SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER TAG IS CURRENTLY NOT WORKING!!!
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Spoiler

I would say that "wave arms" is not standard, as it isn't standard to refer to your body parts, unless it is made clear to the player that they need to refer to their body parts once in a while. But "wave" alone is definitely a standard command, and the puzzle can be solved simply by typing "wave".

Other commands used in the walkthrough, which I wouldn't call standard (but there might be alternatives which are standard):
* shine light at walls (but the player can simply X WALLS etc.)
* follow instructions (but the player can simply go NW from the location and he will automatically follow the instructions)

I would recommend, whenever possible, to use the most standard commands in the walkthrough, otherwise, the player can get the impression that only very special commands can be applied.

Still, there could be several guess-the-verb problems left, which were not discovered during beta-testing.

I think the mentioned parser problems are reasonable points:

Spoiler

If the game sometimes accept "L BEHIND object" as equivalent to "LOOK BEHIND object" it should always accept that. I don't think it is realistic that the testers should find all such mistakes, but I think such mistakes can be minimized by using specific tasks to an even higher degree. If there only is one general "Look behind"-task and you override that with specific tasks, the game will never respond differently when typing L BEHIND insted of LOOK BEHIND. I think problems like the "Give rat to chicks" misleading response could also be avoided by using specific tasks.

Well, it is always easy in hindsight to say what should have been done. But if we are to learn something, it could be that:
1. Even more testers are recommended (I know they are "impossible" to find)
2. To use specific tasks more often
3. Discuss the walkthrough with somebody - it might reveal some guess-the-verb problems and it should always propose the most standard parser commands.

I think that players who come from the homegrown text adventure UK scene in the eighties/early nineties have different expectations than those who come from Infocom games, which were very popular in the US. But I think modern players everywhere now adays, expect even less guess-the-verb situations than people did back then.

[Lakanar]

$50 is a lot of money, especially if you have a game with a lot of pictures (like D-Day)

I know it is, but he's well worth the money. I'm not going to have any other art, however. Maybe if I create future games I'll use Fiverr or Freelancer.