Did Quest games get good all of a sudden?

[Lumin]

I saw a Quest game got third place in the IF Comp so I was like, 'Huh, that's weird' and went over to their site to look at it.

I don't know if it's just the way the games are organized now or what but most of the ones I checked out were actually...pretty decent? Or at least I'm not immediately running face first into a wall of bugs and broken trash like the last time I stopped by. Looks like CYOAs might be edging out the parser games there just like everywhere else but at least most of them seem to have discovered what grammar is, and I've seen a couple with writing that's legitimately good by any standards.

They have lots of game and design discussion on their forum like we used to have too.

I think I might...like Quest now? What's going on, this can't be happening, my world is turning upside down!

But don't worry, I'm not going to be writing a Quest game anytime soon. Might make an account on the forum though...the community is slightly annoying but it is kind of nice reading through the archives for my IF-discussion fix. We're too dead here most of the time and the intfiction forums are...well, they're the intfiction forums.

[Lumin]

Another point I was going to mention was that it's kind of endearing how they're completely off in their own little pocket of the IF universe with what seems like pretty much zero outside influence. I read an old thread where one of the posters seemed kind of baffled that anyone would expect authors to describe every noun in the room, and Jacqueline, Jungle Queen! is just sitting there with a single lonely one-line review. Literally no one there gives a cr*p about the IF Comp or that coming in third is kind of a big deal.

[David Whyld]

I've had Jacqueline Jungle Queen downloaded and ready to play ever since it came 3rd in the comp, something I really never expected a Quest game to do even if someone managed to write a good one (actually, someone wrote a good Quest game years ago but I don't remember it doing that well in the comp). It's certainly interesting to see that after all these years of producing the worst games around, Quest might finally be maturing.

Of course, the comment about authors being expected to describe every item in the room also goes to show that while some Quest authors know what they're doing, the majority don't. The thing is, though, that in Quest's own little world things like that are largely irrelevant. Terrible games with typos in the title, which crash before you're even out of the first room and which are impossible to finish because the author never bothered to test them still get great reviews and ratings of 5 out of 5. Why put in the extra effort to make your own game good when they lap up the bad ones that no one has put any effort into?

[Lumin]

Oh yes, there are still plenty of terrible ones there if you go delving through the archives. And almost everything has five stars, I've noticed that. Kind of makes me want to go start writing some critical reviews just to see what happens.

Actually I take that back...I see two games that clearly aren't as good as the others. Jacqueline, Jungle Queen! and of course the classic Hitchhiker's Guide (which I guess is a port?) Both of those are only rated four, I'm not sure why they're listed as Editor's Picks??? I mean they must just be bad games, they're rated lower than almost every game on the site.

I was mainly just impressed that I could click around on the front page and they were all pretty decent, at least at first glance. The Victoria Detective ones seem fun.

[David Whyld]

Ooh, critical reviews are always a bad idea in the Quest world. The games are terrible, everyone knows they're terrible, even the authors know they're terrible, but try telling 'em that and you're just a big old meanie looking for trouble. Believe me, I've been there, done that and even have the t-shirt to prove it.