2017 Interactive Fiction Competition

ifcomp.org

98 points·mbakke··6 comments

I like the idea of very short IF games, for the casual gaming era. Perhaps playable in a one hour commute.

I just don't have time for the multi month extravaganza IF games I played when I was a kid.

I wonder if such games exist.

The IF competition games are supposed to be judged in two hours. In theory this motivates the authors to keep their games shorter.

Some of my favorite short games: Photopia (http://adamcadre.ac/if.html#photopia), 9:05 (http://adamcadre.ac/if.html#9:05).

The last two are more narrative genre, it is very hard to get "stuck". In the classical puzzle genre try Balances (http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=x6ne0bbd2oqm6h3a) (unofficial successor to the great "Enchanter" trilogy games from Infocom).

Seconded for Photopia, really amazing.

I think somehow the act of playing in your story (The puzzles are super gentle in that one,'it's the antithesis of Zoek, but it sets the stage for an interactive exploratory novel) makes you connect more closely than just reading alone.

Though I say this as ironically I just finished the draft of my first novel, which is not interactive at all.

My favorite IF Comp game ever is Lost Pig: http://pr-if.org/play/lostpig/

Too bad the web page doesn't work on iOS.

That's a bummer. You should be able to play it and many other games on iOS with Frotz. I don't remember if the version in the app store includes a copy of the game. If not, you can search for it and download it from within Frotz.

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