Impressions of the 2002 IF Comp

                      By Dog Solitude

For the last eight years the members of the rec.arts.if-fiction
newsgroup have held a competition for the creators of adventure
games. The competition has few rules other than the games must be
original, freeware and completable in under two hours.  Not a tall
order you may think, and neither did I - fool that I am.  So this
year, armed with a half-arsed idea from Peter Smith, who must at
the very least take the responsibility for playing devils advocate
on this one, I entered the competition myself.  Thus Coffee Quest
II was born.

My initial interest in the comp was as a vehicle for reaching a
wider audience and obtaining valuable feedback, which would of
course influence the design of future games.  Oh how naive I was.

I know that you can't please any of the people any of the time,
but I wasn't expecting such a varied response as was received.
Scores from the judges ranged from one out of ten to six out of
ten and the majority of the criticism wasn't particularly
constructive, but while there was little objectivity in the
criticism there was certainly plenty of objecting.  I didn't mind
so much the claim that I'd been influenced by Satan, but the name
Margaret Thatcher was mentioned.  Fortunately I have the skin of a
rhino, albeit an albino one with acne, and after a short period of
recluse and sobbing it's all water off a duck's wotsit.

I am aware of flaws in Coffee Quest II and was expecting to be
picked up on a few style issues.  For example I don't like overly
elaborate descriptions, as I tend to lose track quickly thus I
keep my descriptions fairly short.  I was also expecting criticism
for referencing other material, which, while intended as a homage,
I felt could be seen as plagiarism.  The game also got out of hand
in development and became much too big for the player to get into
in the two hours allowed and wasn't tested thoroughly enough or by
a varied enough group.

There were also a few quirky one liners and references, which
people just didn't get.  Obviously I'm not as clever as I had
thought, although personally I think I would much rather play a
quirky game than one aimed at the lowest common denominator.

As with any competition or test scenario, the artificial
environment of the IF competition bares little resemblance to the
real world, e.g. Scoring high on I.Q. tests means you can score
high in I.Q. tests end of story.  Thus I would probably recommend
that anyone considering entering the comp write a game
specifically for it rather than submit an existing one and with my
usual twenty/twenty hindsight I have come up with the following
tips.

- Because of the two-hour game play limit imposed on judges it's a
good idea to go for the small and perfectly formed game and
refrain from any epic ideas.

- Aim for a fun and interesting theme in order to pique interest
quickly and use articulate descriptions to build atmosphere and
hold attention.  Many in the online IF community consider text
adventure games to be a form of literature and, while there are
separate competitions for this, still use it as a factor in their
judging.

- Maintain momentum by providing small rewards often, e.g.
responses to viable actions that have no real effect, and employ
lots of synonyms so that judges don't lose their flow while
searching for a verb.

- Programming bugs and grammatical errors are dealt with harshly
therefore get as many testers in as possible to hunt them out. I'm
lucky enough to have been gifted with an appalling memory, so that
I'm often surprised by what I've written earlier, but I'm sure
external testers are better.

- Play other games, particularly recent games and classics.  Much
has changed since the halcyon days of the eight bit as styles go
in and out of fashion, but research in this area can yield
dividends in the form of those little in jokes and references so
loved by the community.  This said it's worth bearing in mind that
something is only clever if someone else understands it too.

- Plan out the game before hand. I soon realised that if I were to
wait for a comprehensive plot before commencing I would never
start and thus decided to just run with what I had and see what
happened. Peter also reminded me that very few things end up
exactly as planned particularly with software. In fact I seem to
remember John Lennon saying something like, "games are what you
write when you're busy making other plans".  As an extreme example
it's worth mentioning Doreen Bardon here as many of her games were
complete on paper before she even contemplated learning to
program!

These are only a few ideas and while some may be sensible they are
really aimed at the competition, rather than adventure games in
general.  Many of you will have your own pet hates regarding game
content and will probably have incorporated these into your own
games.  I have certainly learnt something with every game I've
written - Mazes spring to mind, "designers like mazes, players do
not like mazes". (Graham Nelson), and as my goal has been to
create and entertain I welcome any useful criticism and hope to
develop from it.  Although Art is often defined as creativity for
it's own sake, so perhaps we should just express our creativity in
any way we feel appropriate, enjoy ourselves and forget about the
prizes?














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