IF Comp 2005 started

As announced earlier, the 2005 edition of the IF Comp (short for Interactive Fiction Competition) has started. Brave men and women are now required to enter strange fictional worlds bringing nothing but their wits and their inventory‘s, and the will to pass verdict after two hours tops.

How does this work?

The IF Comp traditionally has two stages: one in which volunteer authors write/code text adventures, and a second where volunteer players play and judge those games.

The first phase is now over, and the second has just started, running from October 1, 2005 through November 15, 2005.

Most modern day text adventures are written to run on virtual computers, following the example that Infocom once set in the 1980s. That era had many differing computing platforms, and it made a lot of sense then to write virtual machines, and port software once to these virtual machines. Although we have seen a lot of convergence since, it still makes good sense to code to a virtual machine.

Interpreters and VMs can be found at the IF Archive, http://www.ifarchive.org.

The games and the rules for judging can be found at the IF Comp website, http://www.ifcomp.org/comp05/.

In short, a judge may play a game up to two hours, after which a verdict must be expressed in a rating ranging from 1 through 10. A judge may play a game for less than two hourse before voting, and a judge may continue playing a game after voting.

Every year there is lots of talk of how these rules are insufficient, and every year nothing changes. Trust me when I say that though the rules may be counter-intuitive, they are perfectly logical too. Google Groups has the discussions of many years past.

It is considered polite not to discuss these games until the voting period has ended. (After which reviews and discussions are very much welcomed by the game authors.)