IF Comp Results

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The results of the Interactive Fiction competition 2011 are in. Kerkerkruip took a very respectable 8th place out of 38 games, which was almost exactly what I expected. What I didn't expect, at all, was having such a low standard deviation! Either fewer people than I expected hate roguelikes, or people were impressed enough by the technical aspects of the game to ignore their dislike of the genre.

Participating in the IF Comp was a very good idea. Kerkerkruip has now been played by many more people than I would have otherwise reached. That is not just something to caress my ego, as we say in Dutch, and not just a way to get more feedback either, though it is that. What I hope is that Kerkerkruip will become something of a standard example of randomised combat and tactical gameplay in IF. Not in the sense of "the standard", but in the sense of "one of the ways you can do it, and a game you should take a look at if you want to attempt something in that direction". New authors wanting to write a combat game appear surprisingly often, and until now there weren't many clear examples you could point them to.

What about the future Kerkerkruip? I intend to keep this project alive. Knowing myself, that means I will work on it like mad for two weeks and then forget about it for three months, but that is fine. Kerkerkruip is the kind of game you can keep improving and extending. It is the project I can turn to whenever the urge to make something really game-like overcomes me. (May it be the project I can turn to whenever the urge to buy and play Diablo 3 threatens to overcome me!)

I have set up a Mantis bug tracker for Kerkerkruip, so if you are interested in seeing what I've been doing -- or interested in reporting bugs in that way, though email is probably better -- you can check it out. The bug tracker does contain spoilers, of course.

The comp was a lot of fun, the authors' forum was great, the reception of my game was as good as I hoped; in other words, I'm happy with it all. Thanks to everyone who made this event happen! And congratulations to my fellow authors!

Comments

  1. S. John Ross16 November 2011 at 23:09

    Both a roguelike and a CYOA did well. This speaks of an IF community I'd actually be happy feeling a part of :)

    ReplyDelete

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