Summer is almost here, so for the third consecutive year I'm starting the planning phase of our annual Text Adventure Competition in a Geek Culture thread.
This is not the official contest thread; the competition is not officially starting yet! As always, I'm making a GC thread to discuss the rules for the competition and to get some input from the community as to how everyone wants it to be run.
Last year, we had some pretty harsh rules that kept a lot of people from entering. I'd gotten emails from people commenting on how they were confusing or overly complex, so I'm thinking about dropping a lot of rules and making this year's contest the most laid-back of them all. We'll still have the grand prize, issued to the overall best game, and multiple kudos categories as well. But the rules themselves will be loosened dramatically, so the contest is a bit less exclusive; more open to less experienced developers.
As for the rules themselves, here's a very rough draft of the rules I'm considering for the 2008 competition:
Entries must be in English (any widely-used form is fine; both US and UK spellings are acceptable)
Entries must be made using at least one tool sold/ distributed officially by TGC
Judges must classify the game as a proper Text Adventure/ IF game. Unlike previous competitions, you can use whatever media you want, but keep in mind that judges can decide if a game is a text adventure or not! So don't try to enter a 2D scroller with a text field and try to claim it's an IF game
The legal mumbo jumbo rules apply as usual; you can't use copyrighted materials, judges/ employees of TGC and/ or prize furbishers, etc. can't enter, all of that fun stuff
I decided to ditch the media rule entirely this time around. Every year it seems to be the most "controversial" rule, and causes the most confusion. I'd imagine that some people are going to love this, and some people will hate it, and that's why this thread exists, hehe. I'm also opening up the development gates fully, allowing IF engines and everything else (the stipulation being that *something* in your game has to be made with TGC software). Judging for the grand prize will remain the same... originality, story development, and writing ability will be judged. So you even if you did try to pass off a scroller or an FPS, it wouldn't amount to much anyway
. We'll judge other categories of course, but those others will only apply to the Kudos award, and nothing else (IE, they won't affect your score for the grand prize).
As for the Kudos prizes, I'm not sure what to include this year. The usual suspects will return, and I'm thinking about adding a few new ones as well. Here's the list as I have it now:
Old Kudos (including one Kudos for each grand prize judging category)
Best Media: The game with the highest-quality (and best use of) media
Most Addictive Game: The game the judges couldn't stop playing
Best GUI: best/ most practical/ most well-organized GUI
Retail Award: The game we'd be most willing to pay for
New Kudos
The 2008 TGC Poet Laureate: The entry with the most distinguished writing; present us with your absolute mastery of the English Language
Best Soundtrack: for the game with the best soundtrack, sound effects, etc.
Best Protagonist(s): Awarded to the game with the coolest good guys
Best Antagonist(s): Awarded to the game with the bad guys we love to hate
Best Environment: Awarded to the game with the most highly detailed, most expansive game world
Anyway, this is how I'm thinking about structuring this year's contest. It will most likely begin in early June and end in the middle of October. Everyone is invited to participate in the conversation and discuss what rules you like or dislike, and to offer up your own ideas about how the competition should be structured. I'm looking forward to playing lots of really fun IF games this fall!
