IF Comp Primer

Author:  Jess Knoch (inspiration and several kernels of wisdom taken with permission from J. Robinson Wheeler)

The distilled and condensed wisdom of numerous experienced Interactive Fiction players, authors, comp entrants, and judges is now available for all prospective Comp authors.  If your goal is to score well, place high in the competition, or just to have people like and respect your work, then follow these suggestions.  An ultra-condensed "top ten" comes first, followed by thorough explanations for those interested.

• Rule One:  Do not put mazes into competition games.

• Rule Two:  Competition judges are neither patient, forgiving, nor thorough.

• Rule Three:  Do not impose an inventory limit for its own sake.

• Rule Four:  Do not include hunger or sleep puzzles.

• Rule Five:  Check your spelling.  Check it again.

• Rule Six:  Hints are preferred.  Walkthroughs are mandatory.

• Rule Seven:  Get beta-testers.  Listen to them.

• Rule Eight:  Make sure the game can be finished in two hours.

• Rule Nine:  Do not include lots of empty locations.

• Rule Ten:  Do not put mazes into competition games.

And now, for more detail.

Rule One:  Do not put mazes into competition games.

Why, you ask?  They are tedious and not-fun.  You will hear people say, "Don't put in a maze unless it's really original and clever."  How clever does it have to be?   To quote J. Robinson Wheeler, "If you're going to put a maze into a Comp game, it had better be so damn clever that you win a Best Puzzle XYZZY Award the following spring.  In other words, you have to be more clever than Andrew Plotkin, because he already did it once and the bar is that much higher."  Trust me, you are better off leaving the maze out completely.

If you must have a maze, if you really desire to program one, do yourself a favor and put it in another game to be released outside of the Comp.  If your entry includes a maze, it will be marked down.  Ask yourself if your game is so good, so amazingly wonderful, that it will score highly in spite of the maze.  Ask yourself if you'd like to make the whole competition thing as easy and painless on yourself as possible, and if the answer is yes, you will be better off without the maze.  There is no reason to let your game's score suffer because of a maze.

Rule Two:  Competition judges are neither patient, forgiving, nor thorough.

It's very important to avoid tedium in a Comp game.  The easier you make things for the judges, the higher your score will be.  If a judge is turned off by something in the first few minutes, it's possible that they'll quit there and never come back to it, and score the game only on the part they saw (which they didn't like!).  If you want to be sure judges see something you did which you thought clever, mention it in an "about" text or in the help menu.

Rule Three:  Do not impose an inventory limit for its own sake.

If possible, get rid of the inventory limit altogether.  If your game is more simulationist and you want a more "realistic" approach, the best way to do this is to not have very many objects in the game.  If you include a "rucksack" object, one that stores other objects to relieve the player's inventory, be sure that all of the objects in the game fit in it.  Also, if you must have an inventory limit, be sure you make it clear to the player which objects won't be necessary (perhaps by not allowing them to pick the item up). 

Ask yourself why you have an inventory limit in the first place.  If you want to make it part of a puzzle, such as not being too loaded down when crossing a rickety bridge, then just do that, and let the player carry around whatever he wants the rest of the time.  No one will mind if you let the player carry every single object in the game, unless you're trying to have a realistic or simulationist game. 

Rule Four:  Do not include hunger or sleep puzzles.

Unlike the inventory limit, which can be included when the proper steps are taken, hunger and sleep puzzles have no place in modern IF.  Even if your game recreates the feel of "classic" IF, the timed puzzles that require a player to eat or sleep (or use the bathroom) every so often are better left out entirely.  If they are not easily solved, they are annoying and tedious.  If they are easily solved, they become pointless and even more annoying.  Your game will be docked for having puzzles like these.  It's not worth it.  [If, on the other hand, your game revolves solely around getting something to eat, well, my only suggestion is to have reminders without actually killing the player.  And good luck, since you'll probably need it.]

Rule Five:  Check your spelling.  Check it again.

Even a wonderful, fun, original, and clever game will annoy and disappoint if it is riddled with spelling or grammar mistakes.  If you are a capable speller, pay attention to the details and read carefully through your own text and your beta-testers' transcripts.  If you aren't a good speller, find someone who is and let them read a transcript, or use some kind of spell-checking program (in Inform, compile with the -r switch to generate a game-text output file as it compiles).  It is worth a little extra time to avoid typos.

Rule Six:  Hints are preferred.  Walkthroughs are mandatory.

As an author, surely you want the judges to play all the way through the game you wrote.  You want them to read your text, see your objects and locations, and get to the end of the game.  The best way to make sure this happens, while preserving as much fun and discovery for the player as possible, is to write hints.  Careful, thoughtful, and gentle hints, but most of all, HELPFUL hints.  Never insult a player who wants a hint: he is just trying to play your game.  This includes suggesting that the player shouldn't need hints!  Just make the hints available, whether in game or as a separate file, and give the player the opportunity to finish your game.  Also, have the hints beta-tested along with everything else.  Testers can tell you what sorts of hints would be most helpful.

Sure, you say, but hints take a long time, and I'm too busy taking out the maze and checking my spelling.  All right, no problem.  Hints are the best choice, but they are not the only choice.  A walkthrough is another thing you can supply judges with to enable them to finish the game (of course, hints and a walkthrough both are best!).  Do not make your walkthrough in the form of a game transcript, or else many judges won't see much point in continuing to play when they can just read.  Do make sure your walkthrough works with the version of the game you enter!  Play it through yourself, using exactly the commands from your walkthrough, and make sure you get the ending you want. 

Finally, consider allowing your walkthrough to show the player the best possible ending.  That's the ending that's the most fun, and most satisfying, and will probably earn your game the best score from the judges.  If you want a high score, this is probably the way to go.

Rule Seven:  Get beta-testers.  Listen to them.

For your game to be its best, you absolutely must get an experienced IF player to play through your game and offer her comments.  For best results, get three or more to assure different styles of play and approaches.  Even more important than getting other people to play your game is listening to them and implementing their suggestions.  That means, if your tester says "I tried to do something with this item and it didn't work," you should add something to your game to take that into account, even if it's just a customized response.  Just explaining to them why they can't do it isn't going to help!  Change your game, and your game will be better.  Then it's off for another round of testing...

Rule Eight:  Make sure the game can be finished in two hours.

One of the rules of the IF Comp is that judges must rate your game based *only* on the first two hours of play.  Ignore this rule at your peril.  Ask one of your beta-testers to see how far he can get in two hours the first time he plays it, as a guide.  There are judges who grade down especially if they don't finish your game in two hours, so err on the side of caution.  If it only takes a judge one hour to finish your game, that gives them plenty of time to go back, try new things, explore your world, try your list of "amusing" things to do, and other fun stuff.

Rule Nine:  Do not include lots of empty locations.

Part of making sure the game can be finished in two hours is cutting down on the number of locations in your game.  If you have drawn a map of your game, examine it carefully for extra locations.  If you can streamline the map, so much the better.  If locations exist just to add space between places (such as paths, staircases, roads), see if you can remove them and just connect the two locations on either end directly.

Rule Ten:  Do not put mazes into competition games.

Seriously. 

Last Updated: 20030326

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