Rock, Paper, Shotgun

You may notice that today has had a certain Obscurity-heavy vibe. And, if that pun-heavy title hasn’t informed you, that’s not going to change with this post. I suspect we’re trying to pick up the slack as Simon Carless of Game Set Watch goes to guest edit Kotaku for a week, leaving Karsden Mörderhäschen from Schadenfreude Interactive to guest edit Game Set Watch. We expect this trend to sweep across the blogosphere, and predict that Bill Dubious Quality will take a sabatical week to be with Rock Band, allowing Leigh SexyVideogameLand to cheerily disturb his readers with things she’s thought about a lot involving SpaceOrifices or something. Oh – and she’ll leave her net home in the hands of the sorely-missed Only Serious Student of Videogaming, Francesco Poli, returning from wherever he is to tell people about his favourite mildly right-wing sex fantasies.

Where was I? Oh yeah:

This year’s IF prize has been announced.. While voting was tight away from the top spot, the run-away winner was Lost Pig by Admiral Jota. We hope he’s sitting down and singing about Gold Medals tonight. All the entries are still available to download, obv.

Ironically over-convoluted headline out of the way, this follows neatly on from the Text In Games feature. Especially because Mike Rubins dropped me a line about Vespers 3D because of it. It even ties into my note in the comments thread that it’d be interested if more developers looked for Interactive Fiction for more inspiration of story and structure. Because that’s exactly what Vespers 3D is.

IF aficionado will recall Vespers as winner of the 2005 IFComp as well as receiving multiple awards at the XYZZY ceremonies. What Mike and his team is doing is adapting the game for the most serious attempt at a text-adventure/First-person shooter hybrid since the immortal Typing Of The Dead.

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[A version of this feature was originally printed in UK videogames bible Edge. It's about the use of Text in videogames, both in the mainstream and over in the world of Interactive fiction. It features material from Chris Avellone (Planescape Torment), Sheldon Pacotti (Deus Ex), Adam Cadre (Photopia, Shrapnel) and Emily Short (Galatea, Floatpoint). I've expanded it to fit in in some of the quotes I couldn't fit in Edge's word-count. Which were many. If you've read my Planescape Retrospective, you'll recognise some key riffs. This feature very much grew from that one. And enough waffle. Let's do this thing.]

In the beginning was the word. And the word begat a phrase. And the phrase was “Avoid Missing Ball For High Score”. Gaming’s public relationship with words started here, and continues to this day. It’s these first furtive fumblings which produced the most lasting signifiers which define games in the public eye, and will continue to do so as long as the form continues to exist in its current state. Icons like “Extra Life” and “High Score” are as much a signifier of gaming as any of the corporate mascots.

But this isn’t about that.

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It’s time to get judgmental. The 13th Annual IF Competition is underway, and awaiting your vote.

The internet is so much older than you’d think. For 13 years the newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction has been voting on Interactive Fiction games, to decide upon the best that year. And yes, sure, games may now have something called “graphics”, but it’s a passing fad. Get over it.

There’s a lot of responsibility here. There’s a huge 29 entrants, and to make any sensible vote, you’ll surely have to play all of them. And no, you’re not allowed to vote based on their names, because otherwise Slap That Fish and Lord Bellwater’s Secret would walk it.

Everything’s neatly packaged, with two easy zip files to download or torrent, which will install all the interpreters in one go, and give you all the games. And then quit your job, play them all through before the 15th November, and vote.

Actually, the rules are far more complicated. You’ve got to play at least five games to vote, play each game for two hours AND NO MORE before voting, and goodness knows what else. Follow this to see them in full. If you can still muster the energy to take part, you are a winner yourself.