Forums » The Lounge » Read Thread

According to the rules, talking about the games in Spring Thing is allowed, but the posts must be marked. Our forum doesn't really allow for this to be all too viable, so I figure the safest way to not break any rules is to just have one thread where we talk about everything.

So, use this thread to praise our amazing games :P

Yey! We can brag again! ... That said, I just read one of the other games called Surface and it was really, really good. Would've been nice if it was a little longer, but then I can't really complain since my game's not even finished.

Still, it doesn't really matter, does it? None of us stand a chance against that Hexagon game 

That goddamn hexagon game...I fucking hate it.  I have nothing but hate for it and Peterpears. Raw, unmitigated, fist-slamming kidney-punching heart-ripping aztec-sacraficing HATE. I sincerely hope the IDIOT who submitted the hexagon game is the same person as the ARROGANT **** who is Peterpears, so I can focus it all on one massive hateful beam of hate rage and blast the shit out of that disgusting excuse for a waste of human potential.

Actually, I'd like to retract that. I'm not going to waste the power of awesome hate lasers on such trivial bastards. I simply find them both idiotic and objectionable.

But, yeah, I hope CYS wins and all that...

http://tyler_zahnke.editthis.info/wiki/Blog

Hrm?

I think the Snow guy just told you who made the Hexagon game

Well, as soon as I'm off school-blocked hardware, I can tell him just how objectionable I find his attempt at storygaming. I'll even use that "Air a Grievance" app that I found on Boredbutton.com

Wow... I guess you really don't like hexagons 

I have nothing against hexagons. I have EVERYTHING against shitty games with absolutely no redeeming qualities about them. And arrogant bastard autists so inflated that they can't admit their internet is too shitty to play high-quality legitimate stories of the interactive fiction branch because they're a conceited "Conniseur" who thinks they're far too awesome to read anything that isn't a downloadable Zork clone.

On a scale of 1 to platinum, how mad are you?

ORANGE!

Actually, I'm really between orange and cabbage right now. Dangerously close to cabbage, Actually, I'm a little above cabbage. I might roll off all the way into full-blown Owl if I'm not careful...

At least your below the Bottle level. If you were that high I would be almost worried.

I keep passing this part of the conversation and laughing.

That Bear Creek one has a strange method of doing stuff. You have to type stuff and I am always prevented from doing 'kill grandpa' for some strange reason... You have big competitors...

Lol, that was how the firs storygames worked. Each took years, if not months to develop, since you always had to make reactions for most, if not all logical actions.

You must be new to text-based stories.

Yep, quite new. Interactive fiction has never met the path of my life until just recently.

What was your childhood?  o.o

I had a bookworm childhood...

Never read the Choose Your Own Adventure Books?

To his defense I first heard about them here to. My only experience in this sort of stuff is this site, ChoiceOfGames (when it was cool) and AlterEgo

We used to carry ALL the CYOA books at my store, but they pulled them because "kids don't want to read that kind of stuff anymore."

Apparently all kids like nowadays is WarriorCats, Rick Riordan, and John Green.

I fear for the future of humanity.

Shall we go on an educational cleansing?

1. Kids like Harry Potter too
2. My 11-year-old brother likes choose your own adventures, so some kids do like them still

That's fantastic. Seth was clearly indicating it was the administration that decided that. Not that it was his personal opinion.

WHAT!? NO! FUCKING NO! CYOAs were all the rage in my Elementary school! It was one of the only ways they could get us to learn history, and I'm not even kidding!

I usually made my history teachers annoyed at me since I would read the history books(yes) and then bring up realistic what if questions about something and find out that I knew more than the teachers in my elementary school.

There's nothing that good in literature anymore...

Yes there is, you just have to look :P

  I prefer the reading old literature over and over again rather than seeing the dreaded, "Oh man/boy/brother!" in normal literature and the constant drama and stupidity of young adult fiction. As for adult fiction, none meet my needs. What I need is more Shakespeare, Poe, and Doyle!

Oh yeah, I only found out about this kind of stuff when I played choice of a dragon and choice of broadsides on the App Store, think I was 10. Didn't really play anything else for another few years after that.

Soooo... Anyone else read any of the other stories from the Spring Thing?

Yeah, i kind of made the thread so they could actually discuss games, yet no one is discussing them haha. 

I want it but I lost the link.

Also, the organiser must really have an odd life... he's been helding a competition for 10 years now. A competition with a maximum of 10 entries that is.

Just google spring thing 2014. 

Ok, just played hexagon game. Da fuck?

EXACTLY!

Meh, it wasn't that bad.

The hexagon game sucked.

It wasn't that bad. I mean, it had its momments.

It had NO moments, NONE! It was a piece of shit! You play as a bland, personality-less character in a bland, stupid world surrounded by bland, stupid things doing bland, stupid stuff, the cycles are as generic as ALL FUCK, it was a TORMENT to read, it was fucking STUPID. It doesn't deserve a 4, that's 3 quality and below!

May I suggest that you take this pill?

Also, how the fuck do I rate? Pretty sure I played 5 games

I don't remember the link Aman gave me. And no, I don't want a pill. I don't want to see your STUPID fluffy hampy-pamby snowflake-bubble-wrapping little world of hexagons and triangles. Its a bad game, and I'm providing the bashing that it DESERVES.

*Deleted comment*

That's the point, this is what the polygons tried to tell but you decided to run away. FUCK YOU!

I guess the only thing of note is how bad the hexagon game is then haha.

My god that game sucks.

Yes. 

Polygon game sucks balls, and Mr P game was piss. So fucking boring. 

I just wanted to kick Margaret.

So...

EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING in the POLYGON FUCKING WORLD...

...you're not gonna tell me SHIT about them?  At least fucking describe them?  At least give them a purpose?  Who cares if they're a FUCKING TRIANGLE FOR JESUS CHRIST'S SAKE.  AT LEAST NAME ME A FEW SPECIAL TYPES AND PROPERTIES OH MY LORD. 

It wasn't even informative...just...what the FUCK?

Clearly was trying to imitate Flatland

Father says I should read that book...

Soooooo.... Anyone read any games BESIDES the hexagon game?

Briar please, be reasonable here. After reading that gem, would anyone even need to read another?

*Deleted comment*

Like Aman, I've played Mr. P as well.

Unsurprisingly, it was boring as all hell.

Assuming the judges are honest, CYS will do swell.

I think everyone on this site have only managed to pick out the bad games 

  Yep, call it unlucky picking...

"Assuming the judges are honest" ... xD why doesn't that phrase sound comforting?

Bear Creek and that other interactive fiction one were solid.

Which other interactive fiction one? Weekend at Ruby's?

I forgot the title, but it had to do with some nasty lunch and a letter.

That's The Story of Mr P... The one that Aman and Tal don't like 

(Crashed before I could finish it, but it seems pretty well written to me.)

It wasn't badly written, it was just boring and uninteresting.

better than the fucking hexagon game!

I'm still trying to figure out the point behind making the protagonist a hexagon... Might work if the game was trying to teach children about math, but as it is... Maybe the guy just really likes hexagons?

Maybe he's just fucking STUPID!

Wow! Boring AND uninteresting? Those are two completely different faults 

They are.

Ever seen "2001 a Space Odyssey?" Haha.

... xD Maybe it's about degrees or something? Like, "I'm not interested, this is uninteresting, but I'm not strictly bored just yet."

<.< No, I know it doesn't make much sense, shhh. We don't need real logic here.

... But, something interesting could get boring if drawn out too long, that way it is interesting, but boring (like my biology text book). :P

Or you could find something thoroughly uninteresting, but fun.

For example, all of MDickie's 3D games that aren't Line of Fire.

Dragon Age: Inquistion

You're a moron, Frank. XD 

we are talking about the games admitted into the Spring Thing IF compettetion. XD 

... Maybe Dragon Age 3 was a late entry that didn't get finished on time? 

I'll go ahead and post my opinions about some of the games, in this one post; of course, by doing so, this may become quite lengthy (so apologizes for those who dislike length).

The Adventures of a Hexagon: Meh...? This game would be fine if I were playing it in the classroom of an elementary school as an "educational game," but I'm not. Many of the choices result in your death, which is one of the worst things you can do when making a choose your own adventure game; and even then, then there's not that many paths you can take, anyway. Also, "verticies" as the in-game currency, seriously? And how do I start with over one thousand. Like the others have said, it's pretty limited, and it probably isn't worth the ten minutes you'll spend on it before getting bored.

For the "The Story of Mr.P," I don't think it was that bad. The prose was fine. I think the problem most people have with it, is that it wasn't particularly engaging, and honestly, I understand where them coming from. The two major flaws I have with it, and this actually applies to all of the games that have a traditional interactive fictions (in that, it requires you to type commands to play the game) are 1) it really nitpicks with the logical progression of the order events: such as you absolutely HAVE to wash your hands before you open the sack lunch, and 2) the layouts of the fictional areas can be quite confusing; several times I had no idea where I was supposed to go or do.

As for the CYS games, I have played both Through Time and The Price of Freedom entirely to completion, I like them quite a bit (both are excellent games and both successfully set out what they intend to do). As a bit of personal preference, I think I slightly preferred Through Time, since it didn't have one specific timeline; there were multiple, and you had to go back and play through the story multiple times to find all five endings (IIRC, there are five ending, anyway: Allison, Tina, Olivia, the guy friend, and the true ending, so yes, five. I feel like A Game of Life and Death was probably the weakest entry in the CYS lineup, but honestly that's entirely on personal preference, again. With the inclusion of the inventory system, makes it seem more game-y, I suppose; and honestly, in most cases, I prefer a solid story over solid game elements. Not to say it was bad; it was fine for what is was, I just think it wasn't as good as the other two.

WE HAVE OUR FIRST POST THAT IS ACTUALLY RELEVANT TO THE TOPIC!

WOOOOOOT!

And thus, a wave of confetti drops down, however, they are suddenly no longer around, when I realize I've been beat down, with a message that was a let down.

Oh dear.

Corrected:

"WE HAVE OUR FIRST POST THAT PRAISES ME!

WOOOOOOT!"

... It does?

*Gasp* YOU wrote the hexagon game! 

That's it. Galobtter dies.

>_>' These are storygames. How is mine weaker for having "game" elements?

Although I haven't played your game yet (though I most certainly plan to), think about it this way-

How come Dungeon Stompage- an engaging game with fantastic scripting, nice plot, and overall probably the most 'fun' game on the site, isn't featured? Because it's very 'gamey', and although this is a storygame site, the 'story' is very much preferred over the game part. 

I don't necessarily agree, but yep.

... No, I get it, I'm just challenging the logic behind it.

xD It makes more sense for him to just complain that the story element of mine was weaker than Killa's or Briar's rather than to list the inventory / game elements as a flaw. After all, Tans, keep in mind the Wal-Mart game is featured and it has a big inventory, too, and less of a story than mine. >_>' "Terrorists invade Wal-Mart while you happen to be shopping there, get out alive" is not that much of a plot. Is it a great game? You bet! Is it a great story? ... Meeeeh.

That isn't the only featured story-game with a decent amount of "gamey" elements in it, either.

Yeah, some people are weird like that. It's like saying Super Mario is a bad computer game because it doesn't have enough explosions in it, and computer games are supposed to have explosions. I don't know who made up the rule that CYS games are supposed to be all story and no game, or that they're supposed to be really linear and if they're not then for some reason it's not a good game. Unfortunately that seems to be an opinion that a lot of people have, which irks me because... You know... Why should they get to make up the rules about what makes a game good or not? Besides, your game has a better story to it than most of the games on the site, and keep in mind that most of the people who claim your game isn't as good as mine or Killa's haven't actually finished it, which kinda makes their point invalid. 

This post was edited due to the S/T competition still being on-going.

For those curious, there's actually a guy writing full blog posts reviews of the spring thing entries:

http://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/tag/spring-thing/

No clicky link cause im lazy though. He's only done the first two as of now.

I'm appalled by the lack of hexagon hate.

I'm surprised he was more critical on the Bear Creek than the Polygon story for meaning, prose, and length.

Who knows why...

I would like to tell you buuuuutttttt...... I cant .

Maybe he feels sorry for that STUPID EVIL BASTARD FUCK THAT'S INSULTING STORYGAMES AS A GENRE AND RUINING INTERNET SUBCULTURES! So much that he has to PEN UP HIS INNER HATE RAGE!

*Deleted comment*

... Yikes, this guy's harsh. Kinda hoping he doesn't review my game. Everyone who reads the review will all suddenly realize my game's a piece of shit and they don't like it anymore 

... The only thing (reasonable) people will realize, if he calls your game a piece of shit, is that he has no taste in games.

Nah, his reviews are actually decent, they're just harsh. Not harsh in a "Fuck dis shit! This game is a fucking, shitting, crapping pile of fuck, shit, crap!" kind of way, harsh in the way that while he isn't cruel about it, he points out valid flaws in the game that probably make people feel more insecure about their work than comments that're just insults. For instance, I wouldn't be worried by a comment that said "This game is fucking shit!" On the other hand, I would be worried about a comment that said, "This storygame uses too many commas in all the wrong places, and I feel like the choices you make during the game don't really have a big enough effect on the end, and some of the spelling is wrong and I feel like the ending was rushed, ect, ect, ect."

Thanks though ^_^

Ahh. Well, if he's going to critique on extra commas or little details, he'll probably have something negative to say about all of us. No story is perfect, really. The good thing about criticism is that you can use it to improve for next time, ne?

I have to admit, I laughed out loud when he said "Read as written, this suggests that Grandpa’s shirt is providing accompaniment on banjo."

Lol. Yeah, I liked that bit. But yeah, criticism is good, 'cos if you never get any criticism, you won't know what areas to improve on.

Well, based on how he review Kiel's game, I doubt he'll enjoy either of ours haha.

He pretty much confirms he doesn't think much of this place within the first part of Kiel's review.

But being the underdogs is what fighting the good fight is all about right?

He evidently did not enjoy Briar's very much and his rant about her title was just... silly. *shrug* Some of this guy's complaints are valid, but some of them are trivial and a bit stupid.

I was not expecting a nice review for mine. I am slightly insulted about the comment concerning the character art (insulted for my friend's sake, she worked hard on those pictures) and I find it odd that he said only a few of the characters -have- art for them as almost all of the main cast that you can meet do have pictures (the witch, the witch's daughter, the first vampire, Layne, Melissa.)

... But I'm not surprised he said something that because, judging by his review, he didn't actually bother to finish the story. *sigh* I quote: "some monsters that I couldn’t figure out a way around" so he couldn't complete the puzzles. If he's not competent enough to finish my damn game, then he shouldn't be allowed to write a blog review for it, either. xD

I just wish his reviews had a bit more structure. After reading all four of his reviews, I genuinely have no idea how much he liked any of them. He makes some critiques, tries to say something nice about them, and then his review just sort of ends before he reaches a real conclusion.

He's also not competent enough to recognize how stupid the hexagon game is.

But seriously, this time I'm going to make a valid point. Why the fuck does he write these reviews, treat the hexagon game as a 'meeh' and then trash Briar for her use of the gladiator school concept? Hell, I don't need to relate between articles, because there's irony in the statement that CYOAs lose points for their lack of choices, but he criticizes Kiel for going on "tangents". Because he's a the fucking douche who wrote the hexagon game? Probably not. He's referenced other places, so clearly he's used to using them more often. This is most likely either a product of site bias, stupidity, or just plain jealousy. I mean, he can talk down from his sitely throne, but let's see this fucker make an actual game. I can already tell he's able to do it. I mean, the web site is so pretty, isn't it?

You know, after seeing what you said, I was terrified to read his review of my game, but honestly, I didn't find it that bad. He said stuff about how I didn't get into the real history and just used it as a setting for character development... Which is true. He also said some things about the game being rushed... Which was also true. Very, very rushed.

What worried me was the bit at the end where he said my punctuation was all wrong. 'Cos I read back the quote from my game he was complaining about and... I didn't notice anything wrong with the punctuation. Now I feel dumb.

I thought his review of Kiel's game was really harsh though, especially that bit where he said that he couldn't figure out how to kill the monsters, so he ran out of patience... As a puzzle game writer, I can't stand it when people complain about the game 'cos they can't solve the puzzles. That doesn't mean there's something wrong with the game, it just means they're too dumb to figure it out 

Like I said before, if they really consider themselves to be hardcore IF parser fans, they really don't have any excuse to bitch about the difficulty level of a CYS puzzle game.

Doesn't say much for the "critic" let alone his opinion if he's failing at playing through a storygame that's from a place that's supposed to be "lesser" in his eyes.

Yeah, I'd say Kiel's game is pretty tame compared to some of those other games where you have to type what you want to do and where you want to go and stuff. Hell, Kiel even provided a walkthrough, so there's not really any excuse not to finish it.

This post was edited because the S/T competition is still on-going.

Well, he reviewed Killa's game.

Funny how people are regarding it as a dating sim now haha.

Far too little time for any significant "dating" to actually happen...

Yeah. While the format is similar (though technically any visual novel will follow the same format), I think it hurts the legitimacy of my game.

Yeah...

Still think that it belongs in Love and Dating though, since Brotherly Love (to Tina and Ian), and Freindship-Love (to Olivia) are still 'love', though not dating.

Oh yeah, definitely.

Hmm... Didn't think of that one. Good point ^_^

I think he really needs to run through the Hexagon game again using the same attitude he used with the CYS games.

Cuz I'll admit, he's sounding less and less professional with every passing review.  Just the general attitude seems a little more like defacing than criticism.

On the other hand, he lost the ability to communicate in his own webcomics, because I just cannot understand the wholesome shit that comes out of his mouth.  Is that a problem not unique with his communications on his blog?

Yeah, it's weird. Of all the reviews he's done, the one of the hexagon game seemed to be the tamest. He was pretty harsh on Bear Creek too, and from what I've read so far, the game's really good. Really not looking forward to reading his reviews of Through Time and Surface 'cos I'm guessing he's just going to go through them looking for every single thing he can criticise instead of just admitting that actually they're brilliant. >.<

He has his own valid points, but his criticisms about how a CYS story is related to some 1789 piece looks like a horrible excuse to bitch about something that doesn't need bitching.  Seriously, who in the modern world is going to remember some obscure political document that old?

(I'll admit though, that the webcomics and sources he has are an entertaining read.)

I don't think William Blake is an obscure poet, though I imagine that someone who's spent a lot of his life in England (as the reviewer has) will remember Blake more.

I think the point re: the title is overemphasized--my general rule of thumb is not to have more than one abstract noun in a title (see: freedom and innocence,) or it can sound more like a treatise than a story/game.

Looking back at when I first saw the titles, Through Time was the most inviting--I'd get to see maybe different eras or how someone sees themselves every few years, and maybe there'd be time travel. A Game of Life and Death suggests supernatural beings, which has promise. It also could be satirized, as the game did a bit. Price of Freedom and Innocence Lost also puts two "downers" in one title and I'm worried it might be too emo. It wasn't, but first impressions matter, fair or not.

I don't think Sam needed to be quite so in-your-face about it, but I see what he is saying.

*Deleted comment*

More reviews for people who want to read them! (Thanks to ASchultz for showing them to me.) http://emshort.wordpress.com/

Some of her reviews are harsher than others and I definitely impressed by her review of Killa's game, since I think you really shouldn't review a game if you haven't finished it. Luckily, if she sees something in a story she doesn't like, she'll usually let the reader know that it's her personal opinion rather than an indisputable flaw to the game.

Though I don't agree with everything she says about some of the other games, I was really flattered by her review of my game and I think she made some very valid points about a lot of flaws that my game does have and that I'd like to work on in the next installment.

Yeah, if she thought it was a dating sim, she really didn't read that far into it haha.

She's pretty misinformed if she believes visual novel = dating sim. Though it is in dating and love, so I can't fault her too much for jumping to that conclusion.

*Deleted comment*

Hope this is not too TLDR.

I think one of the key reasons she thinks it's a dating sim is that a New Girl pops up right away. And not just one but two--Allison and Olivia. It's possible she just hit an ending with nobody to go to the fair with and figured, well, that's it. I played Mr Nice Guy and got the Tina ending first. Now, if you don't hint the possibilities after a bad end, that is something you can probably tweak pretty easily, since you have a solid grasp on your game-world.

Incidentally, I also have some reviews up at http://drdanstreetmentioner.blogspot.com.

There's a lot of criticism I didn't elucidate as well as I'd like, but I want to at least take another stab through and note low-level stuff like typos etc. because you guys clearly put work into it and you deserve it. Plus I'm good at that sort of thing--I tend to work bottom-up before noticing, hey, this is how things fit together, and then I'm able to find stuff more subjective. I really don't like reviews that nitpick and do little else, but all the same, nitpicks are good to notice to help the author polish things, and if someone's finding nitpicks, it helps the author think bigger. Also, an area with a lot of grammar/small style errors may have bigger errors that are tougher to figure.

And yeah. The "old ones" can sometimes seem a bit insular. You can read examples of their old reviews to see what they can expect. They include generally people with high level degrees from elite colleges, and these people have assumptions and expectations. Some of that may not be fair, but some of that may help people here consider stuff they wouldn't anyway.

I have to say, though, I entered last year and got two reviews total, one being a day before the contest ended. So as long as the reviews aren't abusive, I hope there's something there.

Also, if people are willing to hose players' save states, I think updates are a very good idea--it shows judges/players you're committed to making things better. It doesn't have to be a ton, necessarily. A post-comp update is definitely worth it. (Heck, I'm still updating my last year's game. It needed it. It probably still does.)

As for games being tough or fair or not--how many people have looked at the Players' Bill of Rights? An (updated) example is here. I refer to it when testing friends' games.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LaralynMcWilliams/20130203/185934/

As for what to update, a good introduction and well-checked walkthrough can go a long way.

And as for the Hexagon game review, I'm pretty impressed someone blind (and 17) is writing anything at all. And I think he deserves encouragement for doing better than his first two games. No, I don't think it's as good as any of the three CYS games. But it offers something different and unusual and if it's a bit too random, well, it shows some imagination.

I also agree Bear Creek is quite entertaining, and I think it paces itself well. I'm not sure I want to comment on the other games yet, since I helped test them.

10 year olds have written better shit than that. Blind people have written better shit than that. Just because he's 17 and blind shouldn't earn him any favors. The game harbors NO creativity. It's a cycle of generic bullshit, it's random geometry shapes with lasers, not even an attempt at edutainment of any sorts, and unless that blindness came from moderate-to-severe brain damage, that idiot has nothing to be proud of.

... Wow, you really don't like hexagons 

Personally I don't get why there's so much hate for the hexagon game. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't impressed by it, but it's a hell of a lot better than all the warrior cat fanfics, fart fetish porn and unfinishable troll games we've been getting a flood of recently.

That said, I hadn't heard the writer was blind before I played the game, but if I had I think that would've just put me off more because honestly, whenever I see a writer on the internet claiming to be blind, I just automatically assume that they're bullshitting. It's unfair I know, since there are a lot of blind people who enjoy writing in their spare time, but I've just seen so many people lie about their personal lives to get sympathy. It's kind of a classic way for a terrible writer to introduce a story, "Please go easy on me because this is my first story game and I'm only 12 years old and Enlgish is my 27th language so I don't speak it very well... Did I mention that I'm blind... And deaf... And an orphan! My parents both died in a car crash and now I live with my evil aunt and uncle... Also my uncle molests me... Say nice things about my game!"

Isn't that sort of a similar view point I mentioned about people who troll that claim to be autistic?

I haven't even read that hexagon game, but man it sure does piss off Sentinel!

As for Emily's reviews, I can at least respect the fact she didn't go on some rant to slag the entire site and even noted that this place has quite a bit of variety on how people make their stories here.

I dunno, I didn't see that thread, I just saw the one Drako did that pissed everybody off 

And yeah, I'm glad she noticed that about the site. Is why I like using CYS. There's so many different things you can do with it ^_^

This post was edited because the S/T competition is still on-going.

Emily Short reviews a lot and knows a lot and avoids silly gotchas that don't help anyone. Given that she's currently involved with the final production of a new release of Inform 7, it's good to see her still able to review games.

Re: disabilities, I think a big point here is that Tyler Zahnke has never advertised his disability to the IF community, or mentioned it in his games. I had to do research to find this information.

I do agree, however, that trolls who claim to be autistic are a particularly awful brand. I've seen people Play Dumb around a person who had some autsitic traits, and that's cruel, too. That's not to say disability = a free pass, and in fact there are ways to help people learn social stuff many of us take for granted & we should try to do that. But sadly, it's tough to judge trolls vs the real thing.

(edited to clear things up. The 3rd paragraph above was written when my mind was scrambled remembering some particularly un-wonderful people.)

Warrior Cat Fanfics are bullshit, the hexagon game is one that level at most. But the fart fetish porn has the whole "Bizarre" and "disgusting" thing going for it. You can also tell from the prose that the guy has put 10 times as much effort into that than any of those stupid fucking Warrior Cats stories and stupid fucking Wolf-stars bullshit. He's probably also put a shit ton of effort into giving his realdoll a queefing function. He deserves a 5 rating, an eyebrow raising, and subsequent culling from the herd of humanity.

Your blog just gives me an error when I try to go to it.  Nvm, found out why.

I can see how she'd reach that conclusion, but honestly I think it played out roughly the way Briar said it did. She got to my game, saw I mentioned visual novel, saw that it's in love and dating, noticed a few tropes within the story, and then just stopped really paying attention.

Interesting about the hexagon game. Didn't know the creator was blind.

Had a read of your reviews (except for the games I haven't played yet). And I've got to say I appreciate your honesty in them. You made some very valid points and unlike some of the other reviews, I didn't notice anything that made me think you were being unfair. The only thing I'd say about future reviews is that, if you're going to show your reviews to the writers, you should probably mention all the flaws the game has first and then leave any praise you've got for last.

I think you'd be surprised how a writer's attitude to your reviews can completely change depending on whether you write, "I liked this part, but this, this and this were all bad." Or, "This, this and this were bad, but I liked this bit." If you start off with praise and end with criticism, the writer will probably forget the nice things you said about the game earlier, feel really bad about their work and worry that nobody likes it. If you start off with criticism and end with praise, they'll probably feel a lot better at the end of the review, and be motivated to improve on all the faults that you mentioned earlier on. (That's just what I think anyway, not sure if other writers would agree.)

Yeah, I agreed with most of his criticisms.

Though I dunno where this mysterious second goth girl is within my game lol.

I know! Alison struck me as more of a hippie 

Oh yeah? Well YOU struck me as more of a hippie. I dunno. I didn't know that there was a goth girl in the game to begin with, let alone two. I guess it's because I don't recognize it, because I've known a lot of people who dress like that who insist that they're neither goth, nor emo, so I subconsciously insist that they aren't goth or emo until they say so themselves.

lol

Really? I actually thought she was goth with some emo thrown in, mainly dressed in black and with a collar

I thought that was Olivia

Yeah, that is Olivia... fml.

Yeah, as far as Allison goes I thought of her as something like this but bigger tits and slightly shorter (being teen and all)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a6pdx6rmebY/UKewgyge72I/AAAAAAAACh8/jyFrlu7Qr_M/s1600/Untitled-3+copy.jpg (girl on the left)

ADD: How the heck do I add images here?

... Because teens have bigger tits? 

And you need to copy the image HTML and paste it in the Source Code.

In straight-man (and... les-woman?) fantasy land, they do.

I meant she would be shorter cause she is a teen

This post was edited because the S/T competition is still on-going.

Yeah, I totally goofed there. For some reason I glommed the two girls together in my mind. Speed reading can do that.

But to save face, I'm going to punt this back to you and say you can draw a bit more attention to Alison to start, here.

If you were able to, for instance, mention that Olivia looked away when you looked at her during the boring 1st class, and quite possibly that you don't remember having to deal with one girls who may've found you interesting, much less one...you have a bit of a story there. Or you'd have remembered her, or Olivia, since they were different and interesting, but somehow you failed to.

I like the contrast, and I'll update my review to mention I missed that, because it's clearly important. And given Alison and Olivia have stark physical contrasts, why not establish that immediately? Or mention that you are not just Attracted To a Type of Girl? From what I remember, teen males do consider those questions--or force them on other teen males. Perhaps something like Alison dressing colorfully, or wearing something you thought was icky in HS but like much more 10 years later, establishes that she's Someone Special.

Uhh... I'm probably an idiot, but I read that third paragraph 3 times and I didn't understand it... So I can't really contradict it 

You are right. I thought I read the paragraph before posting it, but I was still seeing red when I tried to write it. Hope I cleared it up on edit.

"The only thing I'd say about future reviews is that, if you're going to show your reviews to the writers, you should probably mention all the flaws the game has first and then leave any praise you've got for last."

Yeah, this is something I wrestled with. The way I see it is, people remember more what comes first. And I want that up front. But it's also clearly valid to say people remember the end bits last. Memory studies etc. show that the middle bits are easiest forgotten.

I've actually had the worst personal experience with people who come out and bash and then drop a few crumbs at the end. So I'm consciously trying to avoid it. But I agree: people remember the last bits and the first bits, and having good stuff at both ends cushions what's there. And I don't think I have a problem tipping off that I deliberately structure things that way, though I don't want to make the reader feel patronized. It's a tough balance I bluntly still don't have control over. About all I can do is guess what logic processes lead to mistake X, and avoid personal attacks and excessive nitpicks.

Perhaps an optimal formula for reviews is, then,

1. good stuff

2. bad stuff

3. good stuff + how to fix the bad stuff, based on the good stuff the author did, along with stuff I hope to see from the author in the future.

Thanks very much for this discussion--this is the first time I've really written reviews. When I proofread for someone else, or someone proofreads for me, there's the big points, then good stuff, then bad stuff. And I sort of took this to reviewing, too. The difference with critiques is that I know them so we can have Fully Thick Skin to cross off stuff that needs to be correct, and I haven't met the people I'm reviewing now.

N/P. To be fair, I think you have to have a really thick skin to enter competitions like this anyway, since most of the reviews are negative and usually a lot harsher than yours. Honestly, it makes me worry about entering competitions again. I definitely will do, but this time around I can blame most of my negative feedback on the game being rushed an unfinished. I don't know how I'll feel when I enter a finished project that I've been working on for ages, that I'm really proud of and consider my Magnum Opus, and then I get a bunch of reviews talking about how crap it is... Then I'll probably just cry myself to sleep at night 

Well, one thing I found when entering competition #2 was, I'd learned a lot from competition #1. In fact, certain things I didn't do at all became second nature with practice. Being able to revise your own work is the big one. It gets easier once you know where to look for what most needs improving, or once you know you can make good revisions.

Thinking of something as your magnum opus can put a lot of pressure on you. And by you I mean my/me too. My general approach is to ask what I can do better, and what most needs improving. Then I try to work on the biggest thing I have the energy to fix, competition or no.

A big pull of competitions, for me, is a deadline so I don't defer what I want to write. I've also made good friends with the people I competed against, sharing ideas etc.

And hey, good news, if you look here. Everyone's games are getting good ratings. Reviewers tend to be a bit pickier about stuff than people who just want to play a game.

Ratings

Yeah, good point. It's better to get bad reviews and learn something from them than to always get positive reviews and never improve on your work. Besides, if I want to cheer myself up, I can always just read through the website's comments of my game since pretty much everybody on CYS thinks it's wonderful on account of it not being a minute long troll game involving warrior cats making sweet, sweet love 

And I dunno, 3 out of 5 seems like an average at best rating to me, but then it's only based on 2 votes, so it might get better ^_^

Naw, I doubt it. It looks like the three of us will probably be in the 6/10 range at best. Shame none of us will win.

I dunno, the other games all seem to be getting harsh reviews too, so maybe one of us'll win on account of being slightly less crappy than the others. 

Still, after reading all those reviews people wrote, a 6 would feel like a massive compliment to me.

A 6 is a good score if you look at previous years. Heck, I got a 6 last year and was pleased. (Yes, I think I already said I'm still fixing bugs and missing stuff.) I think a 6 is possible for you guys.

There's just not a lot of score inflation over at IFDB because, yeah, there are a lot fewer troll games.

Judges in general tend to be a bit more lenient than reviewers, because they're probably just looking for fun. And I think you guys made a bigger jump up than you expected in entering, but you're handling it pretty well & you'll learn a ton, and I think you've collectively shown that CYS is viable for making a significant work.

Yeah, it's funny, looking at the scores of some of the previous competitions, even the winner rarely gets much more than a 6 out of 10, which struck me as strange because on this site, getting a 7 out of 8 is easy. I think people on the site just rate more generously. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing though because on the Spring Thing contest, the highest rating anyone got was a 7.28 out of 10. Kind of makes you wonder, what's the point of having ratings of 8 to 10 if 7.28 is the highest anyone can get? 

7.28 is the highest in the Spring Thing--but that's an average, and thus a score of 8 or above really means something. Judges should be allowed to make strong statements if they want to, too, with a 1 or 10. There's going to be disagreement over a game.

And if we only gave 4-7 scores, the range would be scrunched further, and the truly bad games wouldn't get weeded out.

Spring Thing is generally not as well publicized a competition as, say, IFComp. The winner gets over an 8, there. Ratings are definitely deflated compared to the scores a magazine gives out for your average XBox game. Judges often give ratings based on a bell curve, there, not a straight "top 10% get 10," and hence no absolute scores. There's also the matter of judging a game based on puzzles, immersion and how bug-free it is--so if someone averages those 1-10 scores, the bell curve of scores gets squashed further.

No matter what judging system you use, though, scores will clump. It's just a question of where, and one hitting the full range of scores tends to separate games out a bit better. You can probably add or subtract a point or two based on the genre to determine whether you'll like a specific game.

Really? A 6 translates into about a 5 here.

I think at least one of us should make the top three, but I'd be surprised if we did any better than that.

*Deleted comment*

Well, I think there's a bit of home field advantage here. Looking at other stories here, you guys are some of the best, if not the best. But Spring Thing has had past and future published authors competing, which is a step up.

By the way, to get the score of 6, I'm going by 3* = 5.5, 2*=3.25, 4*=7.75, 5*=10, and 1*=1, and I'm going by IFDB ratings rather than over here.

Doing the gory math (if you didn't already,) 1->1 and 8->10 means

2 here is 2.28 there

3 -> 3.57

4 -> 4.86

5 -> 6.14

6 -> 7.42

7 -> 8.71

8 -> 10

Well, it's pretty common knowledge that scores here are pretty inflated haha. A lot of people just read a story and if they like it, it gets an 8. Personally my rating goes something like this:

8 - Amazing story. I was able to feel involved in the universe/plot, and had no issues with it.
7 - Great story. No complaints, but it didn't get me involved enough to get an 8.
6 - Good story, but I had some minor complaints.
5 - Decent story, but I had some pretty major complaints.
4 - Mediocre story. Probably had a few redeeming factors, but all in all not that good.
3 - Bad story. Maybe had a redeeming factor, but was still bad.
2 - Terrible story. Nothing good to say about it.
1 - Reserved for trolls.

For reference, I gave Briar's a 6 (haven't done Kiel's yet).

Thanks. I gave yours a 1 ^_^

You monster.

Mwahaha! 

I personally find it hard to explain how I rate my games like that, since there's loads of different factors that can effect how much or little I like a game. For example, a 3 could be a game that was pretty decent, but had terrible spelling and grammar, or it could be a really well written game that the writer just didn't put any effort into.

Also there's so many little things that could knock an 8 down to a 7, like if the plot of the story was really, really interesting but the characters were really bland, so I didn't care what happened to them. On the other hand, a game could have characters I found really fun and diverse characters, but a weak plot that made the game seem boring.

I also have to try not to let personal preferences get in the way when giving games a high rating too. For instance, I'd say I prefer Fantasy and Mystery/Puzzle games to Horror and Love/Dating games, but if I thought a game was really well written with a great plot and characters and nothing to complain about, I don't want to knock a point off because I wasn't really interested in the genre. Lots of things like that to consider. 

Pfft, personal preference means everything when rating something ^_^

I'm disappointed, Schultz. =/

"There's some bad architecture here."? Really...? Don't get me wrong, I am perfectly comfortable acknowledging that there are flaws in the scripting. I am still learning--but those errors aren't in the scene you mentioned because you cannot drop the medallion piece unintentionally. Several people have gotten to the best endings and multiple people have gotten to the alternate endings. All of six of them require the medallion to be complete for one reason or another. So, it's apparently not that unintuitive.  

*sigh* If you're going to blog about a story and accuse it of errors, please pay attention when you play the game. You see, the option that you clicked, which is the ONLY way you can lose a medallion piece in the entire game, is _labeled_ as "Refuse the gift and walk away." (Why would anyone want to do that? Don't ask me, you chose it. :P)

... My point here is this: It is not bad architecture when the game does exactly what you tell it to do. 

I think he was saying that it's possible to lose a medallion piece if you forget to pick it up before moving on to the next part of the game. Am having trouble with this in another game that I'm making. I didn't want to make it so that you can't go somewhere until you pick something up, so I'm trying to script it so that the game doesn't advance until you do pick it up.

... Restrict the link(s) that let you leave that page so you require the item to click that link.

*sigh* Fair enough, you may be right, but at the very beginning of the game I force the player to pick up the backpack showing them how you obtain items in the game. If the player just... forgets how obtaining items works even though it was literally the first thing I taught them to do, is that really my game's fault...?

I just find it poor logic on his part.

Nah, it's an annoying problem with advanced games, but I'd say it's more of a problem with the site's programming than with any particular game, since a lot of the games on the site have the same problem. I always remember to pick up items, but that's 'cos I've used the site for a long time and I know if I forget them, I probably won't be able to finish the game.

I guess so. I dunno, after reading these blogs, I get the feeling I'd receive more favorable reviews if I broke down and held the reader's hand the whole way like I refused to do because I honestly wanted it to present a challenge. =\ 

Well that is pretty much how video games go today, not surprised that IF is going the same way.

That Players bill of rights thing that was linked to is a joke. I can see a couple of those things, but there's a lot of entitlement nowadays.

Seriously the creator/author is under no obligation to do ANYTHING for the player/reader. The player can decide to bitch about the product afterwards, sure, but this idea that you're always supposed to accommodate everyone is bullshit.

If you want to make something with death around every corner and challenging with no hand holding hey go for it.

Yeah, but I wouldn't worry too much about the reviews. People who write reviews like that spend the whole game looking for as many flaws as they can because nobody would read their blog if they just wrote, "This game was perfect. I didn't see anything wrong with it whatsoever."

Logically, you are correct. However, emotionally, a player doesn't want to have to remember that--they don't want to worry about trivialities, which bog them down and make them lose immersion. What makes a game a game is being able to ignore the pedantic stuff--and that often requires investment from the programmer, whether of the specific game or of the big language used to build the game.

People don't play games just to be told they're good at logic or following instructions, or to have arguments (meta or otherwise) over what should be done automatically--I know I play games to avoid, well, trivial stuff I should be doing in real life.

I think there's a give and take here that the player and game both need to give the benefit of the doubt to each other, and the balance shouldn't tip too far one way. But even *knowing* I needed to take everything, I still forgot, because I wanted to plan and find stuff. I don't have a solution--and I don't know where the buck ultimately stops. But it did get in the way of my enjoying things.

This post was edited due to the fact that the S/T competition is still on-going.

You know you can use scripting to automatically put items into their inventory, right?

I did not. Now I do ^_^

This post was edited due to the fact that the S/T competition is still on-going.

Sorry about the vague terminology: architecture in this game refers, not to the game, but to the CYS framework that dictates what the game can do. It seems like CYS's architecture is actively preventing you from doing something you want to do that should be simple for you and the player. And that's bad.

You as a designer should be allowed to let a player, when they see an important item, *take it immediately* and not need a verification screen.

If CYS doesnt have this, it's an important feature to request. However, given that CYS allows variables, is it possible to say

1) if you unlock the medallion, SET MEDALLION_1_FOUND TO 1

2) if you take the medallion, SET MEDALLION_1_FOUND TO 2

2) if you walk away without the medallion, have a

IF MEDALLION_1_FOUND IS 1:

  NOW PLAYER HAS MEDALLION;

  NOW MEDALLION_1_FOUND IS 2;

or something. That's hacky code, but it works. I haven't poked around, yet.

But I need to be more clear that I see it as a weakness of CYS that makes it harder to make ambitious stories like yours.

Naw, it's easily possible to do something like that. The main thing keeping down the system is its inflexibility with variables, and lack of loops/functions.

Also dumb people like me who don't know anything about scripting 

http://terrycavanaghgames.com/maverickbird/

A combination of Super Hexagon and Flappy Bird, from the creator of the former.

Sam Ashwell's review of your work is up, and I think it's worth it for the link to writing misdemeanors alone. I think it's also his best of the three, and everyone will benefit from reading it.

I'm reading through the writing misdemeanors right now and cringing a bit. The title feels perfect--it reminds me that a few such mistakes are ok, especially if balanced out with cool stuff. Maybe they're even necessary during rough drafts when you want a big-picture look. Getting rid of them is rewarding work.

Yeah. His review for mine seems to have a very clear structure and doesn't go on any big tangents. I still have no idea how much he actually likes any of the entries though haha.

I thought I'd be a bit more upset at the criticism, but honestly I'm just happy someone took the time to seriously review it, and that the review actually gave some useful advice.

Honestly, all these reviews are starting to make me cringe. It's not even that they upset me, it's just that... How depressing must it be to read through all these storygames looking for as many faults as you can possibly find so that you can talk about them one by one in your review?

Looking over some of the reviews, I'll notice some things that I think actually make a valid point, which when I was playing the game I either didn't notice or didn't care about it. Perhaps I'm just easy to please, but really I think the reason I either don't notice or care about those little things is because I'm actually playing the games for fun. Even with games on the site that aren't very good, I still try to enjoy them because... That's the whole point in playing games, to have fun.

I'm guessing that the people who write the reviews started reading storygames because they enjoyed them, but when you're starting the games with the attitude of "I need to find a whole list of things wrong with this game so that I can write a review about them all," surely that means you don't actually enjoy the games anymore... Which kind of defeats the object of playing. 

Based on how you phrased that, I'm almost positive they upset you lol.

The point of a critical review is supposed to be to let the author know what they did wrong, so they can improve themselves. I can confidently say that some of these reviews did in fact bring up valid points to me, which can help me improve myself in later storygames. Granted, not all the critics are doing that, so you should just ignore anyone who goes "X was bad", without giving valid points.

I also think most of the reviewers are missing out on the vital "What I actually thought about it", conclusion at the end though. Being critical is fine, but if all you're saying is the bad, how is anyone supposed to know your actual opinion? It's entirely possible to bash a game into the ground, but end with "In spite of that, I still enjoyed it". It also puts the flaws of each game into better context when you can compare the reviewers score afterwards.

I'd argue that scoring is not important & in fact I don't care much about that. I also think the best reviews are forward-looking--what should the author try next? In a revamp or their next work? That said, there are plenty of smart-alecks who will deride a game for what it isn't, and yeah, learning to deal with them--to remove emotion when fixing mistakes but to put it into the story proper--is easy to say but tough to do.

Comparisons between stories helps a ton too, I think.

Well, an actual score isn't needed, but at least some indication of how the reviewer felt about the game is something I'd prefer to see.

I mean, you can be critical of something, but still think it's good and recommend others play it.

Yeah, I think the same too. Some reviewers just spend the review going, "And on page 297, I saw them use the word "You're" instead of "Your!"" But then don't actually say whether they thought the game was any fun or not. It's unlikely that reviewers are just going around rating every single game a 1 because of characters they don't find interesting, puzzles they can't solve and punctuation errors, but when all they list is the game's faults, that's kind of what it looks like. 

(To clarify, I don't think all the reviewers do this, and some do a really good job of explaining what they actually thought of the game, aside from what they say in the rest of the review.)

Well, reviewing after a bit has a rhythm to it. Generally I keep a mental note of what I like and don't, and if something is prevalent, my mental scorecard sort of flags that and tries to provide an example.

Now, pointing out every small error is a power play, and I can't read other reviewers' minds. But I use the term "useful jerks" to refer to people who find faults with my work and would even after I made my corrections, but they pointed out something handy.

For an example of reviews I really like, check out here: Breakfast Reviews

Even with no clue what the games are like, I think you'll enjoy them.

Oh wow! Reviews that say nice things! ^_^

http://tmft.wordpress.com/tag/spring-thing-2014/

Another reviewer. So far has only played Briar's game and the hexagon. She's also the first person who actually gives a rating at the end, haha.

For a list of all the reviews (that I know of) there's a Spring Thing 2014 wiki page that has the reviews listed at the bottom.

http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Spring_Thing_2014

Less than 10 days till judging is done.

It looks like Bear Creek/Surface are the favourites. One of us might get third though.

Awwwww, I wanted a CYS three-way.... :(

Me too. Guess we need to try harder next year. =\

If we get at least one of out stories into 3rd place then I'll be happy with what we got. lol It would be hilarious if we ended up taking 4th and 5th place too.

Wow, that sounds dirty.

Pfft, Bear Creek and Surface couldn't hold a candle to the Hexagon game. 

I just finished Surface and I'm kind of surprised people seem to like it in the reviews.

The writing itself is good, and there are pictures...

But the plot wasn't all that interesting beyond the mystery factor, and while playing I didn't feel like I had much control, since whenever I made a choice it either went "Okay that worked!", or "Nope try something else". The characters themselves are also rather...dull.

Still worth the read I suppose, but I think the interface is what made this game.

Exactly... I didn't think Surface was anything compared to any of the other works (Yes, the Hexagon Game beats it)!

No, Hexagon game beats nothing.

Thank you, Tans, for stepping in and speaking truth when I couldn't.

The 10th rule of Spring Thing 2014 is this: 

"If your game is in the competition, then you may not publicly discuss either it or any competitors' games during the judging period. If you need to correct a public misstatement of fact about your game, please contact the organizer, who will relay the message."

Any author who has discussed their game in this PUBLIC forum will be disqualified.  So sorry. lol

Oh, shit just got real!

Too many fucking rules in this chicken shit contest.

Seriously, people are already walking in with biases or not even voting for every story, so what difference does it REALLY make if you talk about each others story-games?

O.o

Are you talking to the guy above me? Because I'm just a spectator.

More in general, but I suspect the other guy was just trying to cause unnecessary worry for fun anyway.

Posts are marked, plus- doesn't really matter.

Not to mention, we haven't been discussing games so much as criticizing critics. Hell, no author here has actually talked about their own game here, to my knowledge, (unless you're going to pull out some bullshit technicality out on me) outside of doing exactly that.

We got permission from the head orginizor. So sorry, lol, dipshit. 

Bibliophile wasn't all that great, Marshal Winter.

Hey everyone, I want to apologize.  Aaron is absolutely right.  I'm having a bad day and behaved unsportsmanlike.  I can't figure out how to delete my initial comment.  Again, I apologize.

Hi all-- this is the organizer of the Spring Thing competition. I think I might have accidentally deleted my earlier post, so apologies if this is a repeat. I just wanted to remind everyone that the rule is that authors may not discuss their games or the games of other entrants until the judging period is over. (The post at the top of this thread is incorrect--- JUDGES may discuss games during the voting period, but not authors.)

That said, it's not the place of entrants to enforce the competition rules. I would hope all entrants will treat each other with respect and maturity.

I'm happy to see participation in Spring Thing from the ChooseYourStory community! Thanks to everyone for getting involved. 

Your earlier post was moved to a separate thread by a mod it seems:

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/the-lounge/message/12184

So is this Marshal guy also MTW?

Because he seemed to be leading the charge to get everyone here disqualified.

http://www.intfiction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=13681

... Oh well that's just lovely >.<

Couldn't he have at least copied the whole sentence? This just makes me look bad 

... Whoops >.<

  Just for the authors, though. Sorry guys~ xP

Huh, the thread was too long so I just want to cut to the chase:

Why does Sentinel hate the hexagon game? I never read it but I just want to know why. Can I get a PM if it's going to go against more rule?

I'm really interested.

Sen has an irrational fear of hexagons. When he was a baby a giant hexagon killed his parents. Since then he can't even look at a hexagon without panicking, having a seizure, throwing himself out of the nearest window and spontaneously combusting. It's very sad 

:C Why didn't he become triangle-man? If he'd become triangle-man, no hexagon would run awry in the city of Angle.

  Is Sen Angle-ish? Or Saxon?

This reminds me of that wacky Phantom Tollbooth book.

By the gods. I just read several of those stories, including Hexagon Malone. You guys should win for sure.

Can't comment on how good the other games are incase I get into trouble, but I'd say you should probably read all the games before you decide which is best ^_^

Voting ends tomorrow.

Playing through the games, gonna vote soon enough.

For whatever reason I just don't like the way Surface is platformed. The background is admittedly pretty cool, but the 'flips' of color really get disorienting. Might just be my old laptop though.

Surface is rather interesting, regardless.

EDIT: And votes confirmed ^_^

*unzips previously sealed lips* So. Voting is over. When do we get to hear the outcome?

NEVER! Muahahahaha!

Probably a day or two from now...

Anyone else constantly checking the Spring Thing page every 5 minutes? 

Well, according to the email from Aaron, he'll give the results in a day or two.

Wonder which of us will do the best.

Too bad they tried to disqualify everyone and their mother.

Nah, that was only one guy.

I am routing for the hexagon game

I'm sorry to have to announce that the game "The Bibliophile" has been disqualified from Spring Thing, due to an unsuccessful attempt by its author to manipulate the competition results.

Please trust that I do not take this action lightly or without significant evidence, and I regret the pall this casts on an otherwise friendly community event. To the credit of our amazing community, after speaking with the former organizers of both Spring Thing and IF Comp, this seems to be the first time something like this has happened in the history of either competition. I'm hopeful it will be the last.

The competition results for the remaining entries will be announced tomorrow.

Aaron posted this on the other site not too long ago. Figured others may want to know. Unfortunate someone actually got disqualified.

SHH! THE SHIT'S NOT DONE YET!

There's no way reposting what he said here is breaking the rules lol.

That was Marshal's game.

The same guy who was trying to get everyone here disqualified.

Obviously the IF Gods unleashed their terrible justice upon those that would attempt to hamper our glorious cause! Let this be a warning to future foes, the very heavens are on OUR SIDE!

CYS BROTHERHOOD FOREVER

(At any rate this makes all of your stories more likely to place higher. Good luck.)

I wonder what he did.  It couldn't have just been trying to get all the CYS'ers disqualified, could it?

Naw, he probably tried to vote from all of his devices at home. Something of that sort, anyways.

What a filthy jew....

....

God damnit.

Yeah, Marshal said something similar in response to his disqualification about 4 of his friends from the same area all voting on the same day and them having similar IP addresses. I honestly have no idea if different computers from the same area would have similar IP addresses or not, but at the end of the day, it's for the game organiser to decide.

"I simply had my friends play the games and on May 7th, I reminded them to vote."

Yeah, I'd see this as manipulation too. "Had" is the keyword here. There's a difference between simply letting others know about something, and requesting they do it for you.

Oh, okay! I was confused there. I thought he was disqualified because Aaron suspected him of voting for himself. Either way, is it against the rules to encourage friends and family to vote? (I haven't, I'm just curious because I don't know if it would fall under the category of discussing games publicly.) That said, I understand why it would be discouraged since friends and family of the authors are probably going to be biased.

Dunno, you could be right with the reason Aaron disqualified him.

Regardless, he did something that the organizer determined was done to manipulate the results, so he's out. It's kind of tactless for us to get into it too much.

True, I was just curious. I'll keep an eye on that if forum thread though, incase Aaron elaborates.

Well, now that everyone is up in arms over there, he'll need to say something.

Honestly though, the best decision would just be to tell everyone the decision is done and nothing will change even if he gives evidence. The moment he actually does give evidence, there will always be people that disagree, which will just leave the competition on a really sour note.

Depends on the evidence I guess. Personally I'd just like to know whether the game was diqualified because Aaron thought the guy was trying to get his friends to give him high ratings, or because he thinks the guy was voting for himself 

I don't know if it is against the rules to ask friends / family to participate in judging, I just know I wouldn't have really felt right asking my friends or family to vote because they might've felt obligated to vote for me. (I do know a couple of people I consider friends did vote, granted, because they told me, but I don't know how they voted or for what because I never asked.) I'd like to win (or place) but for the right reasons.

Well, if it's any consolation, I didn't vote for any of you guys.

:P Ha. Ha. >.> Ha.

Hah, I actually might've, but you'll never actually know until it's over and I'm qualified to talk about it. Let the anticipation burn within every single one of you.

And then at the end of the voting period, you just confirm again that you didn't vote at all 

I did vote, but you'll never know what for! MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

This is a more evil plan than that time I told everyone I didn't have a shitlist!

*Bursts into thread with robot suit on*. Sentinel.........I will follow you to every thread until you announce me KING OF PUNS!!!. Don't force me to do so.

No. Stop.

So. What's the ''spring thing'' about?. Some competition or something?.

Wow, these pun wars are starting to develop a dark side ^_^

No.

Stop following me, creeper, you bomb at puns! I am much better! The crown is mine, and always will be.

Besides, the real pun crown belongs to Tans.

I told you that this war will be so big it will reach the stars sentinel!. I am the father of puns!.

You keep reusing the same five puns over and over again. Every single pun you're making now is cattle-driving you lower down the rungs of pun-dom.

This isn't the place for this. On to the V.S thread then!!!!!!!!.

Damn, the guys over on the intfiction really dislike us XD

Must be because of PeterPears, that evil, vicious misanthrope!

Actually, it's probably because of you haha XD

They're just jealous that I've spoken with Endmaster himself on this forum at least 12  separate times.

Actually Peter Pears is involved with the discussion, and he's been sticking up for the CYS peeps and telling off the people in the IF forum, so... Nope 

Yeah, I'm actually surprised by Peter's defense of CYS. I applaud him for that, especially seein how he got so much hate at first. 

Also, I love how they claim CYS is immature by quoting 3 quotes in a discussion thread of almost 100 posts. The majority of the posts aren't Sentinel's. XD . 

It's funny how they're grasping for reeds so quickly by pointing out the one obviously trollant resident bastard of the site, and pretending that they don't have any such persons.

Even if the site tolerates none of that, (and I highly doubt they don't tolerate at least SOME sarcasm) they should at least realize that no matter how many times you break a stick in half, you'll never get rid of the left side. There's a Sentinel in every site, although obviously I'm the best one, right guys?

Yeah, I hate that bloody troll, always whining about his hexagon phobia and ruining things for everyone. 

Always bravely defending the world from pudding-eating bastards and being so incredibly sexy... How dare he!

Unless Marshal REALLY needed this money, I'm not exactly sure why he bothered to cheat. From what I've read he regularly writes IFs and already has a semi-advantage due to writing the parser based stuff, since that seem to be the preferred way to do it for these contests. I suppose it's possible he just couldn't stand the idea of losing not just in general but to anyone from CYS.

As for the accusations of "immaturity" eh, I'll own up to a bit of it with the over the top Commissar speeches, but I'm keeping it over here at least and I'm not even in the competition. If I was actually competing, I probably wouldn't be talking about the contest at all.

Marshal who is a competitor on the other hand came in here saying "You guys are disqualified Lol." which was basically the internet equivalent of coming into our house and pissing on our rug. And his so called "apology" afterwards hardly sounded sincere.

So yeah, just fuck that guy.

I think the funny part is how Briar pointed out she only said the authors, and his response was just to ignore her lol. No apology for being wrong or anything.

But yeah, I really tried to like them there, but there's like 3 people who haven't been assholes for no real reason, and haven't had an elitist attitude. Oh well.

I'm glad Aaron handled it the way he did though. Falling into their pace wouldn't have ended well at all.

xD Yeah... well... no excuses, I could use the money, and I didn't cheat.

"Yeah, apologies for that. The whole "CYS aren't immature" comment just bugged me."

Just... Wow haha. Aside from him quoting Sentinel (which we already cleared up with Peterspear himself), it's kinda sad how they act all high and mighty but are holding a petty grudge about a couple of us :P

They quoted me? What did they say?

I was just confused by that random bit where that one guy said "I was just curious to see if the disqualification was legit, or if it was revenge from CYS for Marshal trying to get their games banned." ... Marshal explained himself why he got banned and it didn't have anything to do with CYS 

The results of Spring Thing '14 are now available at:

http://www.springthing.net/

Congrats to Briar Rose, who took first place for "The Price of Freedom: Innocence Lost." Thank you to all the entrants, prize donors, and judges for participating.

Wow, congrats Briar!

Edit: Woot, I got third!

Congratz! I'll have you know I voted for all three of you!

Thanks, Sent.

Congrats Briar! :D (As well as Killa, and Kiel)

Almost a CYS-all-win, that's awesome ^_^

*sigh* Yes. Almost. Dammit.

Seeing how there was definitely some sort of prejudice against CYS, 4rth place is great man :)

Why are there prejudice against CYS? 

o.O 

It's all PeterPears's fault, obviously.

In all honesty, it's prbably just because we didn't make parser games. PeterPears is actually a poorly understood man of good breeding and fine decorum.

Parser games? 

Parser games are the ones where you have to play the game by using commands like "Go north" or "Take wallet" and stuff.

Funny enough though, while I got the impression that people in the IF community preferred parser games, all of the top 4 games were non-parser. The parser games all looked pretty good to me, but maybe people found them difficult to finish. I always find those games difficult 'cos you can spend ages just trying to find the right command. Like you'll type "Go down stairs" and it won't understand, so you type "Descend stairs" and it won't understand, and you go on like that for ages until you figure out the exact right way of telling the game that you want to go down the stairs 

Which is exactly why they suck!

I know, I know, it takes more effort to make a parser game, but who gives a crap? If you're working harder to make sub-par work, then you're wasting your time, not writing a story worth reading.

I'm actually really into those games, but they're really hard to pull off. Aside from what briar just noted, you really need to put a lot of description and a good setting in order to catch my attention. The ones submitted (I felt) just got kinda boring.

When done well they're lots of fun (though almost always challenging haha).

I think Anchorhead was the only one I played all the way through... It was awesome ^_^

Oh, those games. I don't like those games too much. I wonder how exactly were they scripted? Maybe they're not as hard as I think they are. 

Firt, forget if I said congratulations. So, congratulations!

There is a help module in some games (type HELP)--and depending on how interested you are, you could visit playfic.com to see basic games and their source code. Good games also should have some information on what verbs they use in the ABOUT command or even VERB/VERBS. As for how to learn what to say/do...

Here is a great example of the most-used verbs. Programmers are encouraged not to add to them as that creates "guess the verb" puzzles which aren't about the story and are no fun.

Playfic.com has one example of a tutorial. I also recommend anything by Ryan Veeder and Wade Clarke's Six as good introduction.

Finally, Aaron Reed, the organizer of the competition, wrote a really good book on Inform 7. I'm not associated with him in any way, but his game Sand-Dancer is a great tutorial for making games and describes how to implement things and what to implement, as well as how parser games evolved over the years so they don't sprawl with verbs.

Sand-Dancer

I will get no kickbacks if anyone orders the book, and it looks like y'all probably have ideas of your own to write up ahead, but I found it was great for understanding games in general, what the player should expect, and what the programmer should do to help prospective players.

No (and stop it with Peterspears haha), nine of the parser games won. It's more because CYS was new to all of this, most of the intfiction (save 2-3) peopel just though we we are 'immature', and the critics (that I've read)  just didn't like the stories all that much.

I dunno.

People didn't like the fact that you couldn't download the games... But seriously Kiel, you did amazing! I feel bad 'cos in any other year a 5.86 would've got you in the top 3 easy.

That said... 3 CYS games in the contest and only 1 other entry made in into the top 4... That's huge guys! It's really, really awesome! ... And I'm happy! I'ma do the Kirby dance!
<(^_^<)(>^_^)><(^_^<)(>^_^)><(^_^<)(>^_^)>

Don't you dare.  The last thing I want is for you to feel bad for doing a good job on a story that I, myself, thoroughly enjoyed. However, if you really want to make it up to me, my prize can be seeing the end of your game. xD I wanna know what happens next.

Also... may I have this (Kirby) dance, madam? <( ^-^ )> ^( ^-^ )> ^ ( ^-^ )^ < ( ^-^ )^ ~( ^-^ )~ 

Yep! Thanks Killa. I need to get on that. ^_^ (Though instead of writing 2 more installments, I'm thinking of starting over and making one long game instead. The first part would be basically the same, but I'll try to clean up my writing a bit and maybe add some things here and there. Possibly change the fight scene so that the writer's current approval scores with the characters effect whether or not they survive.)

;_; B-but... my name is not Killa...

Forgetting the little people already, eh, Briar? xD

Beat me to it. Congrats to you guys! It must've been tough to wait.

It was good to see even the lower scores clumped in the middle. I think anything over a 5.5 is a good score.

Big grats all :)

The average number of votes are around 20? 

o.O Was anyone able to vote, or did it had to be specific people? 

Anyone could have voted yeah, as long as you played and rated at least half of the games.

Thanks, man.

... WOW!!! I'm so excited! It's so weird, I mean I read all the reviews and saw that score I got on the websitey thing and I thought people didn't like the game. It's so weird 

Congrats Briar! You deserved the win. :D

Agreed.

Congratulations. :) To everyone here, let me just say I salute you -  entering CYS games in the Spring Thing, taking a step inside another community's established comp, even if it IS all between us IF lovers, be it choice- or parser-based (and Briar, the correct way to go down the stairs would be "down", or "d" for short; good parser-IF shouldn't make you guess difficult commands, or force you to type too much to interact ;) ) is, in a word, gutsy :).

Plus, really, things quickly took a turn to the ugly. I was sorry to see it happen, which was why I tried to patch up when I could. You guys didn't deserve any of the shit that flew around, and I'm very, very happy for these results. It vindicates you pretty thoroughly. :) You all as a community, and Briar Rose in particular as an author.

BRose, FYI, HannonO also had something to tell you but he wasn't able to log in here, you may wish to check it out.

Again, congratulations all. I'm sorry about the sour taste some of you almost definitely have about InfFiction. I think it all just got started off on the wrong foot, and then just kept going downhill.

Cheers!

Huzzah! :D

Yup, hopefully next time around it'll be a smoother transition. :)

Congratulations, I guess. 

I bet all three of you guys expected to win, didn't you? ;) 

Nope. :P

Definitely nope 

I thought you would all fail epically.

Ah, shaaaame upon you, doubter! ETERNAL SHAME!

... Forgive me, I may be slightly high from the medication I'm taking for a horrible respiratory infection. Again.

... Thanks? 

Congrats, Briar.   And Kiel, and killa.  I guess people didn't hate CYS stories as much as they said they did.

Actually, third is exactly where I expected to place haha. Obviously I hoped for higher though.

xD Yeah, well... me too...

You thought you'd get third or hoped for better (or both)?

xD I thought I wouldn't place and I was right about that. I also hoped for better.

Still, fourth is nothing to shake a stick at. (Believe me, I've tried. Can't really shake a stick at a concept, dunno what direction to shake it in.)

You know, you still placed. It's not a gold, silver, bronze ranking system. Other people still win stuff. 

I never actually saw anything to suggest it wasn't, though... ?_?

Based on the prize list below, it will probably be something to shake a nice heavy book or computer game package at, though. Have fun with whatever you choose.

http://www.springthing.net/2014/prizes.htm

You know, I've read that page quite a few times and I never actually saw anything that said everyone will get a prize, so... why are you guys so sure I will...? It only really talks about 1rst - 3rd.

It looks like you get $25 for completing an Honorable Mention game within a year. However, only one IntroComp game a year gets completed.

One such game that got finished was Choice of Zombies.

That's the full version. The IntroComp version is in here, though it may take time to download. Compare as you wish.

Ah.... never mind, I got my "pick a prize" e-mail today.

You did? Weird, I still haven't got mine yet. Maybe they get everybody to choose their prizes before they send them.

...

...

He said he got the email to choose, not that he actually got the prize yet haha.

I know, I just figured they got sent before the next person chose... Which I now realize is a weird conclusion to jump to since most of the prizes would have to be sent by mail 

This feels really weird. I'm not used to winning stuff 

Big thank you to everyone who said congratulations to us! *And ultra awesome mega huge thank you to Endmaster for the super, shiny trophy! I mean screw the money, this is the best prize ever... SENPAI NOTICED ME!!! ^_^

Now watch as you suddenly get trophies from everyone else lol.

None of them matter to me but that of my beloved senpai ^_^

(Unless somebody finally gives BZ that mustache trophy to hand out. I must have it!) 

Or you could just make your own with a little photoshop editing...

Nope. Has to be the real thing 

Y'know, now that your ribbon is actually worth a lot...it makes me all the more want to have it.

\O uO/ < Gimme!

MINE!!! 

CONGRATS Briar! You deserve it! ^v^

(And Killa and everyone else haha!)

And kudos to the Contest Staff for not alienating the CYS folks over that little misunderstanding over this thread! I think we'll be looking for this again next year :)

OOoo good point, and with the speed I work at my game should possibly be ready for next year!

The spring thing is just one of the contests they hold. You should go to their site if you want to see more.

I believe IFcomp is the closest one.

http://chooseyourstory.com/forums/the-lounge/message/11925

Yeh but I might actually need till next spring to finish the story I'm writing... I just write slow and edit slower these days

Well, most people think of ST as the closest one to IFComp. It's probably about 30 entrants or so, and you'll have a lot more reviewers. You might need a thick skin for some of them, but you also may find more people to help with your games now you've got some exposure.

Happy writing, proofreading, and idea-chasing, everyone, whether you all enter IFComp 2014 or Spring Thing 2015 or just want oto write.

And where the HELL have you been?

For those wondering, IntroComp seems to be the next competition like this one:

http://www.allthingsjacq.com/introcomp/

It also seems to be more new author friendly. Incidentally, it's also meant for NOT finished games, so if you have a half-finished game right now, you could enter it haha.

That is about the weirdest damn thing I've heard as a criteria for a contest. "Remember, your work CANNOT be finished."

Yeah.

Makes you wonder how finished it can be lol. I mean, I have works that are about the same size as my published games, yet they're only like 1/4 of the way done. Sure it's still far from complete, but it's also really long haha.

Also:

Oh, and in order to win you not only have to enter, but also finish your game (and tell Jacqueline you finished it). You will have one year (until July 20, 2014) to do so. No completed game? No money - and somewhere in the world, a fairy dies.

So I guess the money gets withheld until you actually finish it, meaning you want it to be as close as possible to completion, but not yet complete? I guess...

Well, that'd be optimal for making money. But there's a sort of honor system, that you want the game to be reasonably far along, but you may just be looking for instruction. The money comes from the organizer's pocket, and I'm pretty sure she's a writer herself, so it's probably more, if you have a good chunk of a game but maybe need a little guidance, this comp is good for that.

It just throws me off a bit. The requirements are vague, so it makes me wonder what's actually expected.

How do you submit it? 

You email her. I imagine if anyone from here enters, they'd need to explain how CYS works and get approval or something.

In our case, since it has to be incomplete, we'd probably have to give her a direct link, then enable sneak peak so they could play it even while it's unpublished.

Already emailed her. I probably won't enter, since I'm busy with other stuff, but I asked whether it was acceptable to enter games that weren't downloadable and could only be played online.

Normally, over the web. But the IFComp people are upgrading their site, and Jacqueline's site is linked to that. So it looks like email, for now. You'll probably get confirmations etc.

This might be worth considering. Only issue is giving an intro, and then having to finish it later haha.

Hmm... I have a thought... Maybe you could come up with a really awesome intro, and then right after the comp finishes, you can add a link at the end of your story so far saying "And then you got eaten by a bear. The end!" Then you could get the money straight away! ... I mean the rules say you have to finish the game, but do they say the ending needs to be good? 

Actually, she addresses that in the rules haha. Basically, it's allowed- but you're totally a douchebag and all your fellow writers will know it haha.

Pfft, all my fellow writers already know I'm a douchebag 

Lol! I could enter the other game I was working on, but didn't finish in time to enter it into the Spring Thing... But then I was planning on entering that into the IF comp... I need new ideas 

Well, IFComp is still a way away. Maybe you could hone your current idea and see how that turns up. I bet you could trade ideas or testing with people at intfiction.org...there's a subsection devoted to that. I think you could be a good tester for a parser game, because experience isn't everything, and it's useful to trade ideas in any event. Testing/proofreading is more a matter of asking questions than being a connoiseur.

... That was strange. 

Sorry, that message just confused me 'cos you were talking about the possibilities of coming up with different ideas for IF plots and then you just randomly changed the subject to play testing parser games. I'm sure the two subjects are linked, I'm just not sure how 

Well, basically--it'd be a neat possibility for people to trade testing efforts.

I mean, you don't have to write a parser game to ask for testing over there. And by testing I mean proofreading etc. That goes for anyone who writes something here and needs a proofreader there--you don't have to trade efforts, but it might be interesting to see how parser games work & what to look for. Or not.

Well I sometimes do a bit of proof-reading over here anyway. As far as parser games go, I guess it'd be interesting to see how they work but I'm not planning on making any. I personally find the games a bit too tricky since sometimes you're not sure what you're supposed to be doing, and you're using a game format where you could literally try anything, with no idea what you're supposed to be trying. Also I get stuck a lot trying to find the exact right command to use to go somewhere or pick something up 

Geoff Moore here (the Surface author). Briar and I have emailed back and forth a few times, but I thought I'd sign up here as this could be a helpful point for everyone. Parser games can be tricky as hell, but the best ones give you an idea of what you should be doing without giving the game away entirely. Of course if you have no experience playing them you won't stand a chance, lol! Check this out for help with basic commands and you'll enjoy them more:

http://pr-if.org/doc/play-if-card/play-if-card.html

That's pretty coolgoodgreatnice awesome.

Hi Geoff! Is great to see you here! And thanks for the link, it looks really useful. Still, I think every parser game is different in how it works and the commands it wants you to use. 

Awhh! Noticed something! The woman's name is Jacqueline A. Lotta Ashwell... Anything to do with Sam Ashwell, maybe?