The annual IF Comp is now open for judging!
There are 71 entries, both parser and choice-based, from a range of new and established writers.
You can play and judge for free.
PLEASE NOTE: there are at least two entries that use ChoiceScript (one is mine 
) and we here in the CoG forum are a BIG and ACTIVE community so be careful not to give higher ratings to authors just because they use ChoiceScript. We want to get awesome rankings based on our writing, not on the system that we use!
The IF Comp is NOT a popularity contest, which is why it is so good.
https://ifcomp.org
Feel free to use this thread to post your reactions to stories that you like… or hate. (Or join the intfiction forum, where there are loads of reviews and discussions.)
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So how are the nominees chosen?
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Anyone’s free to enter, and players vote on their favourites!
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The results are in! Lots of games in ChoiceScript and/or by CoG-published authors among the high-placed entries. Congratulations!
10th place - “A Paradox Between Worlds,” Autumn Chen
11th place - “At King Arthur’s Christmas Feast,” by Travis Moy
15th place - “Fine Felines,” by @Felicity_Banks (Hosted Games author)
19th place - “Silicon and Cells” by Nic Barkdull (CoG author)
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I will definitely be submitting “Fine Felines” as a Hosted Game, but first I want to add two more cat breeds (and two more romanceable characters), which will make the game a lot more complicated behind the scenes! So it’ll take me a while.
But you can play the mostly-sorta-done post-comp opening chapter here, if you like.
Congratulations to my fellow CSers!
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I assume this means more kitteh pictures? Squee!
And congratulations again!
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Hey! I’m Autumn Chen and I wrote A Paradox Between Worlds. I wrote a lot of words about APBW at A Paradoxical Postmortem Between Worlds - IFComp - The Interactive Fiction Community Forum.
The three choicescript games here were remarkably clustered together with scores near 7/10. This is despite the games being very different in terms of content, structure, and adherence to the CoG style. So if you want to make a 7/10 game for IFComp, choicescript seems like a good bet.
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I confess I didn’t get round to playing many of last year’s IF Comp games and only played Fine Felines recently - but what an adorable game! I like how the MC is more defined than the more common blank-slate character, going through emotional and physical challenges which feel very grounded and real but never overwhelming the overall light… fluffy?? … atmosphere. The romances are sweet, everyone’s trying their best, the cats are lovely, and this was just really cosy.
By the end I really felt that the main character had gone through a meaningful journey and the whole thing felt thoughtful and heartfelt. Sometimes when people talk about “slice of life” it feels they’re describing a romance game, a coming-of-age/YA story, or even a mystery and I’m not always sure how to distinguish slice of life from other categories… but I’d definitely point to this and say it’s a very solid example of a gentle slice of life experience.
I’m excited about potential expansions to the game!
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Oh! Thank you so much!
Having FINALLY finished the game I wrote (but never submitted) for the IF Comp in…uh… 2020 (“Flight” is in the Hosted Game queue now) I am now working on “Fine Felines” (at least theoretically, lolz).
And yes, there are a LOT more kitteh pics. I was invited to photograph a litter of 4 week-old ragdoll kittens thanks to this story. It was the best day of my life.
I was so overwhelmed by Real Life ™ this year that I didn’t read a single 2022 IF Comp entry… but I heard there were loads of seriously amazing tales.
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I’ve been looking forward to seeing Fine Felines in the Hosted Games lineup, and I’m delighted it’s moving forward (at least theoretically). I’ve recommended the IF Comp version to a lot of people in the past year, and I’m so excited to see how it grows. (By which I mean I want to see all the kitteh, obviously.)
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