Final IFComp scores 2019
Nov. 3rd, 2019 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoFive games have been vanquished, and so IFComp 2019 comes to a close. All that remains is to give them number scores, provide some closing thoughts about IFComp itself this year, and submit everything. We still have a couple weeks to play an extra game or two for extra credit, but I'm confident calling this this "Final IFComp scores 2019" post because if we play more, I'll just go back and edit them into this one.
Please refer back to last year's scores to put this year's in perspective. I stand by almost all of them except that, in hindsight and as they've aged and such, I wish to retroactively bump Animalia up from a 9 to a perfect 10. Otherwise, I feel comfortable putting all of those against these.
Thus, in the context of how everything compares to last year and to the overall judging guidelines, I am scoring this year's games as follows:
Pas De Deux by Linus Åkesson: 8
(LATE EXTRA CREDIT EDIT) Out by Viktor Sobol: 6
Skies Above by Arthur DiBianca: 6
Remedial Witchcraft by dgtziea: 5
Abandon Them by Alan Beyersdorf: 4
The Milgram Parable by Peter Eastman: 3
This means that Pas De Deux is about on the same level as Re: Dragon and just barely shy of Basilica de Sangre, Skies Above is about on the same level as that stealth parody dumb-on-purpose edutainment game I embarrassingly fell for and thought was real and earnestly defended anyway, my least favorite game of last year matches up with Abandon Them this year, and The Milgram Parable is (barely, by one point) the new official worst IFComp game I have ever played.
Honestly, all of these factoids scan. So yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right.
So.
IFComp.
Whew.
This year was... a bit draining, on all of us. Last year,xyzzysqrl, swordianmaster, and Sara and I all got through at least five each, and we all had at least a fair amount of enthusiasm for the better ones in our respective piles. Animalia was a genuine delight, but honestly, Instruction Set was the only game from last year I didn't enjoy overall (and even that was an "I like the idea" effort weighed down by flaws.) IFComp was fun and we were greatly looking forward to having more fun this year.
This year was a lot darker. Real life happened and knocked Xyzzy and Sword out of the competition almost entirely (Xyzzy did play one game) and we got some really downbeat draws to start off our end. I started including the chatlogs as we were browsing for our final three to show off the copies of some of the ones we rejected, and while I definitely recall being choosy last year as well, I don't remember there being this much of a sense of "Surely there must be something good in here that can save IFComp."
Fortunately, our increasing choosiness did seem to pay off, and the games did get better as we persevered. In fact, the scores versus the chronological sequence in which we played the original five (3, 4, 5, 6, 8) are in eerily perfect order. Pas De Deux (and later Out in the extra credit round) did save IFComp, and Skies Above and Remedial Witchcraft were at least okay to decent.
So... I don't know. I guess there was a miasma this year after all. Clan Sugardoom has depression, IFComp has depression, maybe it's a miracle that at least one (or two, hi Sara) of us were able to pull even this much good out of it. But with a last second buzzer-beater of a final pull, I do consider this to have been a worthwhile thing to do and an enjoyable experience overall, and I do still look forward to doing this again.
(And, of course, you the reader are welcome to join in as well, if you'd like! Play at least five IF games, do writeups, submit scores, help make Dreamwidth the somehow active mutual gameblogging circle it has become.)
IF is good. IFComp 2019 may or may not be, but I think that's the "2019" at fault more than the "IFComp." Huge thanks to Xyzzy for getting us into this, as always. See you in IFComp 2020! Hopefully everyone is okay by then.
Please refer back to last year's scores to put this year's in perspective. I stand by almost all of them except that, in hindsight and as they've aged and such, I wish to retroactively bump Animalia up from a 9 to a perfect 10. Otherwise, I feel comfortable putting all of those against these.
Thus, in the context of how everything compares to last year and to the overall judging guidelines, I am scoring this year's games as follows:
Pas De Deux by Linus Åkesson: 8
(LATE EXTRA CREDIT EDIT) Out by Viktor Sobol: 6
Skies Above by Arthur DiBianca: 6
Remedial Witchcraft by dgtziea: 5
Abandon Them by Alan Beyersdorf: 4
The Milgram Parable by Peter Eastman: 3
This means that Pas De Deux is about on the same level as Re: Dragon and just barely shy of Basilica de Sangre, Skies Above is about on the same level as that stealth parody dumb-on-purpose edutainment game I embarrassingly fell for and thought was real and earnestly defended anyway, my least favorite game of last year matches up with Abandon Them this year, and The Milgram Parable is (barely, by one point) the new official worst IFComp game I have ever played.
Honestly, all of these factoids scan. So yeah. Yeah, that sounds about right.
So.
IFComp.
Whew.
This year was... a bit draining, on all of us. Last year,
xyzzysqrl, swordianmaster, and Sara and I all got through at least five each, and we all had at least a fair amount of enthusiasm for the better ones in our respective piles. Animalia was a genuine delight, but honestly, Instruction Set was the only game from last year I didn't enjoy overall (and even that was an "I like the idea" effort weighed down by flaws.) IFComp was fun and we were greatly looking forward to having more fun this year.This year was a lot darker. Real life happened and knocked Xyzzy and Sword out of the competition almost entirely (Xyzzy did play one game) and we got some really downbeat draws to start off our end. I started including the chatlogs as we were browsing for our final three to show off the copies of some of the ones we rejected, and while I definitely recall being choosy last year as well, I don't remember there being this much of a sense of "Surely there must be something good in here that can save IFComp."
Fortunately, our increasing choosiness did seem to pay off, and the games did get better as we persevered. In fact, the scores versus the chronological sequence in which we played the original five (3, 4, 5, 6, 8) are in eerily perfect order. Pas De Deux (and later Out in the extra credit round) did save IFComp, and Skies Above and Remedial Witchcraft were at least okay to decent.
So... I don't know. I guess there was a miasma this year after all. Clan Sugardoom has depression, IFComp has depression, maybe it's a miracle that at least one (or two, hi Sara) of us were able to pull even this much good out of it. But with a last second buzzer-beater of a final pull, I do consider this to have been a worthwhile thing to do and an enjoyable experience overall, and I do still look forward to doing this again.
(And, of course, you the reader are welcome to join in as well, if you'd like! Play at least five IF games, do writeups, submit scores, help make Dreamwidth the somehow active mutual gameblogging circle it has become.)
IF is good. IFComp 2019 may or may not be, but I think that's the "2019" at fault more than the "IFComp." Huge thanks to Xyzzy for getting us into this, as always. See you in IFComp 2020! Hopefully everyone is okay by then.