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From: msphil@aardvark.cc.wm.edu (Michael S. Phillips)
Subject: Re: The IF Gates are Closed. Let the voting Begin!!
Message-ID: <1995Sep25.154729.2137@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu>
Keywords: green fuzzy bananas
Sender: msphil@gateway.lawlib.wm.edu (Michael S. Phillips)
Organization: Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
References: <427d7s$puv@agate.berkeley.edu> <42teik$2us@bud.peinet.pe.ca> <baf.811207562@laraby.tiac.net> <DF46GL.41M@ansoft.com> <445qvk$60v@nic.lth.se>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 15:47:29 GMT
Lines: 52
Xref: nntp.gmd.de rec.games.int-fiction:9767 rec.arts.int-fiction:8360

In article <445qvk$60v@nic.lth.se>, mol@marvin.df.lth.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
|> In article <DF46GL.41M@ansoft.com>, Palmer Davis <palmer@ansoft.com> wrote:
|> >In article <foo>, baf@laraby.tiac.net (Carl Muckenhoupt) wrote:
|> >>HAH!  I have yet to play all the TADS games, but my decision on the 
|> >>Inform ones was easy.  
|> >
|> >Agreed.  I haven't looked at the TADS division yet, but the Inform
|> >entry pool was *awfully* thin, with only one entry that was close
|> >to the level of quality that I had expected.  
|> 
|> Might I ask just what level of quality you had expected?

I can't speak for him, but I have been mostly pleased with what I have played so
far (I don't like sudden-death, timed puzzles, so to speak, so there was one
Inform game which did not please me much, although I can see where it could be
appealing to others).

|> IMAO, most of the entries _were_ the quality you'd expect from amateur
|> writers/programmers, several of whom are total beginners, who are
|> given a very short time to write a game. 

Speaking for myself (and my game, LIBRARY), this was the first non-school 
programming effort of my own in years, and it was my first attempt to use Inform.
Not to mention my first attempt at writing IF, and just generally it was the
first "fun" project I did.  I attempted to maintain a sense of fun within the
game, but I am not a particularly ingenious person, and I didn't even know there
was an active IF community (and about the contest) until the end of August. 
Given such a short time to learn Inform, come up with an idea, and implement it,
I am generally pleased with what I produced.  Yes, it's short (that's the idea
behind the contest), yes it could be a lot better.

The important part of participating in the contest, however, was that it reminded
me of what fun IF is, and it has caused me to embark on a much longer, and
probably better long-term project.  I don't want to contribute to the vapor, so I
won't say much about it.

Hopefully, for the sake of both the Inform community and the IF community in
general, it has had a similar effect on others who participated.  I look forward
to this being an annual event :-)

|> I'm not taking what you (Palmer) write personally, since my entry is
|> written in TADS and you're speaking of the Inform entries; 

I'm not taking it personally either, although I am curious to know whether or not
he entered the contest himself :-)  Given that I, at least, am an utter newbie, I
expect a certain amount of criticism, and I am looking for it too (so I can know
what I did right and wrong for my next project(s), and, of course, for next year).

Here's looking forward to next year's competition, and everything which will be
released between now and then.

    Mike Phillips, msphil@aardvark.cc.wm.edu
