Seattle / Tacoma IFComp 2020 Virtual Meetup

[Greg Frost]

We’ll be holding a special online meeting for IFComp this year on Sunday, October 11th from 2 PM to 4:30 PM via Google Meet. Four authors - Brian, Jared, Lance, and Paul - have signed up to present their entries in this year’s competition; we’ll play a sample of each game and take questions as we go.

I’ll send out the Google Meet link by email; please contact me if you need the link.

IFComp is open for judging from October 1st through November 15th. Here are the rules for authors and the rules for judges.

[Greg Frost]

Update: Pace Smith has also agreed to present, bringing us to a full slate of five games.

[Greg Frost]

Here are my notes from the October 2020 meetup:

Attendees: Brian, David D, Greg, Jared, Lance, Mike, Pace, Paul, Seth

Location: Online (Google Meet)

Program (2:00 PM - 5:00 PM)

1:45 Introductions and opening discussion.

2:00 Played part of Stuff of Legend by Lance Campbell, read by the author.

 -discussed sandboxing vs. narrow story design

 -discussed conversation menu system (used Hybrid Choices Inform 7 extension)

2:30 Played part of Alone by Paul Michael Winters, read by the author.

 -discussed process of creating naturalistic puzzles (e.g. cash register puzzle is obvious to people who've worked retail)

 -discussed alternate solutions for lock and key puzzles [e.g. bolt cutters]

 -discussed branching narrative, alternate/suboptimal endings

3:00 Played part of The Magpie Takes the Train by Brian Rushton, read by the author.

 -discussed custom conversation extension used in this game, Color the Truth, etc.

 -discussed challenges of creating a game matching the style of J. J. Guest's original Alias 'The Magpie'
 -discussed combinatoric explosion of mixing drinks and offering them to people

 -discussed Chandler Groover's advice for IFComp blurbs: make them short, reveal one mechanic but not the whole game

3:30 Played part of Tragic by Jared Jackson, read by the author.

 -discussed other roguelike and deck-building games

 -discussed development process - game was started after Advent of Code, 20 hrs/week development for ~6 months in Unity

 -discussed meta gaming elements, similarities in concept to Adam Cadre's Endless, Nameless

 -discussed merits of defeating rookery whelps quickly

4:00 Played part of Limerick Quest by Pace Smith, read by the author.

 -discussed the origin of the game from an idea to make all inventory listings valid limericks

 -discussed size and complexity in relation to the author's previous work Limerick Heist

 -discussed map system, addition of parser-like puzzles to Twine game

4:30 Played part of Big Trouble in Little Dinosaur Park by Seth Paxton and Rachel Aubertin, read by Seth Paxton.

 -discussed homages to Jurassic Park, Big Trouble in Little China

 -discussed conversation choice system that tracks how much people like you

 -discussed development process; game was created with Ink in less than 30 days

5:00 Wrap-up discussion about IFComp. Adjourned at 5:10 PM.

[Greg Frost]

Thank you very much to all of the authors for sharing your work with us!

[Lance Campbell]

Greg,

Thanks for organizing this meeting and your thorough notes.

Lance.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Seattle IF" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to seattle-if+...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/seattle-if/ce71ab3b-8d3c-4848-9211-ea8e7a1293ecn%40googlegroups.com.

[Paxton]

+1 to Lance's post, this was a great event Greg! It was a ton of fun to get a taste of everyone's work for IF Comp.