Draft rules, next competition


Sun, 22 Oct 1995 14:54:44 -0400

whizzard@uclink.berkeley.edu (Gerry Kevin Wilson) writes:
>
> The MAIN Rule: The text adventure you enter must be winnable in
> under two hours. Judges will be asked to rate it after playing for that
> long.
>
> The MINOR Rules:
>
> A) The text adventure you enter must be completely original, and
> your own work. You may not re-use an older game you have written by porting
> it to TADS or Inform. [Basically, this would disallow MiSTings, which are
> more controversy than they're worth.]

I think _Detective_ was absolutely worth the controversy. However, now
it's been done; if someone entered a MiST job in the future it
would be kind of pointless. So I guess I agree with this rule.

But if you come up with an entry which involves non-original material,
and it's as fresh and well-executed an idea as _Detective_ was, I hope
you ignore this rule and enter it.

> All entries will be uploaded to
> ftp.gmd.de within a 48 hour period. Entries uploaded before or after that
> will be disqualified. All entries will be anonymous this time, more to
> follow on this later. Possibly will entail use of the anon service.

Oh, all right. But I doubt I'll make any effort to disguise my
writing.

If this rule sets off a game of "guess-the-author" on the newsgroup,
it will detract from the competition. But it didn't happen this year.

> B) You must keep the text adventure to yourself until the Upload
> Window. Do not show it to anyone else who might be voting in the competition
> until that time. You may opt, however, to have it betatested by the
> contest's official betatesters, and only them. They will be under strict
> orders not to spend more than X hours betatesting each game, but there will
> be 2-4 'drafts', and your game will be tested by different betatesters each
> draft.

Bleah! Wah! Restricted beta-testing? How can I trust a tester who is
under orders not to do his best?

Either make X very large, or change the orders to "Do as complete a
job beta-testing the game as possible."

> Possible Deadlines:
>
> 1st Beta: April X, 96.
> 2nd Beta: April X, 96.
> 3rd Beta: May X, 96.
> Final Draft: End of May, 96.
> Voting: End of Sept, 96.

You mean voting begins at the end of May and continues til the end of
September? Sounds way too long. But, of course, many people are
off-net during the summer (I assume that's why you chose those dates.)
Problematic.

--Z

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."