The IF Competition 2021 award ceremonies were held yesterday, and the winner announced: And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One, which I reviewed earlier:

The execution is excellent. The prose and dialogue are spot-on, and the story develops organically. The shifting and blending between the “real world” and the computer world never left me confused. NPC interactions come off seamlessly.

House also took first place in the Miss Congeniality context (highest rating by other IF Comp entrants).

The superb Western The Song of the Mockingbird placed third (and second in the Miss Congeniality), and the impactful What Heart Heard Of, Ghost Guessed took fourth.

(As an aside, Mockingbird was so enjoyable, it got me to pick up Louis L’Amour’s Hondo, a book I’ve been meaning to read for years now. Although I’ve watched plenty of Western films, I’ve never read one, and Mike Carletta’s Texas romp encouraged me to start.)

Any surprises? I thought Ghosts Within would have cracked the top 20, with its expansive map and many layers of exploration offering an old-school interactive fiction experience. And I hoped for the same with Closure, a game which unexpectedly captured my attention with its immediacy and a novel use of the IF parser. They nearly reached that ranking, placing 28th and 27th respectively.

The full IF Comp 2021 rankings can be perused here.

Congratulations to everyone who competed! All these entries represent a tremendous amount of work and dedication.