interactive fiction competition

IF Comp 2024: Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe

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Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe, by Jim Nelson

Today is the start of the Interactive Fiction (IF) Competition 2024, which includes my latest IF title, Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe. Over 67 titles are entered in the competition this year.

The great thing about IF Comp is that anyone can play and be a judge. If you’re interested, you’ll need to play at least five of the entries to submit a ballot. I recommend reading over the judging rules before looking over the full slate of titles. Note that many of these games can be played within your browser without downloading any software.

Voting is entirely optional. You’re free to play as many or as few of these games as you like. All are free to download and play.

Here’s my entry’s blurb:

“There are some secrets that do not permit themselves to be told.”

In 1849, Edgar Allan Poe disappeared among the back alleys of Baltimore. A week later, he was found delirious and in disarray. The mystery of his death has remained unsolved for 175 years.

Now it’s your chance to decipher the macabre enigma enshrouding the final days of Edgar Allan Poe—a tale of Faustian bargains, artistic ambition, and immortality…

It’s a parser game, meaning you enter commands as free-form text, which the software interprets as commands and acts upon. Total play time is a little over two hours or so, depending on how well you do.

You can play Under the Cognomen of Edgar Allan Poe directly from the IF Comp game list. If you want a more customizable experience, in terms of colors and fonts, or you want to listen to the game’s soundtrack while you play, I recommend installing the QTads interpreter and downloading the game file to your local machine.

Here’s to a great competition!


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Exploring the Best Games: According to Cain

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Cover image for "According to Cain" by Jim Nelson

On the Interactive Fiction Community Forum, author Brian Rushton has been at work completing his series reviewing every game to win the XYZZY and IF Comp awards. He recently posted his review of According to Cain, the most recent game to win the XYZZY:

Your game, the player’s, while fraught with occasional physical danger, is slow-paced and thoughtful. The remembered past, though, is filled with arguments, violence, deception, starvation, betrayal, and jealousy. Just like the previous year’s winner, What Heart Heard of, Ghost Guessed, progression in this game occurs through unlocking horrifying memories of a past family.

His full write-up can be read on the IF forum. More information on Cain, including how to play, can be found here.


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What’s going on in my world?

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The Bridge Daughter Cycle

It’s been awhile. Although the web site has been mostly quiet, I’ve actually been juggling a few projects and staying busy.

First, I am working on a new novel, which I hope to have mostly finished before the end of the year. It’s a bit of curveball compared to my past work—an absurdist caper comedy shot through with gallows humor. I’ll share more details when the manuscript shapes up and the final book comes together.

Second, I’m developing another interactive fiction video game. I’ve filed my intention to submit it for the Interactive Fiction Competition this fall, although having it ready and debugged in time for the comp will be tight. This one will be a bit different than my prior title (According to Cain), in that this new game more like a detective story, where interviewing people and gathering clues is vital to finishing the game. Again, more details will be coming as development finalizes.

My presentation at NarraScope went well. I had a great time in Pittsburgh, meeting a variety of people in the interactive fiction space from academics to seasoned game developers. A casual and positive conference. If you’re interested in my presentation, a PDF of the slides are here. (I’m told a video of the presentation will be available later; I’ll post here when that happens.)

Finally, I have a few blog posts in the hopper. Keeping busy with the above means I’ve neglected the blog. I do plan on paying a little more attention to it in the coming months.

As always, if you’re looking around for your next read, please consider my latest (A Man Named Baskerville), my Bridge Daughter series if you’ve not picked it up yet, or any of my other books. If you’re not on my mailing list, sign up and you can download a preview of A Man Named Baskerville.

Stay tuned!


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According to Cain: IF Comp 2022 results

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Cover image of According to Cain by Jim Nelson

Well, the results are in: My interactive fiction game According to Cain placed 6th in the 2022 Interactive Fiction Competition (IF Comp). This is my first IF Comp, and my first full-length interactive fiction, so I’m more than pleased to have placed in the top ten. (There were 71 entries total, and over 4,000 votes cast this year.)

Notably, According to Cain took 1st place in the Miss Congeniality contest. This is the award given to the game rated highest by the other game competition authors. I’m honored that the other creators rated Cain this way.

It was quite the haul getting to this point. Writing and debugging the game took a year’s time, and the competition itself lasts 45 days, which is nerve-jangling in its own right.

Congratulations to everyone else in the competition, including the top three winners: The Grown-Up Detective Agency by Brendan Patrick Hennessy, The Absence of Miriam Lane by Abigail Corfman, and A Long Way to the Nearest Star by SV Linwood.


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According to Cain—a new interactive fiction game

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I want to let you know about my latest endeavor, a new interactive fiction (sometimes known as a “text adventure”) called According to Cain.

In the game, you are tasked with solving one of the oldest recorded mysteries in Western literature: What is the Mark of Cain?

You are a medieval investigator sent back in time to learn the secrets behind mankind’s first murder. Using an alchemy system, observation, and your wits, you must discover the untold truth about Cain and Abel.

It’s more of a literary murder mystery than a religious one. And it has an unusual twist in the detective story: Rather than solving the crime, you’re trying to solve the nature of the punishment.

According to Cain is my entry in the Interactive Fiction Competition 2022, which started today. You can download or play the game online, and you can even participate in the competition as a judge.

This is a change of pace for me, and represents a lot of creative blood, sweat, and tears. I hope you take a little time to try it out. I’d love to hear what you think.


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IF Comp 2021 Winner: And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One

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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.


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IFComp 2021: Closure

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See here for my IFComp 2021 scoring and reviewing rubrics.

The headline for Closure by Sarah Willson is “An ill-advised sad teen heist.” That truly is an appropriate summation for this quick and tidy parser game.

Closure opens with a Mad Libs series of questions (“What’s an activity you like doing around the house on a day off?” and so forth) before launching straight into the situation at hand. You receive a text message from your friend Kira:

i did something totally cool and normal that you will definitely not disapprove of

i'm in TJ's dorm room right now

TJ being Kira’s ex-boyfriend, naturally, who is away for the afternoon. Kira is Watergating his room to reclaim an old photo from when they were a couple. Kira texted you because she needs your help searching for said memento.

The innovation here is to use an interactive fiction parser as an SMS interface, where your commands are not actually instructions for the story’s “you,” but rather for Kira as she frantically ransacks TJ’s dorm room. All of my commands received character-appropriate responses from Kira rather than the flat, characterless responses typical for text adventures (although I didn’t try anything too wacky). Even when I got a touch stuck, the hint system remained in character:

>hint
you're asking me? that's why i texted you in the first place!

ok, let's see

if it were me, i'd probably…

Another nice interface touch: When Kira sends multiple messages to you in succession, you have to press a key to receive each one. It’s a clever way of emulating the natural pauses when texting.

There’s a Rorschach test within Closure: My first command to Kira was LEAVE, which she promptly refused. I betrayed my principles and began assisting her in her search. The game’s setup makes you complicit. I felt a bit guilty throughout my session.

Most everyone has been in this situation, or at least knows someone who was—well, maybe not texting while breaking-and-entering, but madly jealous and forlorn, along with the concomitant regrettable decision-making. There’s not a lot of time for character development or nuance in Closure; it’s Kira’s hyper-focused mindset and the frisson of her situation which sustains interest.

Is there room for improvement? I suppose so, but I admire the minimalism of the project: You’re dropped into the situation, you navigate Kira through it, and you witness a transformation. It’s not deep, nuanced stuff, but it doesn’t purport to be. Closure is more like a breezy short story, a slice-of-life, than a full-bodied, novella-like game. It can be finished over a short lunch.

I confess: Within twenty seconds of opening Closure, I thought, “This isn’t my kinda game.” The pleasant surprise was its constrained scope and smart design choices drawing me into Kira’s little adventure.


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