Even if I did a rush - botch - job on a game I wouldn't be able to come up with a game that was in MY criteria :)

Your site layout is SUPERB though, and I hope to enter it next year :) most in-depth game of the year = 2002

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I heard somebody mentioning they wanted to enter a competition, is it mine??

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Well it wasn't me, but an observation or two if I may...

I don't know when you announced this comp (I missed it) but writing a worthwhile adventure game takes a long time and the closing date seems much too soon to me.

I know Quest (and ADRIFT & CAT for that matter) allow someone to put together a game of sorts in no time at all, but the planning and testing of a good game still takes lots and lots of work.

If you want to see what I mean by 'a game of sorts', take a look at the mass of games on the ADRIFT site - most are (to be very kind) not very good at all.

It is arguable, but I believe that most TADS, INFORM, HUGO and ALAN games that see the light of day are of much better quality.

I think the reason for this is that using TADS etc. to write a game is comparatively hard work, needing strong manual coding skills and the patience of Job to get it all to work at all. This means those who actually finish something playable have had to put a monumental amount of effort into it (usually over several months) - this shows in the result. As I said earlier, Quest/Adrift games can literally be thrown together in a few evenings. It is hardly a suprise which of these approaches to making a game gives the better result.

This gives credence to the idea that (say) TADS games are inherently superior to Quest games. I don't believe that is the case at all, Quest 3.0 is potentially a match for any other adventure writing system out there, if people put in the effort to make best use of it.

What I'd like to see happen is that Quest authors cut their teeth by creating a few 'mini-games' - get them thoroughly beta tested then release them in source so new authors can learn from them. After that, armed with what they have learned, knuckle down and give writing a game in Quest the level of attention to detail that TADS and INFORM users apply to their tool of choice.

Then we would see Quest games that are comparable, even superior to TADS and INFORM games. The thing is that with Quest while you don't need to have the same level of programming skills, you DO still need to apply the same levels of care and attention to detail.

Open competitions generally tend to promote the release of unfinished or hastily finished games that were already being written 'to meet the closing date' - I'm not sure that is terribly helpful.

A more useful competition might be to set a limitation, say a maximum of ten locations allowed, then allow plenty of time for people to start a specifically targeted at the competition game. It might provide food for thought as to what can be done in such a limited game world.

I LOVED old TADS games when I had my Atari, and I still love 'em. There are two that are VERY good : Unnkulian Unventure and Unnkulian Unventure II. And also another good game was Ditch Day, which I still (might) have somewhere!
These games had LOADS of possibilities. Each command was thought of, each thought in your mind was planned. They were VERY thought out.
That's what I aim for. I aim to be in the shadows of these MASTERS!

..... and your comment on a "mini-game" has thrown something into my brain! I'm going to use all of my spare time on these mini games (which will be in my game) and then get into the bigger task of my WHOLE game!
Thanx Al!

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I released that comp. months and months ago!
But nobody listened!

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Apologies, I must have missed that announcement completely, you'll have to badger everybody much, much more for next time ;-)

Al