Hollow Voice

Take the recent crop of mini IF competitions in all manner of niche categories: There was the XComp, for games involving the paranormal in some way. The I-Comp was notable for a feature its entries lacked; namely, the games could not let players use an inventory for collecting items. And in the Roadkill Comp...well, it's evident what games in that competition could be expected to feature. On the lighter side, the WackyComp (with entries based on one of a number of pithy aphorisms) was reminiscent of last year's Chicken Comp (with games that all featured a chicken crossing the road). If you missed the debut of any of these contests, visit ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/games/mini-comps/ to see how they fared.

While these mini-comps have so far not proven as hotly contested as the annual IF competition or the XYZZY Awards, they all point up a desire to share the wealth when it comes to honoring our game developer colleagues for their sharp-witted dialogue and skill in puzzle creation. Even though the XYZZY Awards offers prizes in a diverse range of categories, it's been dominated by the crowd favorites more than once.

In the most recent XYZZY Awards (held in February 1999), honoring the best games of 1998, Adam Cadre's Photopia and Andrew Plotkin's Spider and Web won in seven out of 10 categories. See this issue's Letters column for one proposal I received for restructuring the voting; it calls for enabling readers to vote in a second round after the top five vote-getters in each category are designated as nominees. My initial hunch is that the results would not turn out much differently -- but please let me hear your thoughts on this as well!

Until next issue, happy gaming!

Eileen Mullin
eileen@interport.net

Contents

• Legalese / Contact Information
• Top 10 Picks for IF on the Web
• Letters
• Description Medicine: Making a Room Come to Life
• Have IF, Will Travel: A Primer on Playing Text Adventures on PDAs and Handheld Devices
• Game Review: Game Review: Dr. Dumont's Wild P.A.R.T.I
• Spot the IF Reference
• Bulletin board: Readers helping other readers

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