New Rule 4 hits and misses

Hit - feedback
On the first day of IF Comp 2016, voters gave feedback to authors live while playing. It’s easier to do feedback when you have the game in front of you and you can just talk to the author.

Hit - talking
Throughout IF Comp 2016 several authors have discussed IF Comp and particular games in public forums such as Euphoria.

Miss - talking on intfiction.org
Although some authors are active on the forum, others report thinking twice about posting comments or threads due to fears of being judged if they are too visible.
A few have commented on reviews or responded to criticism. But freedom of speech comes at a high cost for the IF Comp author given the pressure of 100 unseen judges.

Miss - promotion
The old taboo against promoting one game over others still casts a long shadow. There is no discussion of promotion in public. So far as I can tell, aside from a few reviews, no-one is actively promoting their own work. Authors I talked to were resigned to the impossibility of attracting fan voters.

Hit - I emailed Jmac in a neurotic panic about four times last year, and only once this year. I’m sure he misses my blow-by-blow accounting of my entire social media history, but it’s possible he has better things to do than reassure me.

Curious, could you link to this Euphoria place? Thanks.

There is a thread about Euphoria.

Does it read better as sharing?

Miss - sharing
The old taboo against promoting one game over others still casts a long shadow. There is no discussion of promotion in public. So far as I can tell, aside from a few reviews, no-one is sharing their work.

I posted a link to my game on FB and on the other two forums I use, but I certainly didn’t go in for any kind of “hard sell”. That is to say, I might have pushed it harder were it not for the shadow of the old rule. But I’m happy with the small number of people who appear to have played it!

I and a few other authors are sharing/promoting/whatevering our work on Twitter. I’m trying to take care to point out that there are many other games to choose from too, as much out of not wanting to look tacky as not wanting to violate the rules [edited to add: er, and because there are many other cool games, of course.] It’s not likely to generate many votes even if that were the point, but it’s definitely nice being able to tell my friends I’ve made something.

Where’s the +1 on this thing? Good luck to anybody sharing their game on social media or otherwise attempting promotion. If we hear from new players - and they turn out to be just like us - maybe the new rule won’t be so scary.