IFComp 2016 predictions

A predictions thread has become traditional, right?

Anyway, I predict a nontrivial amount of Colossal Cave & Infocom homage, perhaps influenced by The Year of Adventure.
I predict at least one parser game in a system we haven’t seen for a while, like Hugo or even AGT.
I also predict I won’t get around to voting. Again. Seriously, I love text adventures, but where do you folks find time?

I’ve been chatting with IFComp authors, I can’t say!.. is dragged away by the gag rule

I feel like there’s going to be a WHOLE lot of games this year. A lot. Wonder if we’ll break last year’s record.

There will be a puzzle involving eating fifty packages of seaweed and using the silica gel packets to dry up a lake. There will be bitter, bitter complaints about having to carry out fifty separate actions in order to do this, but at least one reviewer will praise the detailed descriptions of the fifty stages of the lake drying up.

A Trump-era remake of A Mind Forever Voyaging.

(EDIT: to clarify, I would love to play this.)

At least one game will crash on any computer but the author’s.

Predictions? Hm… tough one.

Off the top of my head, I’d reckon IFComp 2016 will include:

  • at least one game about depressing themes (grief/suicide/generic tragic life/etc…)

  • a game which involves cheerfully committing half a dozen crimes and foul deeds for a curiously nonexistent/underwhelming reason (this is just guesswork, mind you, I don’t have any specific games in mind…)

  • a game with really really hard puzzles

  • several Twine games (this is almost a certainty!)

  • at least one game where the PC is a highly unpleasant person

I’d agree with Nathan about there probably being a fair number of Infocom homages.

PS Looking back at my list, I can see I sound very pessimistic, which is NOT at all the effect I was going for. Never mind. Hopefully
someone will find it mildly amusing…

Percentagewise, this IFComp will have a record number of games created with non-standard IF engines. At least one of them will be made in Unity (not Unity with Ink; just Unity.) None of them will be parser games.

I also predict a darker, more serious IFComp this year, both due to the shadow of the US election and because of the strong Venn diagram connection between activists and altgame devs (particularly Twine devs).

(I have not actually looked at the info. This is a guess just like everyone else’s.)

I can safely say that there will be a non-zero number of parser games. Perhaps we’ll hear from some authors who haven’t released anything for a long time.

I am predicting that I will have an amazing amount of fun playing the games that people worked hard creating come the 1st of next month. [emote];)[/emote]

I like your prediction best so far!

-there will be more games than last year
-the percentage of parser games will be surprisingly high
-there is at least one cave crawl and one fantasy castle/tower adventure
-exactly one TADS3 game
-less than 10% of the parser games recognize “xyzzy”
-one game where the protagonist will be named Pinka J. Malisskasme, give or take a couple of letters
-at least four games where the protagonist is non-human
-three games that deal with difficult childhood/adolescence
-Kim Jong-Un will be the final boss in one game.
-two word-play games
-a crucial object in one game will be more than twenty-four letters long, with no shorter synonym provided
-eleven games take max 5 minutes to play through
-only 4 of the participating games won’t be updated at all during the comp
-the winner is a first-time entrant in the competition
-four sci-fi games but none take place on Mars
-five games start in a bedroom
-one game ends in a bedroom but starts elsewhere
-no dragons and no unicorns
-an iPhone will be an inventory item in at least two games
-one game will be an Microsoft Excel file

Hey… The competition is on and… WHERE IS EVERYONE ? Get the ball rolling please ladies and gentlement… Some discussion…

P.s. Or I simply missed the damn thread? [emote]:P[/emote]

I figure people are waiting for the IFComp 2016 public forum to go up, which I assume will be pretty soon. I’m not in it this year, so I’m looking forward to getting to write reviews and vote! I didn’t count, but it looks like there’s a LOT of games–maybe more than last year?

If my count is correct they are 58… So it makes for a good sum and more than enough ti fill anyones hands with some IF for the coming month [emote]:D[/emote]

Personally I hope there are more classic style games… We’ll see… [emote]:)[/emote]

p.s. So I hope that forum is up soon enough [emote]:D[/emote] [emote]:D[/emote]

It looks like at least one of my predictions came true! [emote];)[/emote]

  • At least 3 of them will be impossible to complete even with the walkthrough.

I guess I can predict which game will be at the last place.

Toiletworld.

The premise is funny, though. If only it were bigger and more polished.

I mean, there’s an old adage about polishing…
[size=50]I haven’t actually played the game, just wanted to continue the joke.[/size]