Imma guess in Competitions, make a thread called “Ectocomp reviews”, because this is a smaller comp, a general review thread will prolly be sufficient.
Would it be a problem if I start my own personal reviews topic? I plan on going the full 22 games, and it will make it easier for me to make scoring adjustments if they are all under one topic like they were in my ifcomp reviews? Thank you.
Last year some entrants voiced concerns about having their work reviewed publicly, so I didn’t start a reviews thread as I normally do. I did think this took away from the competition a little though, and nobody this year has come out and said they don’t want their game reviewed. Chances are it’ll be reviewed on IFDB eventually anyway.
I would say go ahead and start one. I think most of this year’s entrants are seasoned IF writers, but Ectocomp has traditionally been a good place for first-timers to dip their toes in the water, and we’ve even had some child entrants in the past, so be nice and go easy.
I meant to say 22? I’m not sure because math and speling are my two biggest weaknesses. The plan is to use the same format as my ifcomp reviews with spoiler bars, but I am going to hold off until I can get definitive mod approval or rejection on the issue. Thank you.
That was just me flaking and guessing a random number and not actually researching the number of games. Oops.
I can second what JJ says about EctoComp generally being relaxed and troll-free. I’ve been following it for 6 years now and haven’t seen anything close to trollishness though, yeah, if any individual author would rather not read critiques I think we all understand that.
I’ve appreciated when people point out my errors but I (and others) also appreciate them recognizing that in 3 hours you can’t weed them all out.
I haven’t had the time to have my small things read by a natural speaking. So I’m pretty sure the English will be horrible. I won’t mind people keep repeating that: I knew in advance. [emote]:)[/emote]
This said, Billy: I suppose EctoComp is relaxed enuf you can do whatever you want, as long as you don’t spoiler games in the process. So for me you can go for one big post of yours or wait and do like Andrew said. No big deal, I guess.
PS: if you find horrors (not the intended ones) in my piece, feel free to write me at minnocenti (wow the symbol meaning at) kidstudio.it
I believe that critiques and reviews are a prize for an author. I adore to receive feedback (good or bad) for my IF. I’ll try to play all Ectocomp IFs (I have played “What to Do When You’re Alone” today) and vote and review them.
B Minus Seven sent me a new zipped file last night which I added to La Petite Mort around 18 hours ago, replacing the dist.zip file. You might try re-downloading La Petite Mort from the website, or from the link below.
Just so I can have some context on what I am judging, how much preparation are the authors allowed to do prior to the three hours of coding? Are they allowed to graph out the rooms and write the dialogue down on paper? Is everything only allowed to be pulled from memory when the three hour limit starts? Is everything supposed to be from a completely blank slate when the three hours starts? Thank you.
It’s very informal, and the comp is in the spirit of fun. There are no physical prizes, and the rules are on the honor system. I have never heard of any author being punished or marked down for rule violations, but the judges are also free to score as they please.
Both categories are supposed to be autumnal, Halloween, or horror themed.
Grand Guignol entries have no time limit and can be as long or short as the author pleases.
Petit Mort entries are speed-if, and total coding time should be three hours or less.
This time does not need to be continuous. The author can do an hour session, a half hour the next, then 90 minutes the last. In the past, authors were informed that the clock should run when working on writing code on a computer. Game planning beforehand and making notes off the computer and off the clock is encouraged and allowed. Essentially any time working on the computer is clocked. My inference is if someone wanted to write all the code longhand and then transcribe into the computer while the clock was running that was fine; typing code into a text program and copying over would still be counted as coding at the computer and would be clocked.