The Stack

Well, it’s that time of year again. The judging period of the 15th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is underway, with a lean 24 entries, well within the power of any interested person to play through before the November 15 judging deadline.

Me, I’ve decided to sit it out this year. I’m somewhat soured on the comp-judging experience for the moment, what with the lackluster and buggy entries of the last couple of years. I was planning at one point to submit an entry of my own, which would disqualify me from judging, but the year proved to be a busy one, and in the end I had to admit to myself that being disqualified from judging was in fact my main motivation for my planned entry. If that’s all I wanted, I could spare myself the effort and just not judge.

Plus, this seems to just be an unusually rich year for IF outside the comp — or at any rate, at least one of the editors of ifwiki.org seems to think so. The current featured article there is a list of this year’s significant non-comp releases. The only thing on this list I’ve gotten around to trying before now is the first chapter of Blue Lacuna, so my intention is to play and blog them in lieu of the comp games. If you want comp comments, I suggest you hop over to Emily Short’s blog; not only does she provide thoughtful and articulate commentary of her own, she’s keeping a list of other blogs with comp reviews.