How very nice: My game The Horrible Pyramid has won EctoComp 2013! There were 24 games entered this year, and a lot of them were really well-done and enjoyable, especially considering this is a “SpeedIF” competition and you’re supposed to write the whole game in three hours or less. (I freely admit that I took very slightly longer than three hours, but the competition organizer said it was okay.) The best place to see all the other entrants might be… here. Yeah.

I’m very proud of this game and I thought it deserved more than three hours and twenty minutes of my time, so I’ve released a revised edition that you can play in your browser. The source code is also available, if looking at that kind of thing amuses you.

FINISHED. Here are the results.

The winning game, Coloratura, definitely deserves its victory and its .41-point margin over the second-place game. If you haven’t played it yet you have got to get on that.

I am very proud of the second-place game, and I’m immensely grateful to Emily Boegheim for all the hard work and genius she contributed.

I’m also very glad and kind of astonished that my other game got fourth place. If you look at the statistics, Captain Verdeterre beat Tex Bonaventure by only a hundredth of a point, and Tex beat Solarium by the same tiny margin. A very serious and interesting game was edged out by two very goofy games by a very narrow margin. You ought to give Solarium a look is what I’m saying.

With 35 games in the running, one will naturally expect some games that are not that great, but a lot a lot of these games are quality pieces of work that deserve your attention. Go ahead and direct your attention to these games.

I’m planning on releasing the source code from both games I worked on, and I have some words and thoughts about Captain Verdeterre to broadcast, and maybe I could stand to pretty up this page a bit, and now this post has become a checklist purely for my own benefit. This post is OVER.

The 19th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is going on right the heck now. Go look at it. I’ve entered two games:

Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder is about pirates. The cover art above was created by Caitlyn Harris.

Robin & Orchid is about high school newspaper students who are looking for a ghost. I wrote it with Emily Boegheim.

There are a ton of other games as well. You should play as many as you want, and then you should vote in the competition before the voting period ends on November 15.

I’ve got a new text adventure for you! It’s called “Wrenlaw”.

You can play it online here. It’s a pretty tiny game, as IF goes.

I’d love to say more about it but I should probably just let you experience it for yourself!