The First Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction is over. Its results were announced on 14 March 2016 in the following video:



Most of the Entries were released afterward by their authors, and these were catalogued at the Interactive Fiction Database here. Although the Entries were ostensibly designed to please only me, you may manage to find some stimulation in playing them yourself.

Below you may find my explanation of the Exposition and its rules as originally presented to Entrants in November of 2015. At some point in 2019, I will announce the Second Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive fiction; I cannot tell you what you should do until then.





My name is Ryan Veeder. Thank you for your interest in my Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction. Watch the informative video below to hear me introduce the Exposition to you, or scroll down to learn about the Exposition by reading.



Mission ❧ Rules ❧ Schedule ❧ Judging ❧ Prizes ❧ Disclaimer

My Mission

The Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction is a quadrennial event showcasing interactive fiction written for the specific purpose of pleasing me. It is my heartfelt wish that this Exposition will improve my own quality of life by encouraging the interactive fiction community to entertain me.

The Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction, like the Spring Thing and IFComp, is a judged exhibition of original text-based games. However, mine is the only such event to be judged by a single person (me).

Anyone who wishes to gratify me may submit a game, and I have generously donated many exquisite prizes that will encourage you to do so. However, in order for me to judge each game fairly, the anonymity of every game's author must be preserved at all costs. This principle is central to many of the Exposition's rules, which you will read below.

Exposition Rules

1. Ryan Veeder is the Judge.

2. No person who is an Entrant to the Exposition shall attempt to engage the Judge in any form of communication having anything whatsoever to do with the Exposition, on pain of forfeit.

Any communication dealing with the Exposition might allow the Judge to infer that the communicator is an Entrant, compromising the anonymity of the Exposition.

3. No person who is not an Entrant to the Exposition shall attempt to engage the Judge in any form of communication having anything whatsoever to do with the Exposition, on pain of forfeit.

Even communication of the form "I am incredibly sorry, Ryan, but I am unable to participate in your Exposition due to a family emergency" can convey information that might lead the Judge to make unintentional inferences as to the identities of Entrants, compromising the anonymity of the Exposition.

4. Public discussion of the Exposition by Entrants and Non-Entrants during the Exposition shall be conducted in a mindful manner, on pain of forfeit.

In order to avoid compromising the anonymity of the Exposition, the Judge will charitably abstain from reading your blog. For safety's sake, however, it is asked that you preface any public communication containing information capable of compromising the anonymity of the Exposition with such a disclaimer as will allow the Judge to avert his eyes if necessary.

The Exposition can be freely discussed on Twitter, provided each Tweet pertaining to the Exposition includes the hashtag "#rvexpo," which the Judge has already blocked on all his Twitter clients.

5. All communication between Entrants or Non-Entrants and the governing body of the Exposition shall be facilitated by the Stewards of the Exposition, on pain of forfeit.

The Judge has appointed two Stewards, Emily Boegheim and Jenni Polodna, to receive and respond to all communication from any interested parties. The Stewards will relay information and questions to the Judge as they deem necessary, taking care in every case to preserve the anonymity of the Exposition.

The Stewards may be contacted at any time via email at jennipolodnaandemily@boeghe.im.

6. The content of an Entry shall not contain any indication of the identity of any Entrant, on pain of forfeit.

If, in the course of evaluating an Entry, the Judge is able to discern the identity of that Entry's author or of the author of another Entry, the anonymity of the Exposition will be compromised. For this reason, each submitted Entry will be vetted by one or more Stewards before being passed along to the Judge.

Besides not putting your own name anywhere in your Entry, you should be careful not to credit any of your beta-testers by name.

7. Each Entrant shall submit exactly one Entry, on pain of forfeit.

8. All Entries shall be previously unreleased at the opening of judging, on pain of forfeit.

By "unreleased", I mean that a qualifying Entry has never been distributed, sold, or made available for public play or download prior to the Exposition.

This rule does not prevent an Entrant from having an Entry tested by a few beta-testers, as long as the Entrant knows who each of those beta-testers are. If the Entrant has placed a version of an Entry on the web, then the link to to play or download the Entry cannot have been publicly handed out.

This rule has been adapted from IFComp Author Rule #3 without permission.

9. The Judge reserves the right to disqualify from the Exposition any Entrant or Non-Entrant who knowingly or unknowingly violates any of these rules.

That is what "on pain of forfeit" means.

Exposition Schedule

23 November, 2015: The Exposition is announced.

18 January, 2016: Intent to Enter must be submitted to the Stewards on or before this date.

28 February: Entries must be submitted to the Stewards on or before this date.

29 February: The Stewards submit the Entries to the Judge. The Judging Period begins.

14 March: The Judging Period ends. The identities of the Entrants are unveiled, and the distribution of Prizes may begin.

Judging Protocol

The Judge will score each Entry on a 100-point scale, assessing the Entry on three metrics:

How Good It Is: This metric represents the Judge's objective opinion of the Entry's inherent quality.

How Fun It Is: This metric represents the Judge's subjective experience of the Entry, specifically in terms of the Entry being fun or not.

How Much I Like It: This metric combines aspects of the other two scoring scales, but also unique qualities of its own.

An Entry can earn a maximum of 33 points on each metric. Each Entry's score will be calculated on a rubric like this one.

Among the qualities the Judge values in IF are earnestness, optimism, enthusiasm, and a distinctive personality. Be careful that your Entry's personality is not too distinctive, though, or you run the risk of compromising the anonymity of the Exposition.

Prizes

The Entrant that earns the highest score will receive 1st Prize. The Entrant that receives the second-highest score will receive 2nd Prize, and so on. There will be no ties.

1st Prize: $150 (USD) and first choice from the Plush Doll Pool

2nd Prize: $100 (USD) and second choice from the Plush Doll Pool

3rd Prize: $50 (USD) and third choice from the Plush Doll Pool

4th through nth Prize: fourth through nth choice from the Plush Doll Pool

The Plush Doll Pool is a collection of dolls created especially for the Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction, containing a number of adorable and squishable felt dolls equal to the number of Entrants.

Check out all the dolls here.

Cash prizes will be distributed by check or PayPal at the Entrant's discretion.

Disclaimer

I am being absolutely serious.