Entries in Event Three of the Second Quadrennial Ryan Veeder Exposition for Good Interactive Fiction were written over the course of three months. There were no constraints upon the content or format of Entries in Event Three.
Ben Poisonor was given special permission to submit a revised version of his Event One entry to Event Three because the Judge of the Exposition thought that Ben might have misunderstood the rules.
I am pleased with the Entries in Event Three. But there is a problem.
The three Entries in Event Three are very similar. They have basically the same scope, roughly the same level of polish, and essentially the same structure: They are all very linear parser games in sort of a Peter Pan's Flight mode where you go through each scene in order and then you're done. Each game builds on this basic structure in a unique way, prioritizing a particular element that the other games basically ignore. Comparing the games against each other is like ranking Rock, Paper, and Scissors.
The rules of my Exposition forbid a three-way tie, and so I am forced to compare these games to games that are not Entries in Event Three. If my judgments seem harsh, the reader will understand that I am motivated by a sense of aesthetic justice. The reader will also understand that the Judge is his own governing body and is not obliged to explain himself to anyone.