I've just downloaded all the games and run them to make sure they work. Based on what I've seen in the first few screens, there's a few that aren't parser games at all. Will these be disqualified?
Yours was the first one I played, and now I don't get to rate it! I'll just give you a few comments instead: I found the mechanism really fun, and it made me want to read the original story. Have you played Blackbar, by Neven Mrgan? It has a similar mechanism and grim futuristic vibe. I think you'd find it very interesting.
Best of luck to you!
Hello Dorian
Sorry we had to disqualify your game! I did play it, and it is lovely, but it's not a parser game according to our criteria (it does have to be text commands controlling some sort of word model, and yours is something different).
I hope folks still go and play it - it's worth their time. I reckon it, or something like it, would do well in another text game competition that accepts other sorts of entries (like choice-based games, etc). There are a few about.
Thanks for sharing this Dorian.
I have to confess that most of this is far over my head, as I'm not remotely a software engineer or anything of the sort. What I do pick up is that this is doing some clever linguistic processing stuff under the hood, but the implementation of it in your game looks, on the face of it, not anything like everyman's idea of a parser game. It seems to us (organisers) that your game falls outside the boundaries of what we'd accept in this necessarily restrictive competition (for a particular type of text game) but would definitely fly in another text game competition with more inclusive criteria (the upcoming IF Comp would be an obvious place to put a game like this). So we hope to see more of your work - and, hopefully, all of this discussion will have made people sufficiently curious to go and have a look at Cost of Living!
I played the game and I definitelly recognized ELIZA's influence. In some responses more than in others, but it's there.
There is an interesting discussion about differences and similarities between parser IF and chatbots in Jeremy Douglass' disertation "Command Lines: Aesthetics and Technique in Interactive Fiction and New Media". It's from 2007. Interestingly, Jeremy also proposed a term 'command line literature' that might include parser IF, MUDs, chatbots and 'other command line textual systems'.
There is a misunderstanding about Robin Johnson's entry in ParserComp 2021. He entered the game "Gruesome" (probably made with GrueScript?). However, in that game the parser was not disabled. I would say it was a traditional parser game with a twist (the twist was about dark/light locations). You can play the game to see that the game is a parser game though you first have to push the start-button.
You can see all 2021 entries here: Submissions to ParserComp 2021 - itch.io
No need to be sorry about that. Last year another one organised the competition (partly?) so it may depend on the organiser where he/she draws the line.
We must remember that ParserComp was made to have a more specialised competition than IFComp. If we don't do something to control this, the ParserComp ends up being just another general IF competition. And IFComp and Spring Thing would gladly have accepted your game - it is clearly IF but (as I understand) not parser-IF though I haven't played your game yet so I wouldn't know.
If this can be of any help, other comps like the Spanish "Rayuela de Arena" for narrative games, has an special section for that kind of situations, like games that didn't arrive on time and are out of the competition, but stating that all the effort put buy their creators on that game was for the event.
I see this as a way to express that a Game Jam is not only a competition, but a place to share with people with similar interests.
PS: "Cost of Living" opens a new path in creating parser games. I can ensure you.
Well, I was only saying that this Spanish Jam has an alternative out of competition section named something poetic like "Garden of the forking paths".
But that stuff of translation sounds to me as a defiance! Sir, choose weapon and place and I will see you there tomorrow at dawn! >: - [
About the "article" you are preparing, I recomend you to post it at infiction.org forums, as with time this jam forum will be forgotten, and that seems a good place to talk about it with many people with solid knowdlege and cool ideas ^.^
mmmm... perhaps you are refering to "Rayuela", a 1963 book from the also Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar (another great great one, hey, man, what's the heck with you Argentinians! :D ), that gives name to that Spanish videogames Jam I was talking about, having this two great authors as a leitmotiv.
And in the sake of truth, I have read about some medieval non linear books or that required "dice rolls". I will search the info, because I don't remember very well, really ^.^
@AZ: "Garden of the forking paths" is actually a great name for an out of competition category. Can we steal it?
I'm not the organizer of that "Rayuela de Arena Jam". There are two guys, one of them "Ruber Eaglenest" with profile at infiction.org, if you want to ask.
I suppose there will be not problem as I see this as a way of brotherhood between communities, and in fact the name comes from a book ("El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan")of the great (great, great) Argentinian writer Borges (Jorge Luis Borges), that wrote amazing short stories related with dreams, labyrinths, mirrors, or libraries (having been himself a librarian).
I have also soul of bandit, so mainly everything in the line of steal seems a bit right... ¬.¬
Glad to see thad Dorian's work is back, even if it's at the crossroads! : D
I managed to solve it last night by using the point 'n' click technique and a lot of help from the hints on intfiction.org. Now that I know the solution, I'll go back and try to work out the keyboard commands. To be quite honest, I don't think it will be possible to solve it with keyboard only, as it does not use a traditional parser. It seems to be very selective and won't even accept a command when you press Enter, unless it happens to be the exact command that it wants.
It looks like the game Lantern has been removed. Not just that, also Sylfir's TALP jam game "Raspberry Jam". That's a shame as I liked "Raspberry Jam" even though it placed last in the TALP Jam. I think it was because people were trying to play it by typing (TALP jam games must also have a parser) and the parser wasn't very good. However, if you clicked your way through the game, it was a very smooth game. I haven't played "lantern" but I can imagine it is similar. If the parser is improved (not a requirement) it should do well.
EDIT: I modified my last sentence as a game might do well even if it requires some clicking. Anyway, my sentence was about doing well in the competition rather than being qualified.
It might be an interesting academic question, though I am not much into such things. With respect to what should be accepted for ParserComp, I don't think it should be based on some definition of e.g. "dynamically derivative" but rather expectations boiled down to something easily understandable, though there would always be grey areas. My opinion (might need tweaking): "Games accepted for ParserComp should be games where you type commands to someone or something throughout the game." This should cover any genre (sci-fi, Fantasy, rpg etc) and original mechanics (the character might misbehave, don't understand, or commands must be in a fictive language etc etc). So the player must try to command someone/something through typing most of the time. For instance, games which do not fulfil that could be moved to a sister-competition with links at the top of the ParserComp page, similar to the Back Garden of Spring Thing.
I'm sorry to see that Lantern has been withdrawn from the competition. It's unfortunate that there's no way of DMing people on itch.io, otherwise I'd follow up with the author.
I hope Sylfir has a change of heart and puts the game back up. I know there were several people looking forward to playing it.
I think the organiser meant something else but if the rules were not clear at the beginning then the author in question should be allowed to continue in the competition (I am not thinking of a specific game here). If we take the rule literally (as would be the normal thing to do) then games where "you can traverse the game purely by clicking" will be disqualified. Taken literally, this doesn't make sense. If the game can be completed purely by typing, it is not becoming less of a parser game just because you can also"traverse the game purely by clicking". I think the thought behind this was that it must be possible to play through the game purely by typing (not considering obvious "press any key to continue" or "press button to start") or perhaps the organiser just meant most of the time(?). If a rule was not written as intended, a game breaking such an intended rule should be allowed to stay in the competition.
The above is about disqualification in general. Regarding "Lantern", we don't know why Sylfir decided to remove all his/her games, there can be many reasons for that. But it would be interesting to know why.