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ParserComp 2023 - Implementation Ideas Sticky

A topic by fos1 created Aug 14, 2022 Views: 228 Replies: 3
Viewing posts 1 to 3
Host (2 edits) (+1)

It is time to consider ParserComp 2023 implementation ideas and changes. 

New Permanent Discord Server Invite Link

Sample discussion ideas:

  • Preface: I would prefer for every game to win. I personally find merit in every game I play. I am generally amazed by each author’s creativity.
    • ParserComp is a discriminatory rather than a mastery type of comp.
    • Every game is a winner, but the scores and ranking provide feedback to the authors that is more valuable than just being a winner. An author’s next gave can be better and a winner.
  • Main (85%) vs. Supplemental (15%)
    • ParserComp is intended to showcase “text based” parser games. We wanted to include some recognition for games that had added, supplemental content but that was not the focus. This led to the weighting criteria.
    • Next year we will re-address this issue.
    • Some games were not “text based” parser games. This is an amateur “comp” for learning and enjoyment, these games were allowed to remain. This is another issue that will be addressed for next year’s comp.
  • Itch.io only provides normalized overall score and raw score totals for each game.
    • Itch does not consider weighting at all.
    • Itch does not provide any details on raw scoring, just a number.
  • Initially, Itch rating was borked and not working at all.
    • No support from Itch.io
    • Hacking and hoop jumping required to fix.
  • Some difference with weighting particularly with the top two games. The place was reversed, 1:2.
    • Only fair to score with weighting due to announced rules prior to comp.
    • Weighting was performed per game. Best pragmatic solution.
      • A lot of number crunching
      • Spot verified, values correct to three decimal places
      • A more mathematically intense calculation would not have produced significantly different results. Next time I may use Mathmatica and consider the Fine Structure Constant. ?
    • Provided trophy to second place as compensation.
  • We intend to take ParserComp off Itch.io next year. We intend to have a dedicated site with better rating and ranking system. We have nine months to complete the new site.
  • The overall rank was determined by weighted calculation. The individual categories were just the normalized data from Itch.io. This may be the reason for some of the calculation discrepancies. However, other than the overall ranking, it is for informational purposes to provide well deserved accolades to the individual authors.
Host (2 edits)

New Permanent Discord Server Invite Link

(+1)

I agree with most of what you wrote and I think that ParserComp 2022 was close to perfect. Actually so much, that I think it would be a shame to take ParserComp away from itch.io as it is a great place to share interactive fiction where people from other game genres might (re)discover interactive fiction/text adventures. Of course, if you think itch.io is too unreliable I understand, but if you learned something so you can avoid the technical problems next year, it might be worth considering Itch again?

I think it is perfectly fine that you avoid the (in my opinion unfair)  default score calculation on itch and I don't think it is a problem that it takes a few days before the results are shown. Perhaps you could just alter the top of the main page by adding a single line like: "The ratings are being processed, come back in a few days to see the results." or something like that but that was not a big issue.

To sum up: If you just avoid the technical glitches with ratings we had this year, I think you already have a great competition. And as the problems got fixed, it wasn't a big problem anyway.

Host

Hi Kenped,

A very good idea. We have already had some input from others that like Itch.io. We will definitely consider hosting it here again next year.

Thank you, Jeff