IFComp part 3 and results

Violet won! I started playing the other entries thinking it would be hard to beat and at the end I still didn't think anything else was even close. I'm glad the voters largely agreed with me that it was awesome. The few detractors criticised it by saying it was too whimsical, similar to Garden State, but that's a compliment in my opinion. Congratulations, Jeremy! Remember, you can play it here.

I did actually play almost all of the games (there were a couple I couldn't get open), but I didn't end up voting on all of them. The last few that I didn't write reviews for missed out because I didn't play enough to feel I'd given it a fair chance and then just wasn't interested enough to go back to in time for the deadline. I might at least follow the walkthrough of Nightfall, which got second place, since it was obviously a good game, even if the story didn't really grab my interest. My last few reviews are below.

Nerd Quest (3)
I could only play this game via the web interface, which is kind of annoying. I'm not sure if I should count that as a design flaw, though. It's a pain that it doesn't recognise "X" or even "EXAMINE". Well, that was short, although I did cheat and use the walkthrough. There should really be a separate competition for people who just want to make a new IF program.

The Lucubrator (5)
It works pretty well, but I wasn't sure what my objective was so I ended up following the walkthrough mostly. I tried figuring parts out on my own, but apparently my actions, while similar, weren't exactly the right sequence to win, which was annoying. There was too much waiting around for text dumps and I just wasn't engaged. It would help to have more description of the player character's thoughts and motivations.

Escape from the Underworld (6)
I like that there's a clear description of what I'm supposed to be doing and why, although it would be even better to have it be part of the story. Yay for implemented scenery! Ooh, and it understood when I mistyped "receptionist". I still didn't solve the problems without the walkthrough, and I think I somehow got the game into an unwinnable state, but I quite liked it.