Unfortunately, no entries were submitted to the minicomp this year.
I did create a game for the minicomp myself, but it is not possible to run a competition with only a single game, so there will be no voting this year. I will make this game available to play here:
It is intended to be a tiny open world sandbox game written in a boardgame-style.
I am sad that there were no other entries this year. In the past, up to two decades ago (2003 is the earliest I remember), the minicomps were a great way of driving player interest and getting game authors to put down their main projects and create a side project for the minicomp, and get new or past authors to pick it up again. With the rules of the minicomps, it became a step easier for many authors, since they were limited to only one NPC, or one sex scene, or (as this year's, only non-interactive scenes) . Further, these limits sometimes gave authors a new idea, such as a first-date (one NPC), a "whodunit" (one sex scene), or maybe a game about a filmographer who is making his first porn movie (non-interactive).
ReplyDeleteIn the past, the minicomps mostly stood on their own. I wonder if it might make sense to try to invite other communities, such as F95, or at least see if they would allow a thread on their forums. When the minicomp first started, I think the Yahoo! group was the only well-known forum for AIF (adult interactive fiction), or maybe there was a Usenet group as well, but I know the Yahoo! group stood out as a great place for players to find new games and for authors to find people to play their games.
Now, I am not sure how many people hit this blogspot site, but it might be time to consider some way to drive some of the traffic that hits other sites this direction.
I am not sure, I have never been especially active in the AIF community (except as a player and occasional beta tester), and I really do not know anything about engagement, retention, SEO, or any of that stuff. I just feel like, as AIF grew from "Emy Discovers Life" (and before) to what it is today, there still ought to be a large community of people who are looking for what this community provides.
On a side note, massive thanks to Lost Trout for keeping it going here!
Thank you for your support. The AIF community now mostly lives on the AIF Discord. I have to admit that it's mostly quiet there, and many people have not signed up for that service. The community itself is still undecided whether it wants to be its own community or join the larger Patreon VN community that now dominates erotic story games.
DeleteHey Trout, sorry I missed it. I haven't checked up here for a while, and in all honesty I had thought it was abandoned for Reddit. I don't check there as much as I should either. Maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, but I never cared for its layout and trying to grab useful information from it. Seems to be mostly fishing for patreons.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, as the other anon said, definitely appreciate you keeping on keeping on. I did get to play your game briefly. It was an interesting way of doing things, for sure. Reminds me of those old flash games where you did things for money/stats and dated the girls.
I did notice a couple things. Firstly, on the first screen it says "You have [undefined] days to write a manuscript.". Not sure if undefined was something about browser privacy settings or just a mistake.
The other I'm not sure if it is just how the game was meant to be as it was a small mini comp, or not. But I did note you could do the beach suntan for an easy +5 points / day and repeat it endlessly. Obviously a boring way of doing things and you miss out on all the other juicy scenes that way, but just wasn't sure if it was a way to let the player gain points easier or not.
Enough rambling from me. Thanks for the effort you put forth for the community and thanks for the game! Very much appreciated!
The AIF Central blog is mostly abandoned. I just use it to post minicomp information because the blog is more long-lasting and easier to preserve than stuff on the Reddit and Discord.
DeleteGood catch on the bugs. I was rushing a lot at the end and didn't script those parts properly.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI know our two communities don't always have a ton to do with each other, but I wanted to reach out a little olive branch if anyone is interested.
We just opened a new Comp called SeedComp! It's a 2-round interactive fiction game jam, focusing on creativity and the growth of ideas.
SeedComp! is separated into 2 distinct rounds: Planting and Sprouting.
During the Planting (heh) Round, you are invited to submit ‘seeds’ into the competition (text, images, code, etc…). In the Sprouting Round, you get to select one or more seeds and use them as inspiration for your interactive fiction entry for fun, awards, bragging rights, you get the idea.
Anyway, we have no restrictions on adult content. We only ask for content warnings so folks from a diverse community can choose which content they want to engage with.
Since participating is as low-threshold as submitting a drawing or a short draft of an idea, it might be easier to commit to instead of creating a whole game. If any of the seeds speak to you, you can always choose to join round 2 later, and write your own game, IF or AIF, based on those seeds.
The invitation is genuine (I'm one of the organizers), so I hope some of you sincerely consider joining us.
More details at SeedComp.org if anyone is interested.
With love from your IF brethren,
-Pinkunz