Hall of Fame 2014: Aftermath

The recent resurrection of the Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award (aka the AIF Hall of Fame) was something of an experiment, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at the results and see what lessons can be learnt from them.

First and foremost, someone who’s put a lot of work into the AIF community, both in terms of making games and in organising community events and generally trying to hold things together received (belated) recognition for their efforts. Purple Dragon richly deserved such an award, so from that point of view the experiment was a success.

The other positive was that using Google Forms for the voting seemed to work well. The only real drawback is that it’s not possible to stop people from voting multiple times, but that’s not something that I would anticipate being much of an issue anyway.

That said, voter turnout was something of a disappointment. I don’t know how many votes previous awards got, but I was hoping to break fifty votes this time around. That didn’t happen, which I think is down to a number of factors. The most obvious is that anyone who’s discovered AIF in the post-Erins era would  not be familiar with the lifetime achievement award. Likewise with the Erins being suspended, the AIF community lost a lot of its continuity and history. I suspect the result of that was that people either weren’t sure who to vote for and thus didn’t vote at all, or they looked at the award more in terms of who’d done the most in 2014. Palmer was the most obvious recipient of this, but he wasn’t the only first-time author to receive votes (Minterlint and Anna Nee Moss were the others, if you’re interested).

So while the number of votes cast was disappointing, I think there’s a case for not only doing this again next year but also adding additional categories (for example Game of the Year, Best New Author, and so on). Obviously, as it’s been five years since the Erins were last held, implementing those awards might be tricky. One way that occurs to me might be to have a separate vote for each year. A secondary question is when should the voting be held? The end of the year makes logical sense, but it’s also a time when a lot of people are on holiday or otherwise engaged and away from their computers.

So what do you think?

Should the Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award be voted on again, in 2015?

Should other categories be added, making a sort of slimmed down Erins? If so, what categories?

And finally, when should the voting be held?

And the winner is...

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to announce that the winner of the Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award for 2014 is Purple Dragon!

Voting was very tight, but PD emerged the winner and enters the AIF Hall of Fame:

"For services to AIF and keeping the community alive."

"Instrumental in keeping the Erins alive for a while and also as a beta tester."

"For running the Minicomp for several years on Yahoo! groups, which I hope continues on in strong form."

"The AIF community was on its arse for a few years between 2009 and 2012. PD desperately held everything together, trying to manufacture content for the newsletter and organise the comps at a time when most people just sat on the forum asking when GoblinBoy was coming back. Finally, he fell on his own sword in a glorious sacrifice that galvanised the whole community into what it has now become. Thanks PD."

Honourable mention to A. Ninny, who pushed PD hard all the way and has to be a favourite for 2015:

"He created games to a high standard, was the foremost tester in the community and ran things like the newsletter. His games were also under-recognized at the time."

"The Sex Artist."

"What didn't A. Ninny do for AIF? His work was mostly behind-the-scenes, but it was significant none-the-less. As a beta-tester, he wasn't one of the best. In my opinion, he was THE best. I do a significant amount of beta-testing for AIF now, and his methodology and reporting style has influenced my own ever since he first tested one of my games. His tenure as editor of the AIF newsletter marked a significant improvement both in the newsletter itself, and in the website behind it. As far as games, he didn't author a bunch of games, but the ones he did were all good. He took on the challenge of writing a sequel to Moist by Scarlett Herring, a daunting task when you consider the esteem in which that game is held by most of the AIF community. While I can't in all honesty say that he surpassed the original, he did an excellent job in following it up. Lastly, if I'm not mistaken, it was his idea to actually host an Erin's awards show (of sort) at the ifMUD. Or, at least he organized it (as it may have been the result of discussion)."

If there had been an award for Best New Author of 2014, Palmer would have been a shoe-in

"Really great game implementing graphics and good story into one. Possibly may become the next GoblinBoy."

"He made a damn good game."

"For his successful attempt at bringing character development to a new level with ESA, while blogging about his experience and listening to and implementing player ideas."

"For his innovative game Emily - Sister Attraction."

"Because great game."

Those three were the clear frontrunners in this year's voting. Clustered behind them were a number of people, including one of the unsung heroes of AIF, Matrix Mole ("Quietly and selflessly providing storage & web hosting to the entire AIF community."). Alongside him, a number of retired authors also received much deserved recognition, including Adam Hendine ("While Adam's been silent for a long time his work was some of the first that got me into AIF and the games are still well-written, witty, and extremely sexy."), One-Eyed Jack ("OEJ is one of 'big names' in AIF history. As the once-prolific author of a classic series (Sam Shooter), he deserves to be honoured alongside past recipients of the award."), Lucilla Frost ("I vote for Lucilla Frost, she changed the way in which female PC's and authors were portrayed and, to the best of my knowledge, no-one has come even close to matching her, for her efforts."), and Vachon ("For his persistence").

Finally, big thank you to everyone who took the time to vote.

Addendum: after thinking it over, I realised it was a bit unfair of me not to repeat all of the comments, so here they are:

ArianeB

"Because it's a shame she doesn't have one yet!"

"The 4 games (Date Ariane, Ariane Blackjack, Something's In the Air, and the 10th anniversary Date Ariane update) are thoughtfully designed and reasonably well implemented.

Date Ariane is identified as 'the original HTML dating game' from which many, many others have drawn inspiration. Ariane Blackjack has not received much press since it was a fairly unimpressive, somewhat banal strip blackjack game. The RenPy effort, Something's in the Air, was quite an opus; good graphics, good stories, high degree of replay value with a bit of 'gotta catch 'em call' hooks built in (it was surprising how much effort everyone put in to find all possible endings and reveal all the character diary text for each of the major characters.)

Also, the sheer amount of effort that went into revamping Date Ariane into the 10th anniversary edition; especially with the effort that went into reinforcing the continuity between the revamp and the Something's in the Air storylines was quite impressive.

While other authors inspired by Ariane, like HTML dating game authors Chaotic and the team of Tlaero and Phreaky, may have produced more games in the same timeframe, the cookie cutter nature of their works pales in comparison to the techniques implemented by Ariane"

Lamont Sanford

"Three solid full length games (well, two) with graphics. Biggest contributor not on the list."

"Pleasantville and RTP are both excellent games with lots of replayability and good graphics."

One-Eyed Jack

"Creating one of the best damn series going"

"Great writing, fantastic humour, and the only one who has made multiple games that I return to that has *not* already won the award."

Sly Old Dog: "For Rachel's Bad Day :D"

And finally, a couple of people who'd already won the lifetime achievement award, but got votes anyway:

BBBen: "Is the last real AIF creator"

GoblinBoy: "School Dreams 3 is an amazing AIF game that raised the bar."

AIF Hall of Fame - Past winners

Just a reminder that voting for the AIF Hall of Fame 2014 will close at 1200 GMT 31 December. Things are still pretty tight, so your vote could be decisive.

Vote here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-TcL4QM8rdwMnkyZPCM5xaQTtnccgWVh0WJ8RJ5okX8/viewform

However, in case you’re not sure what the Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award (to give it its proper name) is all about, I thought it might be worthwhile to review some of the past winners.

2002 – Badman

Back in 1991, Badman wrote an AGT game called X-Trek, which was basically the starting point for AIF as we know it. Consequently, when the first Erins were held in 2002 he was given the award that bears his name.

2003 – Choices

Choices wrote two very well received games, Rogue Cop and Dear Brian (the latter with Christopher Cole). However, his most influential work was probably a series of library extensions for TADS that cemented that system’s popularity with the AIF community.

2004 – NewKid

NewKid was probably the first superstar AIF author. Having started his career with a TNG game (as was the style at the time), he established himself as a top author with Ideal High School, which was the first ‘big’ AIF game to be written in TADS and won an Erin for Best New Age Game in 2002. NewKid would follow that up with Generic New York Apartment, which was the first AIF game to seriously employ multimedia. In 2005 he returned to AIF with Ideal Pacific Coast University, which won five Erins

2005 – Christopher Cole

Christopher Cole is one of AIF’s most prolific authors, best known for romps like Gamma Girls, the Camp Windy Lake series, Mount Voluptuous, and Pool Party (the latter with A.Bomire). He also organised the very first Minicomp, way back in 2003.

2006 – Scarlet Herring

Scarlet Herring only wrote one AIF game (1996’s Moist) but it turned out to be a very important game as it established many elements and mechanics (most notably the arousal system for sex scenes) that would be standard in AIF for years to come.

2006 – A.Bomire

Another prolific author (Tomorrow Never Comes is a personal favourite of mine), and winner of the very first Minicomp. He would organise his own in 2004, and join with Christopher Cole in 2005 to organize the CCAB Comp. On top of that he managed to find time to be a regular contributor to Inside Erin (the AIF newsletter) and do an awful lot of beta-testing.

2007 – BBBen

The iron man of AIF. His first game was The Sleep Over (which would spawn the hugely popular Crossworlds series) way back in 2003, and he’s still going today, releasing Super Pervert Action: Crisis in 2014. Another regular contributor to Inside Erin, he also organised the Erins in 2006, 2007, and 2009.

2009 – GoblinBoy

Undoubtedly the most popular AIF author of all time. He won the Erin for Best New Author in 2006 with a nearly unanimous vote and just got better from there. Probably best known for School Dreams Forever (SD3), which set new standards with its extensive use of graphics and non-linear gameplay.

[Let me know if I missed anything. I was going by ifwiki and my memory, so mistakes are quite possible]

AIF Hall of Fame 2014 - Vote now!

For those who don't know, the Erins (the annual community-voted awards, which haven't been held since 2009 due to lack of games) included a write-in category called the Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award, where people who'd made outstanding contributions to AIF or the community in general could be nominated. The person with the most nominations received the award, which was effectively a Hall of Fame since it could only be won once.

The cessation of the Erins meant that a number of deserving people never got recognised for their hard work, and this is my attempt to rectify that.

Vote here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1-TcL4QM8rdwMnkyZPCM5xaQTtnccgWVh0WJ8RJ5okX8/viewform

The Badman Memorial Lifetime Achievement Award is given to the most influential figure in the AIF community, someone who has helped direct and shape it into what it has become today. This can be anyone, it doesn't have to be an author, and it relates to everything they've done for the community (rather than just what they've done this year).

Previous winners are Badman (2002), Choices (2003), NewKid (2004), Christopher Cole (2005), A. Bomire and Scarlett Herring (2006), BBBen (2007), and GoblinBoy (2009), so they are not eligible for this year's award. As the organiser of this year's voting, ExLibris is also not eligible.

Voting will close at 1200 GMT 31 December 2014. All going well, the results should be announced on New Year's Day here and on the AIFCentral subreddit.

If you want to campaign for someone, feel free to do so in the comments below.