2022 AIF Minicomp

 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:

• Book Retreat by Lost Trout (HTML)
  

It is intended to be a tiny open world sandbox game written in a boardgame-style.

Suggested Minicomp Submission Deadline Approaching

There's two weeks until the suggested minicomp submission deadline of November 1st. Are there any authors working on submissions for the minicomp? Do you need more time? If so, just post a comment in the post, and the submission deadline can be extended as needed.

 Update (10/16/22): The minicomp submission deadline is extended to November 15.

2022 Minicomp Announcement: Minicomp Romp

The AIF minicomp is back! The minicomp is a mini-competition of small adult text-based games. Make a game, submit it to the minicomp, and the AIF community will play them and judge them. 

This year, the minicomp will use a relaxed set of rules:

1. No interactive sex scenes are allowed. Non-interactive sex scenes are allowed in the game, and there are no restrictions on the number or content of these non-interactive sex scenes
   
2. No multimedia or graphics are allowed
3. The game must be winnable (or at least it must have an ending that the player can reach)
4. No playable part of your game can have been previously released to the public before August 25

The purpose of the rules is to make it easier for authors to create games by disallowing complicated interactive sex scenes. During sex scenes, players cannot be presented with any choices over what happens and players cannot be allowed to issue any commands. Before a sex scene starts, players can be given choices about what will happen, but once it begins, players should not be able to influence or interact with the scene until it ends. This restriction means that authors do not need to design any sex mechanics for their games, and they do not need to use any special sex engines or sex frameworks in creating their games. 

Although games with multimedia and graphics are generally not allowed, if your game requires graphical or audio elements as part of its interface, such elements are acceptable.

2020 Minicomp Results

The voting for the AIF Mini-Comp is over and the results have been compiled. There was much less voting this year than the last minicomp three years ago. I'm not sure if there was caused by the unusual voting system or reduced activity in the community. But let's get to the results.

There were five entries to the Mini-Comp this year:

• The View to Her Apartment by stochastic (HTML)
• Going Down by Louys Bilitis (HTML)
• Amy's Predatory Boyfriend by Lost Trout (HTML)
• The General's Daughter by accofake (HTML)
• Amnesia by Eulexia (HTML)

Thank you again to all these authors for making these games for us to play!

According to the votes, the top three games were

1. Going Down by Louys Bilitis
2. Amnesia by Eulexia
3. The General's Daughter by accofake

Congratulations to Louys Bilitis for winning the 2020 AIF Mini-Comp with the entry Going Down!

Here are the rankings in individual categories:

2020 AIF Mini-Comp Games

The games for the 2020 AIF Mini-Comp are now available to play and vote on. We had a good turnout of games this year with five microcomp entries.

• The View to Her Apartment by stochastic (HTML)
• Going Down by Louys Bilitis (HTML)
• Amy's Predatory Boyfriend by Lost Trout (HTML)
• The General's Daughter by accofake (HTML)
• Amnesia by Eulexia (HTML)

The games can be downloaded from the following link:

https://mega.nz/file/wrB2AQ4a#8ucvI9GYeLyjGkD9pn7tBVCjWqAT6fk33u7ElWskyDs

They are also available for download from here. All the games are HTML Twine games. Double-clicking each file will open the game in a web browser where you can play them.

Please rate the games at this voting site:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAnnymTc2kTIJbd34xBNGQwqJZdJCffdRrLbLzbz0gn3R1Ew/viewform?usp=sf_link

Voting will run until the end of September 7. The previous voting system worked well despite its minimalism, so I thought I would go even more minimalist this time. This year, your only choice is to give a game either one or two stars in each category. The meaning of the stars is up to you. You can give all the games two stars except when a game needs a lot of work in an area. You can give all games one star except for those you find one particularly exceptional in some area. You can give two stars to the games you like and one star to the games you don't like. Assign the stars as you see fit.

Feel free to discuss the games openly during the voting period.

If any of the authors want to release an update to their games, please just send them to me, though not everyone will necessarily get the updated versions.

Thank you to the authors for making these games for everyone to enjoy! 

Addendum

• These games are NOT playable in Internet Explorer. Please use a modern browser to play these games
• The game Going Down begins with a blank screen with only the words "Monday". Click on the Monday to proceed
• Update 8/21/2020: Amnesia and the General's Daughter were updated with bugfixes
  

2020 Minicomp Deadline Approaching

This is just a reminder that the minicomp deadline is fast approaching. I know that you're all excited about it. There's no way to hold back that deadline. It's coming, and it's going to be great.

Game entries can be e-mailed to me at losttrout at gmail around August 16th or 17th. I can also be reached on the AIF discord.

Minicomp Deadline Extended

Some participants need a bit more time to polish their entries, so the minicomp deadline has been extended to August 16th.

2020 Minicomp Design Discussion

During the Minicomp, authors are allowed to openly discuss their games. Do you want to get feedback on your game idea? Do you need help shrinking your ideas down to fit the minicomp restrictions? Do you just want to share parts of your game with others?

Feel free to discuss things here in the comments of this post, in the #minicomp channel of the AIF Discord, or elsewhere.

2020 Minicomp Announcement

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Should We Have a Minicomp in 2020?

I've been asking around on the subreddit and Discord to see if there's any interest in a minicomp this year after a hiatus of 2 years. There seems to be some lukewarm interest, so it might be worth going through some additional preparations to see if it generates some additional interest.

Is anyone interested in running the minicomp this year? Does anyone have any ideas or opinions about how the minicomp should be run?

I don't know when the best time for the deadline should be. In the past, it sometimes took place during the summer or sometimes when college was in session. With Coronavirus, everything is in flux. Is it best to have the deadline be earlier when everyone is in lockdown? Or later when some people might be back in college? Of course, the deadline always gets extended by a few weeks anyway.

And what should the rules be? BBBen proposed returning to a more traditional format with restrictive rules: one room and one NPC. I've been toying with the idea of trying a different approach. We always receive complaints from people with expansive game ideas who don't like the restrictions. But we still need to restrict the game sizes, and we've already tried restrictions based on word count, room count, and number of characters. One of the hardest parts of writing an AIF game are the sex scenes, so why not try to restrict those instead? I was thinking of a "minicomp romp" that focuses on story over sex: unlimited rooms, unlimited NPCs, but when a sex scene starts, it must be described in only one paragraph and then the sex scene must end. People are then free to build complicated plots or alternately, a shallow sex romp, but still keep things manageable by having short sex scenes. The lack of restrictions might inhibit creativity though or cause people to start inappropriately large projects. On the Discord, people weren't too enthusiastic about the idea of reduced sex scenes and were more generally in favor of the one room, one NPC format.

Any thoughts on any of these topics? Anyone interested in running the minicomp? Discuss below in the comments or on the Discord.

Should We Cancel the Mini-Comp This Year?

We successfully revived the AIF Mini-Comp last year. Everyone seemed to have fun making and playing the games. I'm not sure if it's a good idea for it to continue though.

Although the AIF Mini-Comp provides a good focal point for the community to get together, it also causes a few problems. It distracts authors from their other projects. It sucks up the community's energy and efforts and concentrates them on one event, leaving authors too drained to make games during the rest of the year. As a community, it's much healthier to have authors releasing games throughout the year so that there are always games to play and talk instead of just having the community go dormant except for once during the year.

Before the Mini-Comp was revived last year, the community wasn't thriving, but there were still occasionally authors releasing games throughout the year, which kept the community going. After last year's Mini-Comp though, I don't remember any completed AIF games being released. There was a heroic effort by Letwri to run two simultaneous Live AIF games, a few projects were announced on the Reddit, and there was an outside jam that some people entered, but there weren't any completed games that people shared or talked about. I'm not sure if this lack of activity was caused specifically by the Mini-Comp, but it sure is a strange coincidence. The months before the Mini-Comp were much more alive while the months after the Mini-Comp had little activity.

Would it be healthier for the community if we let the AIF Mini-Comp drift away again? What do you think?

2017 AIF Mini-Comp Results

After a hiatus of two years, the AIF Mini-Comp returned this year with a lot of excitement. Not only was there a good turnout of games, there was also lots of user discussions both before and during the Mini-Comp.

There were six entries to the Mini-Comp this year:

• Control by Nicholas Wright (TADS3)
• Seduce Code by Octarine Flash (ADRIFT)
• Sex on the Beach by Hanon Ondricek (HTML-AXMA)
• Entrancing Fling by Lost Trout (HTML-Inky)
• Evil on Queen Street by ArdRi Games (ADRIFT, HTML-Twine)
• The Swap by Broken Knight (TADS3) 

Thank you to all of the authors for providing us with so many creative and enjoyable games to play this year! 

After tabulating all the votes, I found that the results were very close for the top spot. In the end though, the top three finishers were:

1. Sex on the Beach by Hanon Ondricek
2. The Swap by Broken Knight
3. Control by Nicholas Wright

Congratulations to Hanon Ondricek for winning the 2017 AIF Mini-Comp with the entry Sex on the Beach!

AIF Mini-Comp 2017 Games are Here

The games for the 2017 AIF Mini-Comp are now available to play and vote on. We had a good turnout of games this year with six entries. 

• Control by Nicholas Wright (TADS3)
• Seduce Code by Octarine Flash (ADRIFT)
• Sex on the Beach by Hanon Ondricek (HTML)
• Entrancing Fling by Lost Trout (HTML)
• Evil on Queen Street by ArdRi Games (ADRIFT)
• The Swap by Broken Knight (TADS3) 

The games can be downloaded from the following link:

https://mega.nz/#!h7wUkbAa!8752MR1if9i69lmiH_q0asCrdvzsYHBqExUVwAqXzEw
Update 9/10 (new Twine version of Evil on Queen Street added):
https://mega.nz/#!5rpVUZKZ!u9uHIRPpN6ZboaKEtp6lJvGBXkomEDzTPIy4-KdG1Oc

Update 9/12 (new SugarCube version of Entrancing Fling added):
https://mega.nz/#!Yn5kWKpQ!Ae9sqFesjZ-FGH98py-1z7hqq6_nOFIyCv_7SbLABd4

They are also available for download from here. More information on how to play the games can be found on the AIF FAQ.

Please rate the games at this voting site:

https://goo.gl/forms/REK2ohIxpa3ntEK32

Voting will run until the end of September 24.

Feel free to discuss the games openly during the voting period.

If any of the authors want to release an update to their games, please just send them to me, though not everyone will necessarily get the updated versions.

Thank you to the authors for making these games for everyone to enjoy!

Choosing a Voting System for the Mini-Comp 2017

Now that the games for the Mini-Comp have arrived, I have to choose a voting system. The most straight-forward approach would be to use a ranking system where players vote for their preferred game or choose their favorites.

I've decided to go with a rating scheme where players actually rate the games in each of the six categories. I think this provides more useful information to game makers because they can find out which areas their game is strong in and which areas their game is weak in. A rating scheme is also more fair to games that some people can't play. If a game doesn't work on a Mac system, then Mac players will never vote it as their favorite game. With a rating system, it's still possible to use ratings from other players to compare the games with each other.

It's Submission Time for the 2017 AIF Mini-Comp

It's the end of August, so it's time to put down your pencils and start submitting your games to the AIF Mini-Comp. Just send your game to me some time over the next couple of days. The deadline was always somewhat arbitrary, so I'll still accept your entries even if they arrive after August.

Send them to me by e-mail at losttrout AT gmail DOT com.

In the interest of avoiding viruses, it is preferred if you send game interpreter files or HTML files instead of binary executable files.

I'll start up your game to find the game's title and author, but if you want that information to be listed differently from what's there, please let me know that too.

As of September 1st, I have received the following games:

• Control by Nicholas Wright
• Seduce Code by Octarine Flash
• Sex on the Beach by Hanon Ondricek
• Entrancing Fling by Lost Trout 
• Evil on Queen Street by ArdRi Games
• game by Broken Knight (delayed until after Labor Day)

I'll try to have the games released early next week.

2017 AIF Minicomp: Two More Weeks

This is just a reminder that there are two more weeks before the AIF minicomp deadline.

2017 AIF Minicomp Deadline Extended

The deadline for submissions to the mini-comp has now been extended to the end of August.

2017 Mini-Comp Reminder

This is just a reminder that the deadline for the mini-comp is coming up! There's only one month until the end of July. At least one person has made enough progress on their game that they are looking for playtesters.

One month is usually enough time to create a small game. But when we get closer to the end of July, the deadline can be extended if authors think they could use some extra time.

2017 Mini-comp Announcement

The AIF community is having a mini-competition of small adult games. The Mini-comp is intended to inspire authors to write small, simple games for community to enjoy. The rules of the Mini-comp are designed to limit the scope and sizes of the games to make it easier for both new authors and experienced authors to finish their games.

Here are the rules of the 2017 Mini-comp (they are somewhat modified from the previous 2014 Mini-comp):

• To limit the sizes of games, the more interactive characters that your game has, the fewer rooms it can have.
• If your game has 4 interactive characters, including the player-character(s), your game can have up to 2 rooms
• If your game has 3 interactive characters, including the player-character(s), your game can have up to 4 rooms
• If your game has 2 interactive characters, including the player-character(s), your game can have up to 8 rooms
• If your game has only one interactive character (the player-character), your game can have up to 16 rooms 
• In some cases, the room limitations are quite generous. Do not feel obligated for your game to have the maximum number of rooms allowed
• No playable part of your game can have been released to the public before the deadline. You are free to discuss the game publicly before the deadline. As a convenience, you can do so at this design discussion blog post, or feel free to do so elsewhere.
• Multimedia is permitted (images and sounds), but try to keep the size of the game small so that it is easy to e-mail and download
• Your game must be winnable (or at least it must have an ending the the player can reach)

2017 Mini-comp: Design Discussion

During the Minicomp 2017, authors are allowed to openly discuss their games at all times as long as they do not release any playable parts of their games before the deadline.

Do you want to get feedback on your game idea? Do you need help shrinking your ideas down to fit the minicomp restrictions? Do you just want to discuss your design with others?

Feel free to discuss things either here in the comments of this post or elsewhere.

If you are posting a comment anonymously, it is useful if you tag the comment with a nickname so that other people know who it is