The results are in and it's a good year for period drama, with "An Act of Murder" (an excellent recreation of an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery) and "Lord Bellwater's Secret" (a tale of blackmail in the 1860s) coming 2nd and 3rd respectively. But the well-deserved winner was "Lost Pig", a fairly straightforward puzzle-solving game distinguished by excellent use of language: the player is Grunk, a not-so-bright orc, and everything in the game world is filtered through Grunk's very limited understanding of it and described in pidgin English. Even without the game elements, it's a masterclass in bringing a character to life through their choice of words.
Other highlights lower down the rankings are "The Chinese Room" (5th; a series of puzzles based around philosophical thought experiments: avoid getting gored by the Invisible Pink Unicorn while teaching Thomas Nagel what it's like to be a bat; fortunately it's funny as well as witty), "Varkana" (6th; SF, political intrigue, and some very good writing), "A Fine Day For Reaping" (7th; play a version of Death that will seem familiar to fans of Terry Pratchett) and "Deadline Enchanter" (12th; I imagine this lost votes for its extreme railroading and the hectoring, peevish tone of the narrator -- personally I thought the character of the narrator was as well-realized as Grunk).
Overall, I thought the quality was really good this year. There were fewer really weak entries, the more puzzle-based games had interesting puzzles, the story-inclined games told good stories, and most authors had made real efforts to avoid the two endemic frustrations of text adventures (not having a clue what to do, and knowing what to do but being unable to guess the right verb to get the game to do it). There were several games that I abandoned with real regret when I reached the 2-hour time limit for judging, and I'm looking forward to going back and finishing them.
If you haven't played one in years, any of this year's top 7 outshine anything from the 80s heyday of text adventures. I recommend heading to the
IF Comp 2007 download page and trying some out. And if you've never played one, that would be a good place to start.
