Christine's 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition Ratings


The following is a list of my ratings for the 1998 Interactive Fiction Competition. When judging the games, I saw neither ratings nor reviews of any of the games, even refraining from participating in any conversation in the rec.games.int-fiction community pertaining to game bugs, etc. encountered. The ratings posted here reflect my opinions only. While I do welcome questions or comments from authors, I hope they will understand that I attempted to rate each game as fairly as possible, using criteria such as those listed below.

When I have had a chance to write brief reviews of the games I have played, they will linked to here and posted on the rec.games.int-fiction newsgroup.

- Christine Simoes Tilden
November 14, 1998


As with the 1997 IF Competition, I rated each game based on several factors, including but not necessarily limited to:

1) how much fun the game was;

2) how playable it was (I may have taken a point or more away from games with extremely hard puzzles, esp. when no walkthrough or hint system was available, or if the game was winnable only by excessive use of these method. In addition, games with bad bugs and similar problems of course lost points);

3) how well written the game was (this includes writing style, as well as spelling and grammatical errors);

4) cleverness and originality of plot and characters;

5) how smoothly the game ran... I liked how smoothly a game ran if the author showed forsight of the possible range of my actions in the game, making me almost forget I was playing a game (some call this achieving "mimesis")

The ratings are listed in the order in which I played them. I used the comp98.z5 system with one exception. On the final day of competition (11/14), my frustration with the many grammar errors in the beginning of one entry decided me to delay playing that game for a little longer in the hopes of getting a few more games rated before the deadline. I was able to rate one more game, and never did get to return to the other.

Note: For the final placings, click here. For more information, please see The 4th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition's Website. I expect the results will remain posted there for some time.

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RATINGS

ORDER PLAYED	TITLE	AUTHOR	RATING	IMPORTANT NOTES
1	Spacestation	David Ledgard	1	I was unable to play much of this game due to a bug.
2	Trapped in a One-Room Dilly	Laura A. Knauth	8
3	The Plant	Michael J. Roberts	7
4	Four in One	J. Robinson Wheeler	6
5	Mother Loose	Irene Callaci	8
6	Fifteen	Ricardo Dague	2
7	Acid Whiplash, a.k.a. Rybread Celsius Can't Find a Dictionary	Anonymous, a.k.a. Rybread Celsious and Cody Sandifer	4
8	Research Dig	Chris Armitage	5	I was unable to get very far in this game, even in the full alloted time of two hours. I do not know if the cause is a program bug or the limitations of my brain.
9	Little Blue Men	Michael S. Gentry	6
10	Where Evil Dwells: The Adventure of the Gibbering Horror	Creative Differences Production (Steve Owens and Paul Johnson)	7
11	Muse: An Autumn Romance	Christopher Huang	9
12	Downtown Tokyo. Present Day.	Digby McWiggle, a.k.a. John Kean	7
13	Enlightenment	Taro Ogawa	9
14	The City	Sam Barlow	6
15	Cattus Atrox	David A. Cornelson	4

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This page was created November 14, 1998. It was last updated November 9, 2000.

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