Category: parser

IF Competition Discussion: Act of Murder

For the first time since I can remember, the annual IF Comp has relaxed the rules that prohibit judges from discussing games during the competition period. That being the case, I will post some of my reactions here as I go along, but I will try to protect the innocent by hiding all substantive comment, including whether I liked or did not like the piece, behind a *more* tag.

I’ve also settled on a (possibly awkward — we’ll see) two-part format for this. The first part will be a description of the game in a non-spoilery mode, the kind of thing you write for people who are deciding whether to play; then there will be spoiler space; then there will be comments intended for people who already have played. The post-space bits will be more like my usual comp game reports — some stuff about my play experience, together with gripes, spoilers, etc., but above all, specificity.

Okay. First up: Act of Murder, by “Hugh Dunnett”.

Continue reading “IF Competition Discussion: Act of Murder”

Tiny new extension

Have added a “Mood Variations” extension to let authors mark up text to have varying effects depending on the mood of the person currently spoken to. It’s meant to be compatible with several approaches to conversation (and uses the same “current interlocutor” variable as Eric Eve’s conversation extensions). The “[set {mood}]” token then also lets you set the NPC’s current mood in the middle of other text.

Not a huge deal, really.