------------------------------------------------------------------------ IF Art Show 2003 Rule Changes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rules are almost the same as the IF Art Show 2001 Rules, with these exceptions: 1. A new category has been added -- the event category. 2. A foreign-language piece translated into English will be considered a new piece as far as English-speaking judges are concerned. Any judge who also speaks the original language and has seen the piece before, shall not vote on it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IF Art Show 2003 Rules ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IF Art Show 2003 (Juried) (or How to Build a Better Mouse Trap) > You have entered a hushed art gallery with pale walls and subdued lighting, except for bright spotlights aimed at pictures and various pedestals around the room. At first the raised displays look like ordinary sculpture, until you notice the intriguing "Flash Gordon" ray gun in the center. As you glimpse flashing lights and hear rustling, you discover even more unusual forms: a Cubist futuristic booth and what appears to be an outdoor setting, complete with storm clouds rolling over wind-tossed trees. But it is only when you spot the burly man in the flannel shirt chopping wood that you fully realize that this is sculpture unlike any you have imagined before. These 3-dimensional displays are IF sculptures, modeled with text. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PURPOSE: To explore the I in IF, the Interactivity of Interactive-Fiction (without the obscuring framework of too much structure). To run one's hands over an "IF sculpture". TO EXPERIENCE INTERACTIVITY AS A MEDIUM. This explorative venture is intended to be two-way: for you to explore the various interactive techniques you can use to involve players, and for players to interactively explore your piece in turn. See the following Q&A for more on interactivity. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ JUDGES: J.D. Berry - Best of IF Art Show 2001 - Ribbons; Chico and I Ran, The Djinni Chronicles Stephen Granade - Common Ground, Arrival, Losing Your Grip Jon Ingold - Till Death Makes a Monkfish Out of Me (w/Mike Sousa), All Roads, My Angel Andrew Pontious - Rematch, Small World Mike Roberts - TADS, HtmlTADS, The Plant, Perdition's Flames Emily Short - Best of IF Art Show 2000 - Galatea; Savoir-Faire, Pytho's Mask ------------------------------------------------------------------------ AWARDS/HONORS: Only the top four (possibly eight) places are awarded. All other entries are not ranked, but are put on display. Best of Show Any category for which there are three or more entries will also have a best of category award. Or these honors may be awarded depending on the total number of entries (the more entries -- the more awards). Best of Still Life (Objects) Best of Landscape (Scenery/Rooms) Best of Portrait (NPCs) Best of Event (Activity) Also, to encourage newbies -- although these honors will not necessarily be presented exclusively to newbies -- if there are enough entries, honorable mentions will also be awarded. Honorable Mention for Show Honorable Mention for Still Life Honorable Mention for Landscape Honorable Mention for Portrait Honorable Mention for Event ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RULES: 1. MULTIMEDIA - Multimedia is now *allowed*, even encouraged. However, it is not required, because: 1.) not all IF authoring systems offer it; 2.) not all platforms support the various graphic & sound capabilities of the IF systems which do offer it; and 3.) "text modeling" is an art form. Suggestion: If using multimedia, make sure your entry can stand alone without it, because judges with incompatible platforms may play it without graphics and/or sounds. This can be accomplished either by employing programming switches, or by providing two copies -- one with multimedia, one without. It is also recommended that you avoid static multimedia objects. For example, an object represented by just a picture might be considered static. Objects represented by graphics and/or sounds should also usually have accompanying textural interactivity -- not only to fulfill this show's purpose -- but for the same incompatibility reason mentioned above. See the following Q&A for more about multimedia IF. 2. ORIGINAL - All entries must be original works. Plagiarism is frowned on. However, pieces may be excerpts from works in progress that will be released at a later date. 3. LENGTH - "Playable" in 45 minutes or less. Shorter is usually better. 4. CATEGORY - To make your exploration of interactivity easier, choose one of the following: Still Life - Object Landscape - Scenery Portrait - NPC Event - Activity a. Style - The presentation of your selection may be: realistic, impressionistic, expressionistic, surreal, etc. The style is up to you -- your entry need not be experimental, only experiential. b. Number - There is no maximum on the number of items per category (i.e. Still Life objects), but fewer is better. Other types of items (inventory objects, stationary objects, and locations) may be used to support your selection (except for interactive NPCs, which are solely for portraiture). Suggestion: To keep your entry short and your focus tight, it is best that supporting items be limited in number and "sketchy." Remember: Judges will focus on how you explore and present your choice, not on the "background." So you will do yourself a favor if you avoid wasting time on extra items. An excellent entry might have none at all. c. New Event Category - The event category is a bit hard to escribe -- its closest art analogy is "performance art." Instead of focusing on the details of interacting with: objects, scenery, or npcs; your interactive focus should instead be on an activity. The player may be a participant in and/or an observer of this event. Examples of events: a wedding, fencing, dancing, swimming, a war, sculpting. 5. PEDESTAL OR FRAME - To isolate your piece on a pedestal and/or put it into an artistic "frame", feature a minimal plot with a restrained use of puzzles. This has often been the least-understood part of the IF Art Show. Entries are not intended to be "full-blown games", but more vignettes -- exploring interactivity in greater depth by narrowing the focus to one type of IF/artistic subject matter. A heavy plot could divert players' attention to the writing (the F in Interactive Fiction), and might also make a piece more static. While, on the other hand, tricky puzzles, even if highly interactive, wouldn't really EXPLORE interactivity -- as that is the form that we are all already familiar with. Convoluted puzzles can also function as "stoppers", halting players' exploration. The following guidelines are offered for clarification. a. Plot - No overriding, compelling, "world saving" goal that hurries players on, encouraging them to bypass experiences. 1. Introduction - Minimal or optional; to set the stage and provide players with some motivation to explore. 2. Middle - Experiential. 3. Ending - Minimal or optional; a finish to give players closure. b. Puzzles 1. Stumpers - Absolutely no "brain twisters". If players need to figure out an object/conversation, guide them to the appropriate action/topic with subtle hints (not too subtle) in descriptions/responses. Suggestion: Make complicated/very complicated puzzles optional, so players need not solve them to finish. Or provide a graceful exit (other than quit) in case they are unable to finish. 2. Scoring - Optional; a "task achieved" score, to give players an idea of when they have explored as much as possible. Remember: The entry with the cleverest puzzle(s) will not be an automatic winner, as judges will be looking for a complete exploration of interactivity. For instance, a realistic piece should probably implement a fair number of verbs in order to avoid too many standard library responses. >>> STUMPING PLAYERS IS NOT THE GOAL. ENCOURAGING EXPLORATION IS. <<< 6. SHOW - All entries will be displayed at the IF Art Gallery for a two-week show. Afterward, they along with the judges' reviews, will be uploaded to http://www.ifarchive.org. 7. DEADLINE - The deadline is Friday, April 25th, at midnight EDT (Eastern Daylight Savings Time -- four a.m. Saturday, April 26th GMT). 8. DESTINATION - E-mail your entry in a zipped file to: doeadeer3@aol.com. You will also need to specify which category (Still-life, Landscape, Portrait, Event) you are entering. 9. EXAMPLES - Past entries function as IF Art examples. To see how others have previously defined "IF Art", read more about the concept, and peruse past judges' reviews, visit: http://members.aol.com/iffyart/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q&A: 1. Is this IF Art? Any piece that fits into the above parameters is IF Art. There is no one "set" way to do it or view it. Note that no entries are rejected. Those not meeting the above guidelines may not win, but they will not be rejected and will be put on display. 2. Do I need to use a pseudonym? You may use one, but anonymity is not required. 3. Who should enter? I, personally, hope experienced IF writers enter because I think this is a different, freeing approach to writing IF. But newbies, and those who feel they will never write a full-blown game because of the necessity of having to create a plot and/or clever puzzles, are especially encouraged to enter. To help us all explore the IF medium. 4. What is interactivity? Exploring that question is the purpose of the IF Art Show. We do not all necessarily define interactivity the same. Someone else might define interactivity as simply being puzzles, placed by the author to control plot development. I might define it as simulated sensory feedback that helps me feel I really *experience* a piece of IF. Possible definitions: 3-dimensionality; experiential aspect; simulation or virtual reality capability; tangibility; both descriptive and responsive depth; effectively communicated sensory feedback (kinetic/auditory/visual, etc.); opportunities for players to act; player-instigated actions that appear to change the "game world"; and/or feedback in response to a players' actions that increases their knowledge of themselves as the protagonists and/or of the game world If you are still totally confused by the IF Art Show, visit An Iffy Theory: http://members.aol.com/doepage/theory.html 5. Does this mean that an entry has to have a wealth of detail? Yes, and no. As stated, if you are doing a realistic piece, it is a good idea to implement a fair number of verbs in order to avoid too many standard library responses. On the other hand, you could explore forms of interactivity other than verbs and responses to verbs. Or your piece could be expressionistic, which could mean it doesn't need a great deal of realistic interactivity to be effective expressionistically. Remember: Like all art, the main thing an entry ought to be is experiential -- but how this is achieved is up to you. New IF Art Show entrants are directed to look at these past entries as examples of some non-complex but still artful ways of exploring IF's interactivity/experientiality: Pillow, Statue, Wheel, The Guitar of the Immortal Bard, The Visitor, and Words Get... 6. Then... what is art? "The use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others. The term art may also designate one of a number of modes of expression conventionally categorized by the medium utilized or the form of the product; thus we speak of painting, sculpture, film making, music, dance, literature, and many other modes of aesthetic expression as arts and of all of them collectively as the arts. The term art may further be employed in order to distinguish a particular object, environment, or experience as an instance of aesthetic expression, allowing us to say, for example, that a drawing or tapestry is art..." Encyclopedia Britannica Remember: "Bad" art is still art. 7. What IF authoring systems support multimedia? Html TADS, Glulx (Inform Glk), and Hugo Glk. There may be some MS-DOS IF systems that support it, but I am not aware of them. 8. What type of multimedia do they support and what platforms will they run on? (This section updated on March 6th with David Kinder's input.) Whether players can play a multimedia IF piece in multimedia mode depends on their platform and the interpreter they use. Html TADS supports PNG and JPEG graphic images, and MP3, WAV, and MIDI sound files. There are multimedia interpreters for Windows and Macintosh. http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/html-tads/ Glulx supports PNG and JPEG graphics, and MOD and AIFF sound files. Although there are interpreters for several platforms, only the Windows, Macintosh, and Linux interpreters offer full multimedia capability. http://www.eblong.com/zarf/glulx/ http://members.aol.com/doepage/charts.htm (This is my chart of Glulx multimedia as it is supported by various platforms/interpreters.) Hugo supports the same graphics and sounds as Glulx, and in addition, video clips. A full multimedia interpreter is available for Windows. http://www.generalcoffee.com/ All these multimedia IF systems also support hyperlinks. Note that these multimedia interpreters will usually default to text-only if players are unable to run them in multimedia mode (although you may have to program for that contingency.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thank you to Ross Presser for his suggestion about a "graceful exit", and Volker Blasius for contributing a definition of art. ------------------------------------------------------------------------