2011 Interactive Fiction: The Games

The Interactive Fiction Competition has been going on for 16 years now and I still consider it one of the best things that ever happened to that digital and at times tasteless behemoth that is the internet. Silly prose aside, the IF Competition has been tirelessly encouraging the development of text adventures and interactive fiction  for all these years, while simultaneously helping advance and popularize the medium. Oh, and providing hundreds of quality freeware games too.

This year's competition has been one of the most impressive ones yet, what with its nearly forty interactive fiction authors, over two hundred judges and the variety of authoring/programming tools used. There are even a few games including graphics and sound. And at least one that doesn't require any typing whatsoever.

You can -and most probably should- play the 2011 competition games in a refreshing variety of ways; yes, they have indeed been finally made available. You can download the complete archive including every competition game, you can grab each game individually and even play most of these lovable text adventures online. Further info on each entry can be found here and you should probably get around to downloading an interactive fiction interpreter (a program that will let you play the games; they do come in their very own file formats) like the excellent, dead simple to use and obviously freeware Gargoyle.

After playing a few games you will apparently be more than welcome to your opinion on said games, meaning that you will indeed be allowed to vote for your favourites by following this highly democratic link. As for me, I know I will not be voting. I rarely do so when it comes to competitions. I will instead be playing and writing about those entries that intrigue me the most. Stay, uhm, tuned?

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• The People's Glorious Text Adventure
• Fragile Shells 
• Get Lamp - a DVD review
• An interview with Pacian