I designed Undo with the intention of finishing last, and getting the
first draft pick in next year's competition.
Uh, that's how it works, isn't it?
Seriously, I never really expected many people to vote for it -- it's
such a mini-game, or even an anti-game. (You can't win, after all, and
there's only one real puzzle.) It was originally done as an inside joke
for a friend's birthday, and then, when I saw Whizzard complaining that
there weren't enough entries (and I got absolutely nowhere on my original
idea for a game), I thought I'd expand it a bit (believe it or not, it
used to be even *smaller*) and throw it into the ring.
Anyway, I hope some people had some fun with it. Next year, I'll actually
do a game that you can really play, I promise.
As for my comments on the other entries:
CHANGE IN THE WEATHER and MST3K were my two votes in the Inform category.
WEATHER was simply brilliant, far and away the best game in either
category entered. (Though I confess I haven't solved it yet.) Whoever
said they were looking for Trinity-level game design, this is the one
that fits that bill.
MST3K may not have been i-f per se, but it was hilarious, both as
commentary on Detective and a damn good interpretation of the MST3K
format. (The bit with Frank and the parser in the intro is hysterical,
more so I suppose if you know the show.)
TOYSHOP was too damn hard, and didn't even leave me anything interesting
to do while I beat my head against the puzzles. ELECTRIC I got stuck on at
the beginning, and never went back to. LIBRARY and TUBE never really drew
me in.
I didn't vote in the TADS category since I had an entry in it, but a
couple of comments anyway: MUSEUM needs a lot of work, both in the
beta-testing (is that crack in the wall or the floor, anyway?) and
fleshing-out departments. TOONESIA was funny, but seemed a bit too -- I
suppose "cartoony" is absolutely the wrong word -- thin, I suppose. And
I'll confess that I never got past the opening scene of THE ONE; for some
reason the notion of having to figure out how to get that damn worm just
sent me running the opposite direction...
That said, it was great fun, and I still plan to go back and finish some
of the games that I haven't yet. Congrats to all who entered.
Neil "Dave Baggett" <tm John Baker> deMause