Winners of the 2012 IFComp

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1st place

Andromeda Apocalypse

Cover art for Andromeda Apocalypse

Marco Innocenti

Floating in space on a strange vessel, sole survivor of a world... and maybe of the entire human race, Ektor Mastiff must find a way through the cosmos, on a voyage that can change the history of mankind forever.

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Score 7.30
Votes Cast 66
Standard Deviation 1.77

2nd place

Eurydice

Cover art for Eurydice

Anonymous

A short game about grief with occasional snakes.

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Score 7.15
Votes Cast 85
Standard Deviation 1.72

3rd place

Guilded Youth

Cover art for Guilded Youth

Jim Munroe

You play Tony, a fourteen-year old thief who needs some help looting the legendary Oakville Manor. Luckily it's the 1980s and finding fellow adventurers is just a modem squeal away...

This work also won 1st place in the 2012 Miss Congeniality Awards.

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Score 7.12
Votes Cast 89
Standard Deviation 1.79

4th place

Changes

 

David Given

Elysia: a new Earth. Possibly the greatest opportunity the starship Concerto has found in its thousand-year voyage. But with opportunities there are risks, and there's more going on on Elysia than meets the eye...

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Score 6.84
Votes Cast 70
Standard Deviation 1.75

5th place

Sunday Afternoon

 

Christopher Huang (writing as “Virgil Hilts”)

It's gloriously sunny outside, and you can smell the grass from in here. It's not fair. All the servants have the day off, and you can bet they're not cooped up indoors in their Sunday best. If only there were some way to escape....

This work also won 3rd place in the 2012 Miss Congeniality Awards.

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Score 6.80
Votes Cast 66
Standard Deviation 1.60

6th place

Spiral

 

Justin Morgan

Two people wake up in a train carriage, tied up and gagged, unable to speak, unable to escape and unable to die. All they can do is sleep, think and remember.

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Score 6.75
Votes Cast 65
Standard Deviation 1.95

7th place

Shuffling Around
Much more magical than plain old putzing around.

Cover art for Shuffling Around

Andrew Schultz (writing as “Ned Yompus”)

A weird special power can help save a weird world.

It'd be a lot harder with graphics.

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Score 6.71
Votes Cast 65
Standard Deviation 2.25

8th place (tie)

Body Bargain
A Tale of Transhumanism

Cover art for Body Bargain

Amanda Lange

Your surgery went very well. But you couldn't really afford it...

(Warning: some blood and gore)

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Score 6.53
Votes Cast 83
Standard Deviation 1.80

8th place (tie)

A Killer Headache
A Distasteful Situation

Cover art for A Killer Headache

Mike Ciul

The apocalypse is over. The human race lost. You're hungry. And you have a hell of a headache.

Discretionary warning: This game is violent, scatological, and eschatological.

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Score 6.53
Votes Cast 74
Standard Deviation 1.83

10th place

In a Manor of Speaking

 

Hulk Handsome

In a Manor of Speaking is a punny adventure set in the surreal world of Calembour.

Journey through the bizarre Outlands, the bustling streets of Rudeville, and eventually find your way to the Manor itself as you save the land using the power of words!

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Score 6.42
Votes Cast 78
Standard Deviation 1.81

11th place

howling dogs

Cover art for howling dogs

Porpentine

mysterious game...hyperlink powered, yes, but what ethos does it promote? a death ethos? my god...or uh, visions, gender, the hyphen between dream-notdream, fascination, feeling anything at all?

two significant endings

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Score 6.18
Votes Cast 88
Standard Deviation 2.37

12th place

Fish Bowl
An Interactive Horror

Cover art for Fish Bowl

Ethan Rupp and Joshua Rupp

You are a beachcomber living by the shore. Today, you wake to find an empty fish bowl in your home, and don't remember how it got there. You try to piece your memory back together, but soon learn what the old maps meant: Here there be monsters. 

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Score 5.84
Votes Cast 75
Standard Deviation 1.48

13th place

Escape From Summerland

Cover art for Escape From Summerland

Joey Jones and Melvin Rangasamy (writing as “Jenny Roomy and Jasmine Lavages”)

In the near future a drone war rages in the skies, but below in Summerland there is only one thought: who's going to feed Jacquotte?

This work also won 2nd place in the 2012 Miss Congeniality Awards.

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Score 5.64
Votes Cast 64
Standard Deviation 2.09

14th place

Lunar Base 1

Cover art for Lunar Base 1

Michael Phipps

Two astronauts set out to settle America's first lunar base in the year 2080. You are one of them.

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Score 5.35
Votes Cast 66
Standard Deviation 1.59

15th place

Murphy's Law

Cover art for Murphy's Law

Scott Hammack

Thing are looking up! After decades of scrimping and saving, you've finally pulled yourself out of debt. The only thing left standing between you and financial independence is one last mortgage payment. What could possibly go wrong?

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Score 5.30
Votes Cast 77
Standard Deviation 1.75

16th place

J'dal

 

Ryan Kinsman

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Score 5.24
Votes Cast 74
Standard Deviation 1.78

17th place

Living Will

 

Mark C Marino

As an heir to the fortune of the Coltan-magnate ER Millhouse, you can expand your inheritance or become buried in medical and legal fees as you peruse his living will and discover the story behind the fortune he pillaged in the Congo. (Undum)

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Score 5.16
Votes Cast 68
Standard Deviation 2.02

18th place

Irvine Quik & the Search for the Fish of Traglea

Cover art for Irvine Quik & the Search for the Fish of Traglea

Duncan Bowsman

Science fiction adventure! Extinction looms for the fish, people, and entire planet of Traglea. Can one bumbling space cadet rescue enough alien fish before too late? Can he learn the secret of Traglean karate? Find out & help save the planet! (ADRIFT 4)

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Score 5.12
Votes Cast 60
Standard Deviation 1.83

19th place

The Test is Now READY

Cover art for The Test is Now READY

Jim Warrenfeltz

A zombie apocalypse, with one dose of antidote, one bullet and two survivors.

A train hurtles towards your son - or five strangers.

You're kidnapped and forced to save an innocent life. Is there another way?

What do you do? Can you pass The Test?

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Score 5.08
Votes Cast 75
Standard Deviation 1.98

20th place

Kicker

Cover art for Kicker

Pippin Barr

Kicker is an interactive sports fiction in which you take on the often derided role of a place kicker in a game of American football.

Walk the walk, talk the talk, drink the drink, kick the ball, and more!

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Score 4.49
Votes Cast 65
Standard Deviation 1.90

21st place

Last Minute

 

Ruderbager Doppelganger

A desperate attempt at a story about a desperate attempt to enter into the 2012 IFCOMP at the last minute.

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Score 4.30
Votes Cast 77
Standard Deviation 1.96

22nd place

The Sealed Room

Cover art for The Sealed Room

Robert DeFord

This conversation-based IF game is the equivalent to a short-short story in the non-IF world.

Name of the game file: The Sealed Room.a3c

Name of walkthru: The Sealed Room walkthrough.rtf

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Score 3.86
Votes Cast 57
Standard Deviation 1.56

23rd place

Castle Adventure!
An interactive fiction for the not-quite-beginning adventurer

Cover art for Castle Adventure!

Ben Chenoweth

You have to rescue a princess of legendary beauty who is reportedly being held prisoner in a labyrinth beneath the Castle...

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Score 3.57
Votes Cast 84
Standard Deviation 1.95

24th place

Transit

Cover art for Transit

Shaye

Find your way through a foreign airport in search of your friend, understanding or just a safe flight home.

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Score 3.50
Votes Cast 74
Standard Deviation 1.59

25th place

The Island

 

Andrew Brown (writing as “Old Andy”)

to switch on walkthrough you must type "ftang" then "walkthrough" "shazam" will fill your inventory with useful things... "ftang" toggles cheat mode

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Score 3.44
Votes Cast 62
Standard Deviation 1.49

26th place

Signos
An Essential Quest

 

Mauricio Diaz Garcia (writing as “M4u”)

The essence of the game is the essence of any human life: fulfill our purpose through our mistakes to finally find our truly selves and reach our destiny, the one destiny.

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Score 3.11
Votes Cast 57
Standard Deviation 1.92

27th place

Valkyrie

 

Emily Forand et al

This game was authored by the guild, Valkyrie, three students enrolled in a Game-based Learning Developmental English course this Fall semester at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado Springs, CO.

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Score 2.74
Votes Cast 68
Standard Deviation 1.58

28th place

The Lift

Cover art for The Lift

Colin Capurso

You wake up a room with no memory of who you are or what you're doing there.

You need to survive, that's all you know.

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Score 2.25
Votes Cast 75
Standard Deviation 1.50

The organizer of the 2012 Annual Interactive Fiction Competition was Stephen Granade.