Procedures and Recommendations

• It is recommended that you enclose a complete text walkthrough with your game. With a walkthrough, I can and will doublecheck your entry to ensure that it is winnable, and judges can get by hard puzzles to see the rest of your game. Authors may submit a walkthrough for me to check their game, but not for general distribution, if they so desire.

• The entry may be written in any programming language, including any of the text adventure creation utilities available (such as TADS, Inform, AGT, or Alan, to name a few.) If your game is unplayable, then it won't receive enough votes to be eligible for prizes (See Judging).

• It is strongly recommended that your game be tested thoroughly at the beta stage. This not only includes different testers but different platforms if possible, and different interpreters. I speak from personal experience of my own game in 1997 working on Jzip but crashing on Frotz- something I did not know about until after the contest began. In testing authors' walkthroughs I will endeavor to use different interpreters where possible.

• Multiple entries by the same author are fine, so long as all entries meet all the rules above. Let me just close this with a caveat emptor: you will likely be better off investing more time in a single entry rather than trying to finish two.

• To enter this year, you must e-mail me, the contest organizer (ddyte@cricket.org), by September 1, 1998, with your intent to enter.

• You will need to e-mail me your entry privately, either through e-mail (as a uuencoded file) or some other arrangement that you will have to work out with me. The entries must be received by September 30th, 1998. No entries will be accepted after this date.