Well it's a month for competitions this month! Not only do we have our mini Dark AI compo, and the Retro Remakes compo starting, but we've also got this unique little challenge - the Text Adventure Competition. Again The Game Creators are stumping up a prize for this one, a copy of Dark A.I. to the winning text adventure. Have fun, and here follow the details...

A text adventure is a PC game wherein the player navigates through a world by reading long segments of story, and then selecting a path or action from a list of options supplied by the software. Some text adventures use basic variables to offer players items, weapons, etc. to utilize during play. Most text adventures fall into one of two categories: The option list adventure, and the parser adventure. "Option list" adventures have a menu of options wherein a player can select an action from a list of choices (such as, "1. go east, 2. go west" and the player presses one or two, or presses the corresponding number and then presses enter). "Parser" adventures allow the player to type in commands, such as "open door," "go north," "eat apple," etc., and the software can detect specific segments of code that is entered into its entry line. These are far more complicated to create and implement, and thus they will score higher.

The contest will be scored entirely on four qualities: originality, story development, writing ability, and technical design. Originality depicts your title's general uniqueness, both in story and software design. Story Development rates how well the game projects the story from start to finish... you'll earn more points if your story is fluid and easily understood. Writing Ability depicts how well the game is worded and points will be decided based on grammar, spelling, proper word usage, etc. Last but not least, Software Design rates how well your actual program runs from a technical standpoint. Did you use a list system, or a more complicated parser system? Are each of your subroutines and functions linked together properly? Make sure your final game doesn't have any bugs to score high here.

Scores will be based on a 10.0 point system. You'll earn a maximum of 10.0 points for each of the four categories, and 0.0 is the minimum. Each of these is then averaged out and rounded to create your final score. In other words, if you earn 9.1 on originality, 8.5 on story development, 7.3 on writing ability, and 5.2 on software design, your total score would be 7.525... rounded to 7.5. The participant with the highest score wins the contest. In the case of a tie, the judges will convene and decide on who should win the tie. All results and scores are final.

Feel like joining in? Then check out this forum thread where it is all happening!