Winners of the 1998 IFComp
Switch to compact list view Browse / download 1998 game files
1st place
Photopia
2nd place
Muse: An Autumn Romance
Christopher Huang
Early September, 1886. Autumn. The Victorian Era. The Rev. Dawson, 59, is off to the Continent and an unexpected Romance...
This work also won 3rd place in the 1998 Miss Congeniality Awards.
3rd place
The Plant
Michael J. Roberts
You're on a business trip with your boss, driving down a deserted highway in the middle of nowhere, when the car breaks down. You set off on foot seeking help, but you soon find yourself in the middle of a shocking conspiracy in a dangerous industrial complex. Can you penetrate the decades-old cover-up and reveal the secrets that might forever change the world?
4th place
Arrival, or Attack of the B-Movie Clichés
5th place
Enlightenment
Taro Ogawa
The intepid Adventurer has escaped the caverns. Nought remains to block a successful escape but this troll here. Hmmm. A one-room adventure. The author recommends this for people who grew up on Zork II and Advent, and begs people choosing their first piece of IF to play to look at other IF (preferably good IF!).
6th place
Mother Loose
Irene Callaci
It's been one of those days. It started out bad and just got worse: You're seven years old and in trouble a lot. You try to be good and to do as you ought, but nothing, it seems, goes exactly as planned. For instance, today things got quite out of hand: you poured your own milk, but it spilled on the floor; the cat wanted out just as you slammed the door; you didn't remember to turn off the faucet; your brother, poor thing, is still locked in the closet. But that wasn't all. No, indeed. Did I mention that things got much worse? They did. Pay attention: you're lost and alone and nothing's familiar. You wander around for a while until you're ready to panic. Then, out of the blue, an egg on a fence asks for help--and from you!
7th place
Little Blue Men
Michael S. Gentry
This game is a joke. This game is a warning. This game is a satire. This game is inspired in equal parts by Vaclav Havel's "The Memorandum" and Hunter S. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". This game is a big, stupid shaggy dog story.
This work also won 2nd place in the 1998 Miss Congeniality Awards.
8th place
Trapped in a One-Room Dilly
Laura Knauth
A one-room game. It's nicely appointed, but...
9th place
Persistence of Memory
10th place
Downtown Tokyo, Present Day
John Kean
In this game you actually play two people - one is the real you, sitting in the dark in a movie theatre, and the other is the hero of the film that you are watching. Originally conceived for Adam Cadre's infamous Chicken-Comp of June 1998 (spot the chicken-crossing-the-road).
11th place
Informatory
William J. Shlaer
You feel like weeping; you might as well have stayed by the slit in the stream bed and waited for plate tectonics to widen it. You are in front of that all too familiar white house again! Replay the beginnings of Adventure/Zork, with a few twists...
12th place
Ritual of Purification
Jarek Sobolewski
Tha' art a magician, embarked on an astral projection. Danger. Romance, perhaps. Learning, maybe...
13th place
The City
Sam Barlow
"An interactive short experience." This game is intended not as an exploration or a challenge, more as a situation. Stylistically interesting for its lack of banners, opening-titles, location-headers, status-line and meta-verbs such as "save".
14th place
Where Evil Dwells
Steve Owens and Paul T. Johnson
A few short hours ago you were in your private investigator's office sleeping- er, concentrating hard on your work when a frightened young girl named Elizabeth came to you with a sinister tale.
15th place
Purple
Stefan Blixt
Another Earth, another time. War. Disaster. Death. Air travel.
16th place
Four in One
17th place
Research Dig
Chris Armitage
An apparently straight-forward archeological research dig at an old English churchyard leads to something not quite the norm...
18th place
CC
19th place
Spacestation
David Ledgard
Based on the example transcript that came with Infocom's "Stationfall", with extensions and improvements, of course.
20th place
Cattus Atrox
David Cornelson
A promising date devolves into violence, sex, more violence.
21st place
In the Spotlight
John Byrd
A one-room game with one major puzzle. Tie two strings together. Simple?
22nd place
Lightiania
23rd place
Acid Whiplash
Ryan Stevens and Cody Sandifer
Tooth beavers, hermits, phallic-shaped dust tomatos. Billed a living memorial to the wit, style, and unintentional genius of Rybread Celsius by Cody Sandifer.
24th place
I Didn't Know You Could Yodel
25th place
Fifteen
Ricardo Dague
You stand in the kitchen. Sigh! Yet another darn treasure hunt game! Modeled after Scott Adams's "Adventureland." Dedicated to Sam Loyd (1841-1911), inventor of the 15-puzzle.
26th place
The Commute
27th place
Human Resources Stories
Harry M. Hardjono
A state-of-the-art job interview for a position as computer programmer.
The organizer of the 1998 Annual Interactive Fiction Competition was David Dyte.