Introduction
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What began five years ago as an effort to encourage the development of short works of interactive fiction has grown into a competition involving around thirty authors and one hundred judges. Each year people from around the world write text adventures that can be played in two hours or less. In recent years the definition of what interactive fiction is has changed; this year several of the "text" adventures included graphics, and one consists of a series of web pages.

If you are a fan of old text adventures like "Zork" and "The Pawn," or would just like to play some of the best amateur-written games available, I invite you to try the games of the Fifth Annual Interactive Fiction Competition.

  - Stephen Granade
    Competition Organizer


Rules for Judges
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(The rules, along with more information about the competition, can be found at http://www.textfire.com/comp99)

Anyone may vote on the games, with the following exceptions: authors who have entered the competition may not vote at all, and beta testers may not vote on any games they tested.

To vote, rate each game you have played on a scale of 1 to 10, with higher numbers being better. Your ratings must be integers; that is, use only whole numbers (1, 2, 3, ..., 10). You must judge each game  based on no more than two hours of cumulative gameplay. If you want to play a game for longer than two hours, at the two-hour mark you must rate that game and not change that rating later.

Play and rate as many games as you can before the November 15th, 1999 voting deadline. Comp99 (this program) has some handy features to help you do this, though you aren't required to use it. Comp99 will tell you which games to play in random order so that, in the event that you can't play all of the games, you will have played a random sample of games. Comp99 will also keep track of the ratings you give games.

There are three ways to submit your votes once you have played as many games as possible. The first is to use the web-based interface located at http://www.textfire.com/cgi-bin/vote.cgi. The second is to use Comp99. Comp99 will create a file called "rating.txt" which will hold all of your votes. You can e-mail that file to the vote-counter, Mark Musante, at vote@textfire.com. The third is to put all of your votes in an e-mail message and send that to Mark. You may submit different votes, and only the last one you send in will be counted.

If you choose to e-mail your votes to Mark and you do not use Comp99's "rating.txt" file, use the following format for your e-mail. In the subject line of your message, put "VOTE". In the body of the message, put the name of each game you are rating followed by its rating, with one game name and rating per line. Send your message as plain ASCII. Do *not* use HTML or send your votes as an attached non-ASCII file like a Microsoft Word document.

Remember, you must vote before the end of the day on November 15th, 1999. Votes submitted after that date will not be counted, so if you won't have access to the Internet around that time, be sure to vote early. You can always change your votes at a later date.


T-Shirts
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This year we are selling competition t-shirts. They will be short-sleeve cotton shirts with the competition logo on the front and a list of the games and their authors on the back. The cost in US dollars will be $15 for people living in the US or Canada, $20 for people living in other countries. The shirts will be sent out after the competition ends. We will be taking orders through October 30th, 1999.

If you would like a shirt, send a check, money order, or cash for $15 ($20 if you don't live in the US/Canada) along with a card containing your name, shipping address, and requested shirt size (S, M, L, XL) to:

Stephen Granade
1221 C Rosedale Ave.
Durham, NC 27707
U.S.A.

I can only take cash, checks, or money orders, and they must be in US dollars. If your order will not reach me by October 30th, *do not send it*. This is a very limited-time offer.
