THAT'S A WRAP!

I'll be writing a post-mortem on Diddlebucker! soon, but for now, I just wanted to share some of my initial thoughts.

Being involved with this year's competition was an amazing experience and I'm thrilled to have been a part of it. I'm very thankful to all of those who made it happen.

I've played IF my whole life, having grown up with the Infocom games and many other forms of interactive fiction. As a kid, I dreamed of writing such a program, but as I grew up I never really thought it was a dream I would actually attain.

As a young man I discovered the IFComp in its early years and realized that amateurs actually could write such a program. In the meantime, I started a career, got married to a lovely woman, had two kids and stayed pretty busy!

Finally, I decided it was time to make it happen. I decided to learn Inform 7 a few years ago. I began authoring a fairly standard RPG, but right in the middle of the process, we moved to a new house and I started a new job. My game took a backseat for a while.

Last fall, things had calmed down a bit and I decided it was time to give it a go again. I made it a goal to continue learning Inform 7, complete a new game and enter it in the 2018 Comp. The result was Diddlebucker!, a game I am immensely proud of.

I couldn't have done it without the support of my wife who became a bit of an "IF widow" for a while, as well as my biggest cheerleader when I was struggling with a bit of code, some sticky plot point or a puzzle I couldn't quite work out. I was also dependent on the goodwill and eagerness to help of many others in the IF community, a community I have since discovered is full of wonderful, selfless people, who answered my questions, tested my game and gave me tons of fantastic feedback.

It's been a great year and I look forward to doing it all again!