1 February 2025
The 2024 IFDB Awards are open!: The 2024 IFDB Awards are open from Feb 1 to Feb 16! The rules for the competition can be found here, and a list of all categories can be found here.
New Features on IFDB
This is a summary of recent additions and changes to the site. The list isn't comprehensive - we report only the more visible and significant changes, so you might notice some minor changes from time to time that aren't reported here.
List of Categories in the 2024 IFDB Awards: **List of Categories in the 2024 IFDB Awards**: Overall Categories
Outstanding Game of the Year 2024 Author’s Choice for Best Game of 2024 Outstanding Game over 2 hours in 2024 Outstanding Short Game of 2024 Outstanding Underappreciated Game of 2024 Most Sequel-worthy game of 2024 Outstanding Worldbuilding of 2024 Outstanding Use of Interactivity in 2024 Outstanding Retro Game of 2024 Outstanding Game for Beginners of 2024 Outstanding Multimedia Experience of 2024 Outstanding technical implementation of 2024 Outstanding NPC design of 2024 Outstanding Puzzle design of 2024 Language Categories Outstanding German Game of 2024 Outstanding Spanish Game of 2024 Outstanding French Game of 2024 Genre Categories Outstanding Fantasy Game of 2024 Outstanding Educational Game of 2024 Outstanding Travel Game of 2024 Outstanding Historical Game of 2024 Outstanding Horror Game of 2024 Outstanding Humor Game of 2024 Outstanding Mystery Game of 2024 Outstanding Romance Game of 2024 Outstanding Science Fiction Game of 2024 Outstanding Slice of Life Game of 2024 Outstanding Surreal Game of 2024 System Categories Outstanding Inform 7 Game of 2024 Outstanding Twine Game of 2024 Outstanding Choicescript Game of 2024 Outstanding Inform 6 Game of 2024 Outstanding PunyInform Game of 2024 Outstanding Game in a Custom System of 2024 Outstanding Moiki Game of 2024 Outstanding Ren’py Game of 2024 Outstanding Adventuron Game of 2024 Outstanding Unity Game of 2024 Outstanding Bitsy Game of 2024 Outstanding Decker Game of 2024 Rules for 2024 IFDB Awards: The IFDB Awards is an annual competition designed to award excellence in creating interactive fiction.It is held from February 1st to the first weekend after February 15th each year on the Interactive Fiction Database, and take the form of polls.
-Voting must be in good faith and be based on personal experience with the games involved.
-Campaigning or organizing voting is not allowed if it breaks the above rule.
-Discussion of games on merit is allowed and encouraged.
-There is no hard limit on how many votes a person can cast in each poll for different games. A player voting for so many games that it makes voting difficult for others (such as voting for every game from the whole year) may have their votes removed, but only after warning.
-Author cannot vote for their own games. Such votes will be removed so that the running tallies are correct. Authors can post about their own games (for instance on intfiction) as long as doesn’t encourage people to break the rules (such as telling people to vote for your game even if they haven’t played it). Code of conduct -Voters must abide by the IFDB Code of Conduct. Harassment of other voters (including on other platforms) and creating multiple accounts for one person are prohibited. Moderation -Votes that are cast incorrectly (for instance, voting for a Twine game in a Choicescript poll) or fraudulently (for instance, using sockpuppet accounts) may be removed. Eligibility
-For most polls, games are eligible if they are listed on IFDB and have a publication date during 2024.
-For system-specific polls, games additionally must have the appropriate system or genre listed on their IFDB page under the specified field.
-Each poll will have a link to an IFDB search listing suggested games. Outside of system-based polls, users can vote for any game they feel fits the criteria.
-Any IFDB user can edit game pages to confirm eligibility. However, malicious editing (such as adding every genre to a game or adding incorrect systems to a game) will be reverted or removed.
-Any game author can opt out of the competition. Adding a note to the game page during the competition may be helpful to let others know not to vote for it, but opting out should be officially done by messaging the organizer (me, for now).
Results
-Results will be clearly visible throughout the poll. However, there will be a grace period of up to 3 days at the end to allow checking of votes before the official announcements, which will be made on Intfiction and IFDB.
-Polls with very low traffic will not have a winner awarded. This is left up to organizer discretion, but low traffic may include less than 5 votes for the winning game or less than ten votes total cast. Future of Awards One of the main purposes of these new awards is to be community-owned and regular. They need to keep working even if I don’t keep working. The awards begin on February 1st of each year. If Feb 1st passes without the current organizer having created the polls, anyone can create the polls themselves. The community can propose new changes to awards or new organizers via public discussion. A public yes/no poll on intfiction with more than 50% voting yes can be used to add new organizers. Current organizers can also add in other organizers or successors, subject to a public veto.
6 January 2025
New in December: The team has been hard at work on improvements to IFDB.
"Played Games" now displays your play times: When you go to My Activity you can find a list of all of your played games (games where you've checked the "I've played it" checkbox). If you submitted a vote for how long it takes to finish the game, we'll now include your play time there, as well.
Sort search results by Estimated Play Time: You can now sort game results by their estimated play time–from shortest to longest, or longest to shortest. When you sort this way, each game’s estimated play time will display as part of the results. (IFDB's search API and viewgame API will also include estimated play times, where available.)
Multiple "Play Online" Links: Now, games can have multiple "Play Online" links, if we have multiple external links that can be played online. (The big blue "Play Online" button will link to the first "Play Online" link on the list.) We've also updated IFDB's viewgame API to match. The API now includes a primaryPlayOnlineUrl as well as separate playOnlineUrl links on each external link.
16 December 2024
"Plonking" is now called "muting": IFDB has allowed you to hide a user and their reviews, comments, lists, and polls since 2008. At that time, the feature was called "plonking," which is an old term from Usenet. Now, we use the modern standard term, "muting." (This is just a rename; the feature works the same way it did before.) How muting works
23 November 2024
Add a time note with your time vote: When you submit a vote for estimated play time, you can now include a note about your play time. For example, you can mention that you played with or without hints. (Note that we're still in the process of de-anonymizing time votes. If you submitted time votes before November 19, check your email before December 19!)
19 November 2024
Estimated play time votes are now publicly attributed to you:
When we first launched the new estimated play time feature, each player's votes for a time were private and anonymous. But we have improvements planned that won't work well with anonymity, so we've decided to change our approach and to publicly attribute time votes to the player who posts them, just like reviews and ratings.
If you have questions, please reach out to us at [email protected].Here's how the transition will work.
9 November 2024
New this week: The team has been hard at work on improvements to IFDB.
Estimated Play Time (now searchable!): You can now use the "Estimated Play Time" form on any game to submit a "vote" for how long it takes to finish the game.
- Vote only if you've played the game.
- Vote on how long it would take to get to one final ending without hints or a walkthrough.
- Time spent away from the game doesn't count.
- Times don't need to be exact. Good-faith estimates are fine.
We'll display the median time vote near the top of that game's page.
(EDIT: Nov 15) You can also search for games by play time using the new playtime: search filter. For example, here's a list of games that have an estimated play time of six hours or more.
playtime:minimum-maximum lists games with an estimated play time in the given range. After each number, use h for hours or m for minutes. For example, playtime:2h15m-3h shows games with an estimated play time of anywhere from 2 hours and 15 minutes to 3 hours. Hours may include decimals (for example, 3.5h). playtime:1.5h- lists games with an estimated play time of at least 1 and a half hours. playtime:-45m lists games with an estimated play time of 45 minutes or less. playtime:1h searches for games with an estimated play time of 1 hour. playtime: with no text after it searches for games with no estimated play time.
This feature is very, very new. We've got a lot of ideas for improvements, and we've got a public discussion going on the intfiction.org forum.
JSON APIs: Most of our IFDB API endpoints now support JSON.
- You can search for games and get JSON results
- You can view an individual game and get JSON results (now including tags and complete, unstripped HTML!)
- You can tag games by posting a JSON array of tags
All of the old APIs still work in XML mode, but JSON is the preferred format for all new code. (The API to add/edit games is still XML-only, for now.)
In addition, we deprecated the gametags API. You can view tags on an individual game with the viewgame API, or view your own tags with the search API, like this:
https://ifdb.org/search?json&tag&searchfor=tuid:xxx+mine:yes
Removed Clubs: The IFDB "clubs" feature has been removed. Nobody was using the feature, partly because clubs didn't do very much.
2 November 2024
Redesigned Home Page: The "New on IFDB" section now contains only site news, polls, competitions, and lists for the past three days. Games, reviews, polls, and lists each have their own section on the home page.
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