Here are the winning works of 2017. Congratulations to our XYZZY Award winners!

Best Game: The Wizard Sniffer, Buster Hudson

Best Writing: Eat Me, Chandler Groover

Best Story: The Wizard Sniffer, Buster Hudson

Best Setting: 1958: Dancing with Fear, Victor Ojuel

Best Puzzles: The Wand, Arthur DiBianca

Best NPCs: The Wizard Sniffer, Buster Hudson

Best Individual Puzzle: getting past the dragon in The Wizard Sniffer, Buster Hudson

Best Individual NPC: Squire Tuck in The Wizard Sniffer, Buster Hudson

Best Individual PC: Fred Strickland in Will Not Let Me Go, Stephen Granade

Best Implementation: Eat Me, Chandler Groover

Best Use of Innovation: Harmonia, Liza Daly

Best Technological Development: Vorple for Glulx

Best Use of Multimedia: Harmonia, Liza Daly

The first round of voting for the 2017 XYZZY Awards is complete, and we have our finalists. Congratulations, all!

Voting for the second round is open. Once again, you need an IF Comp login to vote – go here to get one, or if you already do, just log in and vote. Voting will remain open throughout May, ending at 1 AM Pacific time on the first day of June.

Canvassing for votes in the Awards is strongly discouraged, and you may not vote for your own work.

Best Game

• American Angst (m3g1dd0)
• Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• The Owl Consults (Thomas Mack)
• The Wizard Sniffer (Buster Hudson)

Best Writing

• Absence of Law (mathbrush)
• American Angst (m3g1dd0)
• dripping with the waters of SHEOL (Lady Isak Grozny)
• Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• Will Not Let Me Go (Stephen Granade)

Best Story

• 1958: Dancing With Fear (Victor Ojuel)
• American Angst (m3g1dd0)
• Harmonia (Liza Daly)
• Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• Will Not Let Me Go (Stephen Granade)
• The Wizard Sniffer (Buster Hudson)

Best Setting

• 1958: Dancing With Fear (Victor Ojuel)
• Absence of Law (mathbrush)
• Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• Tuuli (Daurmith & Ruber Eaglenest)
• Voyageur (Bruno Dias)

Best Puzzles

• Absence of Law (mathbrush)
• A Beauty Cold and Austere (Mike Spivey)
• Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• The Owl Consults (Thomas Mack)
• The Wand (Arthur DiBianca)
• The Wizard Sniffer (Buster Hudson)

Best NPCs

• Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• The Owl Consults (Thomas Mack)
• The Wizard Sniffer (Buster Hudson)

Best Individual Puzzle

• discovering the rest of the game in The Wand (Arthur DiBianca)
• getting past the dragon in The Wizard Sniffer (Buster Hudson)
• getting through the undersea vent in Measureless to Man (Ivan R.)
• Learning the Cycle in The Wand (Arthur DiBianca)
• Milking the cow in Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• Navigating the swamp in Crocodracula: What Happened to Calvin (Ryan Veeder)

Best Individual NPC

• Anja Kaczmarek in Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• Kaz Kaczmarek in Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• The narrator in Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• Olivia Kwon in Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• Squire Tuck in The Wizard Sniffer (Buster Hudson)

Best Individual PC

• Amelia Derringer in The Owl Consults (Thomas Mack)
• Fred Strickland in Will Not Let Me Go (Stephen Granade)
• Kareene Veet in Word of the Day (Richard Otter)
• Lev/Lyubov in dripping with the waters of SHEOL (Lady Isak Grozny)
• Nadia Nazari in Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• Salomé Vélez in 1958: Dancing With Fear (Victor Ojuel)

Best Implementation

• Absence of Law (mathbrush)
• Eat Me (Chandler Groover)
• Harmonia (Liza Daly)
• Seedship (John Ayliff)
• Thaumistry: In Charm’s Way (Bob Bates)

Best Use of Innovation

• 10pm (litrouke)
• Harmonia (Liza Daly)
• Unit 322 (Disambiguation) (Jonny Muir)
• Voyageur (Bruno Dias)

Best Technological Development

• Vorple for Glulx

Best Use of Multimedia

• 10pm (litrouke)
• Absence of Law (mathbrush)
• Harmonia (Liza Daly)
• Known Unknowns (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
• The Rats in the Bulkheads (Bruno Dias)
• Salt (Gareth Damian Martin)

The XYZZY Awards, honouring the best interactive fiction of 2017, are officially in the first round.

In the first round, you can nominate two works in each category. You need an IF Comp login to vote – if you don’t have one or you need it reset, go here. Then log in and vote! (Logging in will kick you back to this front page, just so you know.)

A reminder: canvassing for votes in the Awards is strongly discouraged. The XYZZYs are not meant to be a battle about which authors can rally the most die-hard fans. Absolutely talk about the Awards if it’s to discuss all the good IF you’ve seen this year – but if your objective is to get a bunch of people to all vote for your work, please don’t.

The first round will be open through May 13th. (Technically, until 1 AM on the 14th, US Pacific time, if you’re an eleventh-hour voter.)

We’re almost ready to launch the 2017 XYZZY Awards; the eligibility list has been assembled (thanks to Bruno Dias for help with scraping IFDB), but as usual, we’d like to give people a chance to double-check our work. If any of the following is incorrect or incomplete, please let us know as soon as possible.

The baseline we start from is IFDB entries. (We might be looking into different approaches next year, but we’ll deal with that once this year’s Awards are complete.)

Continue reading →

The 2016 XYZZY Awards are complete. Congratulations to this year’s winners:

Best Game: Superluminal Vagrant Twin, CEJ Pacian

Best Writing: Take, Katherine Morayati

Best Story: Foo Foo, Buster Hudson

Best Setting: Cactus Blue Motel, Astrid Dalmady

Best Puzzles: 16 Ways To Kill A Vampire At McDonalds, Abigail Corfman

Best NPCs: tie, Cactus Blue Motel, Astrid Dalmady; and Foo Foo, Buster Hudson

Best Individual Puzzle: customizing the robot, The Mary Jane of Tomorrow, Emily Short

Best Individual NPC: the robot from The Mary Jane of Tomorrow, Emily Short

Best Individual PC: BEL/S from Open Sorcery, Abigail Corfman

Best Implementation: Superluminal Vagrant Twin, CEJ Pacian

Best Use of Innovation: The Ice-Bound Concordance, Aaron A. Reed and Jacob Garbe

Best Technological Development: Ink

Best Use of Multimedia: The Ice-Bound Concordance, Aaron A. Reed and Jacob Garbe

The first round of XYZZY Awards voting for the best interactive fiction of 2016 is open; the ballot is open to anyone with an interest in IF. You can go here to login, then here to vote; you use your IF Comp login (if you haven’t got one, or you’ve forgotten it, you can register or reset here.)

First-round voting will remain open through July 4, with the second round starting shortly thereafter.

As previously, in the first round you can nominate up to two works in each category. (You can’t nominate the same thing twice in the same category).

A polite reminder: you’re not allowed to vote for your own game, and canvassing for votes – for purposes here defined as ‘any action which results in a large number of people showing up specifically to vote for a particular game or slate of games’ – is strongly discouraged, and may result in votes being discarded.

Very, very belatedly (mea culpa), here are the works of interactive fiction eligible for consideration in the 2016 XYZZY Awards – and the IFDB entries which aren’t eligible. (Many thanks to everyone who helped out with this.) If you have last-minute corrections before voting opens, please let me know!

Continue reading →

The main event of the 2015 XYZZYs is complete for this year. And the winners are…

Best Game: Birdland (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
Finalist: Brain Guzzlers from Beyond! (Steph Cherrywell)
Finalist: Hollywood Visionary (Aaron A. Reed)
Finalist: Midnight. Swordfight. (Chandler Groover)
Finalist: SPY INTRIGUE (furkle)

Best Writing: Birdland (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
Finalist: Laid Off from the Synesthesia Factory (Katherine Morayati)
Finalist: Midnight. Swordfight. (Chandler Groover)
Finalist: SPY INTRIGUE (furkle)

Best Story: Birdland (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
Finalist: Arcane Intern (Unpaid) (Astrid Dalmady)
Finalist: Cape (Bruno Dias)
Finalist: Map (Ade McT)

Best Setting: Sunless Sea (Failbetter Games)
Finalist: Beautiful Dreamer (S. Woodson)
Finalist: Chlorophyll (Steph Cherrywell)
Finalist: Neon Haze (Porpentine, Brenda Neotenomie)
Finalist: Sub Rosa (Joey Jones, Melvin Rangasamy)
Finalist: Summit (Phantom Williams)

Best Puzzles: Sub Rosa (Joey Jones, Melvin Rangasamy)
Finalist: Brain Guzzlers from Beyond! (Steph Cherrywell)
Finalist: Chlorophyll (Steph Cherrywell)
Finalist: Oppositely Opal (Buster Hudson)
Finalist: Scroll Thief (Daniel M. Stelzer)
Finalist: Toby’s Nose (Chandler Groover)

Best NPCs: Birdland (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
Finalist: Brain Guzzlers from Beyond! (Steph Cherrywell)
Finalist: Hollywood Visionary (Aaron A. Reed)
Finalist: Midnight. Swordfight. (Chandler Groover)
Finalist: Nowhere Near Single (kaleidofish)

Best Individual Puzzle: Understanding how the RPS cannon works in Brain Guzzlers from Beyond! (Steph Cherrywell)
Finalist: Catching the fairy in Oppositely Opal (Buster Hudson)
Finalist: The Hard Puzzle in Hard Puzzle (Ade McT)
Finalist: Identifying the murderer in Toby’s Nose (Chandler Groover)
Finalist: The skull in Sub Rosa (Joey Jones, Melvin Rangasamy)

Best Individual NPC: Bell Park in Birdland (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
Finalist: Dmitri in Midnight. Swordfight. (Chandler Groover)
Finalist: Hana in Hana Feels (Gavin Inglis)
Finalist: Winter Storm Draco in Winter Storm Draco (Ryan Veeder)

Best Individual PC: Bridget in Birdland (Brendan Patrick Hennessy)
Finalist: Martin Voigt in Darkiss! Wrath of the Vampire – Chapter 1: the Awakening (Marco Vallarino)
Finalist: Opal in Oppositely Opal (Buster Hudson)
Finalist: Toby in Toby’s Nose (Chandler Groover)

Best Implementation: Midnight. Swordfight. (Chandler Groover)
Finalist: Laid Off from the Synesthesia Factory (Katherine Morayati)

Best Use of Innovation: Laid Off from the Synesthesia Factory (Katherine Morayati)
Finalist: Aspel (Emily Short)
Finalist: Midnight. Swordfight. (Chandler Groover)
Finalist: SPY INTRIGUE (furkle)
Finalist: Sunless Sea (Failbetter Games)

Best Technological Development: Raconteur (Bruno Dias)

Best Use of Multimedia: Secret Agent Cinder (Emily Ryan)
Finalist: Sorcery! 3 (Steve Jackson, inkle)
Finalist: Summit (Phantom Williams)
Finalist: Sunless Sea (Failbetter Games)
Finalist: We Know the Devil (Aevee Bee)

The XYZZY Awards ceremony for 2015 will be held on the ifMUD on Saturday, May 28, at 8 AM Honolulu time – or, should you inhabit a slightly more populous slice of the planet, 11 AM US-Pacific, 2 PM US-Eastern, 7 PM UK. We hope you can join us as we announce the winners.

As promised, I’ve been looking into possible alternatives to ifMUD; in that process, it has become clear that running the ceremony smoothly takes a pretty specialised setup, one which is very difficult to replicate in any kind of plug-and-play chatroom. At this point, I’m not confident about running a ceremony successfully from any of the alternative platforms I’ve looked at, and I’d rather not delay the Awards any more. I’m still very conscious that ifMUD is a difficult environment for anybody who doesn’t frequent it regularly, and I’m hoping to have a viable alternative in place by next year – even if that means recruiting a volunteer willing to build a custom platform. In the meantime, we’ll be producing a ceremony-specific guide to navigating the MUD – we don’t pretend that this is a complete solution, but we hope that it’ll help for the time being.

Voting is closed and will remain so through this week.