Best of 2008:
Violet is a richly engaging one-room puzzle game from this year's annual Interactive Fiction competition. The problem? You're a graduate student working on your dissertation, but you haven't gotten any writing done in months. Your girlfriend Violet has put her life on hold, waiting for you to finish, and she's getting fed up. If you don't get a thousand words written today, your relationship is over and she flies home to Australia.
Why we picked it: By its very nature, interactive fiction provides a level playing field for every aspiring creator. Without graphics or sound, it is up to the author to paint a reality and sculpt memorable characters. Certainly, no character is more memorable than the bubbly, indomitable Violet. Jeremy Freese succeeds in the difficult task of capturing the intricacies of a dynamic relationship—that of you and your beloved but very much frustrated girlfriend—in a historically object-based genre. The setting itself hits home for many a gamer: finding a way to combat the procrastination bug. Violet, in her infinite patience and charm, nudges you in the right direction, and along the way we are given insights into the history of the captivating couple, and watch firsthand as the relationship nearly falls apart. The amazing part is, Violet's not even in the game until the very end! She's such a driving force, the main character imagines what she would say and how she would say it. It's notoriously difficult to engage a player at the core emotional level, and Violet succeeds like few others ever have.
Audience Award:
Violet is a richly engaging one-room puzzle game from this year's annual Interactive Fiction competition. The problem? You're a graduate student working on your dissertation, but you haven't gotten any writing done in months. Your girlfriend Violet has put her life on hold, waiting for you to finish, and she's getting fed up. If you don't get a thousand words written today, your relationship is over and she flies home to Australia.
