In addition to the main competition, the entries take part in the Miss Congeniality contest, where the participating authors vote for three games (not including their own).
This was started in 1998 to distribute that year's surplus prizes; this additional contest has remained unchanged since then, even without the original reason for its existence.
There is also a 'Golden Banana of Discord' side contest; the distinction is given to the entry with scores with the highest standard deviation.
[7] The competition differs from the XYZZY Awards, as authors must specifically submit games to the Interactive Fiction Competition, but all games released in the past year are eligible for the XYZZY Awards.
"[10] The 2008 competition was described as containing "some real standouts both in quality of puzzles and a willingness to stretch the definition of text adventures/interactive fiction.