Doing the final play-through with my wife. Once that’s done, I’m submitting it.
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If I make it, it’ll literally be at the last possible minute.
It still seems feasible, though, so I’m not dropping out yet.
If I fail, I blame this moment in particular…
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I’m super excited for Spring Thing! I didn’t join the competition — came too late on the scene for that — but this’ll be my first live, concurrent year with it! Super psyched to see everyone’s work — I’ve been going through the Spring Things of past years, and there are some wonderful gems of games in there — and I’ll do my best to play and review as much games as I can.
Wishing everyone doing it the best of luck on completing their entries! 
Here’s to another great year of Spring Thing! 
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Thanks! I’ll need all the luck I can get!
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Very nearly done, should be getting testers on board by tomorrow night or Wednesday at the latest. My first time actually managing to enter Spring Thing (if nothing goes hideously wrong in the next few days) so very excited for this one!
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There’s always ParserComp if you need some more time to shave and polish.
Planning for ParserComp 2023 (2nd Quarter 2023) (intfiction.org)
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Mine is done, and it’s shorter than I thought it would be (players complete the game in about half an hour) but I can’t think of anything else I would add to this story without unnecessary padding. One consensus comes from the beta phase: this is a hard game.
It ends with a mild cliffhanger but I would prefer a series of short mystery stories instead of rushing to resolve all the plot threads.
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Good call. Better a series of small gems than one big lump of spraypainted coal.
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I withdrew. There were those pandemic years where nothing was happening for me and I could just fire off games all the time, and now suddenly I have things like work, and the elder care is getting way more intense. So it looks like I’ll be reviewing and judging instead of biting my nails waiting to be reviewed and judged. Right now that seems like a good deal.
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Submitted. Complete with 11pm panic update because I realised I’d uploaded the wrong size cover image! But submitted. Looking forward to this year’s crop 
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With only two hours to go, and after calling in sick to work today in my effort to finish, I’m finally calling it; I have to withdraw, it’s simply not complete. It’s 90%, but that’s just not enough. What a brutal disappointment.
Folks who’ve been through this before, what do you do when you get so tantalizingly close to a finished game but it’s just not ready in time for the deadline? Do you save it for another competition or do you just release it on your own?
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For what it’s worth, my submission is a beta version of what will be a polished post-comp game. SpringThing seems to be very welcoming of games that are kinda rough around the edges.
There’s no shame in releasing a beta or demo. Happens all the time with visual indie games, at least. You’re not declaring that you won’t work on it ever again or anything, or that it’s the definitive version.
You could also figure out if it would fit well in a future competition, if you’d like. Releasing outside of a comp is a valid option, too, but it might fly slightly under the radar.
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oh shoot you’re right. I forgot that nobody plays these games to completion! It’s mostly finished, so… huh. Maybe I should withdraw my withdrawal. Can you do that?
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I’m sure people do play to completion, but if you upload a game and are upfront about it being an incomplete demo, and then past some point have an ending that says “Thanks for playing! This is the end of the demo!” then everything should sail smoothly.
EDIT: You could probably try to submit anyway and then send an email to the organizers that you rescind your bailout. (“Bailout”? “Ejection”? “Dropout”? English, how do?)
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This is literally what I did for last year’s SpringThing.
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The above is all true, but I will say, it is the case that games released for one of the major
events tend to get way more plays and attention than those released outside of them, unless the author is already pretty well known. So if you’re deeply invested in folks seeing the best/most complete version of your game, it might be best to wait for IFComp (or ParserComp, if your game is parser-based), especially since many events do have rules saying they only accept games that haven’t been previously released, even partially (IntroComp is an exception).
Sorry to be a downer - it sucks to miss the deadline this close to the end! And FWIW on the strength of your last game I’m definitely looking forward to this one, too.
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If you consider this option, you could also add TALJ #3. You’d just need to add a tutorial if you don’t already have one.
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I did think about that… But IFComp is so huge and there’s so many games! It feels like it would be difficult to get noticed, especially as a new player in the scene with only one other game under their belt. (Even if it was well received— thanks!!)
TALJ and ParserComp aren’t in the running this year, I’ve planted my flag on Twine and that’s unlikely to change. I suppose I could wait for EctoComp, but that’s half a year away… closer than IFComp though.
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I certainly do. My initial selection of games, mostly the longer ones, I’ll play fully. I’ll happily put off other games in the comp just to finish the games I’ve selected.
Maybe you’re thinking of IFComp, with its 2-hour playtime limit?
I think Ectocomp comes just after IFComp, with a little overlap even. (IFComp in october, Ectocomp in november?) Has something changed about the dates?
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Perfect time to plan out a Grand Guignol entry and then channel all the adrenaline into a last-minute Petite Mort 
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