Lucian's Spring Thing 2026 Reviews (latest: Crier, Exchange)

Competitions Spring Thing
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It’s time for Spring Thing 2026! And I am VERY MUCH NOT OBJECTIVE about these games this year, because I’ve gotten to know Autumn and Sarah more these last few years, and Sarah even beta-tested my Iron ChIF game, and, oh yeah, MY SON also has an entry. (The conversation at my house: Me: "Kid! You should find a comp and enter a game! I just finished Iron ChIF and had forgotten how much fun it was!’ Ellric: “OK, fine, what’s coming up?” Me: “Well, hmm, Spring Thing is probably next, let’s see, oh look the deadline to sign up is today.” Ellric: “…sure, why not.”)

Several brainstorming walks, a lot of writing, and one late-night sprint where I was recruited to convert his Google Doc into Twine later, “Maybe you’ll respect this dead person instead” is now a reality. It’s the first game he’s ever released! I am inordinately proud and pleased.

But obviously not super objective. So I won’t be reviewing his game, but in the spirit of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, I will try to review as many of the others as I can. I pulled down the whole list (both main and ‘back garden’) and randomized it, which is the One True Way to play and review games in a comp. So here we go!

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Latinorum
by Roberto Ceccarelli

The salient features of this game are “copyright © 1985,2026”, “A Commodore 64 retro adventure”, and, from the author’s notes, “Playing “Latinorum” took me back to my high school days, the setting for the story, which was inspired by real events (later reworked in the game).”

Either you want to play this game, or you don’t.

I enjoyed it! It’s exactly what it says on the tin: a very limited custom parser game set in the author’s high school. There are a billion modern conveniences that it doesn’t have, but it was designed to its own limitations, so it still works. The majority of the descriptions take up exactly one ‘screen’ of text, which somehow felt satisfying; none of the puzzles felt like I was groping for the right verb. Well, OK, one puzzle did: at one point, there’s a latched door, and you’re told you could unlock it with something thin and flexible. ‘Aha!’ I thought; ‘this is what the >INSERT verb is for!’ But no: you just type >OPEN DOOR when you’re holding the correct thing.

Did the author have something to say? “Hey, remember 1985?”
Did I have something to do? Browse someone else’s memories of not liking Latin but knowing an awful lot of it. And solve some puzzles.

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@lpsmith it’s a pleasant surprise and a great honor to be your first review on Spring Thing.
I’m glad you enjoyed my little old story.
The story originated on my computer back then, and I wanted it to stay there. I rewrote the parser using all the modern commodities available (Visual Studio, C#, .NET 10, and other tools), but in the end, it had to be a BASIC program, that extremely limited Commodore 64 BASIC.

It seems I succeeded.

Speaking of Latin: I got a 7 in Latin and a 6 in Italian.

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It was a great game to start off the comp with! I didn’t even say anything about the impressive coding achievement it was, since that’s kind of a separate axis than ‘how does it work as a game’, but it was, indeed, impressive.

It did make me wonder how difficult Latin would be to someone whose native language is (arguably?) the closest modern language to Latin that we have. I learned a little bit of Latin in college, and any time a Latin word was the root of an English word, it was a godsend. But maybe when 90% of the words are similar, remembering the differences becomes difficult?

I suppose the upshot is ‘kids in high school will always rebel against learning things’ :wink:

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There’s not only the closeness, but also the environment. One where Latin inscriptions are even still added, in the XXVIIIth century a.u.c. (since the Foundation of Rome). Enough Latin texts to read on the road, literally.

this is one of the youngest:

immagine
immagine474×454 66.5 KB

21 Marzo 2025 AD, 2778 dalla Fondazione dell’ Urbe.

I leave the translation as exercise for the reader :smiley:

Ave atque Vale,
Dott. Piergiorgio.

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Strings: a (bug)folk song
by Tabitha & baezil

I ended up having a yay-argh-yay relationship to this game, and it all came down to ‘not typing ABOUT’. The premise was delightful! I’m a bug-bard, getting a band together to call the last full moon of spring from the sky. You have a ‘bugdolin’! You touch stuff with your antennae! The dangers are things like a sparrow or a frog! Come on, you can’t help but be charmed by all this.

And then I got stuck (at the maze) and nothing I tried seemed to work. And I won’t belabor the whole sad tale (a Transcript is available if you’re a) the authors or b) morbidly curious), but it all boiled down to the fact that there were special verbs implemented that Did The Thing I Was Trying To Do, and because those verbs were there, neither the authors nor their testers thought to try other ways of phrasing Those Things. And I eventually discovered (thanks to an aside in Josh’s review of this game) that in the ABOUT text, you’re told there’s a COMMANDS option to list all the special verbs. Once I knew that, things were straightforward again! I could interact with the game as designed, and things flowed naturally. I eventually twigged to the central conceit of the piece (again, fairly telegraphed in COMMANDS, but somewhat opaque otherwise), and the rest of the game flowed smoothly.

Happily, there’s a very simple fix for this: just mention COMMANDS in the intro, instead of just the ABOUT! And emphasize that it’s critical for playing the game. And then the more complicated fix is to also implement responses for things I tried like >TURN PEG and >PLAY ONE STRING; even if it’s just telling the player what command to use instead.

On a personal note, having recently immersed myself in I7, it was actually kind of charming to find small bugs here and there and be able to comment >[‘LAST CHECK’ NOT ‘CHECK’], or, >[MOVE THE PLAYER AFTER THE CUT SCENE, NOT BEFORE]. I know what’s going on! I can help! Woo!

At any rate, by the end of the game, all was forgiven. I loved the setting, I loved the characters, I loved solving problems with music. I admit to a little bit of confusion about the >LORE, but nothing an ‘OK, sure, why not?’ couldn’t cure.

Did the author have anything to say? I may be tuned into this more in my current state of mind, having recently wrote a game where I very much had something to say about how life works, but I could feel the philosophy of the game seeping through the cracks, and I really appreciated it. It had to do with appreciating life, appreciating music, and the role of empathy in a life well lived. And the negative consequences of one of the two endings just delighted me in how they paled in comparison to the positive consequences, especially in a ‘folk tale’ like this. What does it matter if the very rhythms of all of nature are thrown in disarray? You got to spend time with your love, and it means you’ll have a new adventure to go on next to fix things again!
Did I have something to do? Be delighted, frustrated, and then delighted again. Solving the puzzles was quite satisfying, both in an ‘I know what to do!’ sense, but also in a ‘I get to read some cool text as a result!’ sense.

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Cyclic Fruition Number One
D E Haynes

“Railway stations age like old words. With every repetition we precipitate new meaning.”

That’s the first line of this work. It sounded evocative! And then I re-read it a few times, and decided it did not actually make any sense.

Which means we’re in one of those, I dunno, vibe games? Where the point of the game lies somewhere beyond literal meaning, and you have to sort of intuit your way forward.

Or, because you’re me, the whole thing escapes you and you just try to be methodical instead, because I am, at my heart, a pragmatic person, and while I have at least a vague appreciation for the metaphorical/metaphysical/philosophical/abstruse/random, it’s not particularly my mode.

I clicked on things a lot, ended up seeing the same pages a lot, then differences started showing up, and it took me to a page entitled “Saved by the Junk DLC #1: Dialogue and Action” It seemed like an ending? I am calling it an ending. I am not particularly convinced it is an ending.

Did the author have anything to say? I cannot say! The evidence seems to point to ‘yes’?
Did I have something to do? Try to figure out the answer to the first question, and fail.

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Hi Lucian, thanks for taking the time to write this review. Would you mind editing your fifth paragraph to obscure what might be considered a spoiler please?

I’m very happy to answer any questions about this entry but I’m remaining aloof just now so as not to affect any of the reviews :smiley:

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Done! Whoops, sorry.

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The House
Miles Poehler

This game has a lot of energy and flash. It had the feeling for me of a game where the author had a bunch of ideas, and felt the need to get them all written out quickly before they slipped away. As a result, the final product has a bunch of typos and a serious lack of coherence, but that was never the point–the point was to have someone tell you, “Hey, you know what would be cool?” and then tell you a short story, and then two seconds later tell you, “Hey, you know what else would be cool?” and tell you a completely different short story. And they are, indeed, cool ideas! Some of them landed for me better than others, simply due to my personal preferences in story make-up (I’m not super into epic tragedy/angst, both of which are key points of a couple of the stories) but none overstay their welcome.

I appreciated the fact that there were eight total characters of which you got to pick four for any given playthrough, meaning you could get the basics from exactly two playthroughs. But there was extra material for even more playthroughs, so if you really were taken with one of the characters, you could go back and enjoy a bit more of their interactions with each other. But at the same time, I didn’t feel anything was lost by not going back for that? I appreciated that bit of game design, as well.

Did the author have anything to say? “Hey, guess what?”
Did I have something to do? This is probably the weakest part of the design–there was literally no meaningful choice ever in the entire game, other than ‘which story do you want to hear?’

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The Missing City Council
Solarius

My expectations for this game were calibrated in the very first room. In the room description, it says ‘You can see a City Hall here.’ ‘A city hall?’ I thought. ‘Maybe…’

>GET CITY HALL
Taken.

[cue giggling.]

Look. It is not the first nor the last time this particular bug has shown up in a .z5 game. I have coded that bug myself many times. The point is that it put me in the right mode to not get upset when, for example:

Office of the Mayor
An office with a desk.

You can see a fluffy mat here.

> x desk
Sorry, I don’t understand what “desk” means.

OK, got it. At this point, I was happy to wander around and Only Do Obvious Things, and when I ran out of that, I turned to the walkthrough, which turned out to be a good idea; it turns out that what was obvious to me and what was obvious to the author were very very different.

There were some interesting ideas here, and as all the other reviews are saying, it could use some more implementation and feedback to the hapless player. But, as the author says “You’ve got to start somewhere, right?” Indeed, Solarius. Indeed.

Did the author have anything to say? “You’ve got to start somewhere, right?”
Did I have something to do? Giggle about carrying around the city hall literally every time I took inventory. I have very basic needs.

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A Quiet Scurry
Moss & Quill Studios

Reading the opening of this story, I was suddenly struck with the memory of my dad reading me ‘The Whispering Rabbit’ by Margaret Wise Brown. It’s a cute story about a rabbit who swallows a bee that falls asleep, and the rabbit has to figure out how to wake it up so it’ll fly away again. And the rabbit can only whisper, so when you read it to your kid, you have to whisper, too. As it turns out, the rabbit in that story dies a lot less often than our fearful protagonist mouse in this game, but something about the generally pastoral setting resonated. I felt like whispering when I played it, and despite the many tragic deaths lurking behind many clicks, it was just… nice to feel small. Like your troubles are large for you, but small for the world. The writing was focused, deliberate, and evocative. Sometimes that’s kind of what you need. OK, time for bed, kid. I love you.

Did the author have anything to say? ‘Here, be a mouse for a little bit.’
Did I have something to do? Replay the game multiple times, first to try to avoid dying, then to see how else I could die, then to see how else I could curl up for the night at the end.

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The Universal Robot (Assembled By Hex)
Agnieszka Trzaska

This was pretty delightful! The worldbuilding is amusing/dystopian, and in no time at all, I had identified with and was rooting for our protagonist. And shortly after that, I was trying things that worked and feeling clever for having figured them out.

In general, the design is pretty tight, and well put together: you start off with a variety of Things To Experiment With, and Obvious Goals, and can see where you’re going to need things you can’t get yet, but the new obstacles seem equally surmountable. All the while, your puzzle solving is taking you around the station, familiarizing you with hints of further options and stuff you don’t need yet, but not too much down the ‘I can’t tell if these are red herrings or immediately useful’ route.

Then you get to the end, and at that point, I had several different things I wanted to try to end the game in different ways, and most of them worked! And all you really need at that point is a way to get to at least one vaguely positive ending, which seems pretty likely to me. But the lure of the rest of the dozen endings was compelling enough that I then stuck around for that, too! And it was also great!

Did the author have anything to say? You know, mostly yes! There was the mostly-standard, ‘gee, companies are kind of awful, amirite?’ but also stories of resilience in the midst of oppression, which was kind of satisfying.

Did I have something to do? Probably the most out of any of the Spring Thing games I’ve played so far! I figured out a lot of stuff, and then was sufficiently intrigued by the ‘find all the endings’ challenge that I stuck with it (getting a bunch of hints from @allyson along the way) and even though I was getting hints, I still felt clever any time I made the final leap of logic and got a new ending. And all the endings were great, and I now have several favorites, and not just one. Bonus!

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I’ve stolen a door or two in my time in IF, but never an entire city hall! Congrats :slight_smile:

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Crier
Antemaion

Well… hmm.

I am generally in favor of games (and art) that know exactly what they are, and set about being that. And this game definitely knew what it was. I’m not entirely sure I knew what it was, but it definitely did.

I will try to sum up. You’re a ‘mad prophet’, sent to a techno-slimy underworld of sorts. You meet with its denizens, form relationships and alliances, and gradually learn what the blurb for the game gives away. (Which I only realized afterwards; I was glad I hadn’t read the blurb.) I found a few endings, all of which I found pretty satisfying.

But what the game actually is all about is vibes: there are schlorpy pictures, there’s a schlorpy font, there’s schlorpy music in the background, there’s schlorpy sound effects when you meet someone or talk to someone or they try to kiss/eat you.

None of that is particularly my favorite vibe in the world (and the fact that the music kept playing even when alt-tabbed made me just turn it off), but I do like good postmodern biotech, and all the stuff in here with lichen running code or mushrooms being some denizen’s multi-camera feed was great, and super inventive. And, as mentioned, the dedication to the bit was impressive, and I want to encourage this sort of behavior. There’s no point in catering to the masses in a niche field like this; go for the 10 people in the world who will love your work with the heat of 1000 bioluminescent patches of lichen, as I always say.

Did the author have anything to say? Yes! I felt like I wasn’t quite the audience it was going to hit, but I could see the swings, if that makes any sense.

Did I have something to do? Despite my slight disconnect, I did end up sympathizing with our protagonist, and was happy to help them accomplish their goals.

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Exchange
Peter Johnston

A back garden work, and a short intro for a planned longer work. I played through, appreciated the near-future worldbuilding, made a choice that I did not have enough context for, but whatever, and then the game stopped. After a bit of scrolling around and checking to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, I figured it was probably an ending? And I thought, “OK, that was short enough, I can play through again to see what the other choice would have led to.” I restarted, and picked the other initial option, one of two onomatopoeia words just to see the slight variation the other choice would have shown me, ready to play through to the same final choice as before.

I was shocked to discover that I was an entirely different character. And there was zero indication that this could even potentially be the case! I haven’t seen such brazen ‘I will hide half the game from my players without telling them, and then giggle at them when the reviews show up and people start to realize they’ve played completely different games’ since Losing Your Grip. Seriously, Mr. Johnston, that took some chutzpah. Good job.

I’m not sure what I could say that would be helpful here to the rest of the work in progress. We basically get the premise here, and nothing else. The characters seem fine? The premise seemed interesting and relevant. The writing got me invested in the characters, at least a little; presumably more investment could happen as ‘real’ choices happened more frequently and involved trickier things. There’s a lot in the blurb and author’s notes that do not show up in this intro in any way, shape, or form, but if they were introduced later, that would certainly be fine. Overall, it seems like a solid premise.

Did the author have anything to say? “Is this good enough?”

Did I have something to do? “Yeah, go for it.”

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