I want to play games by new authors (I was new last year!), but I have to know who you are.
Please introduce yourself and your game here.
And then please fill out the “New IFComp Author” form in triplicate, sign it in your blood, and send it via whooping crane to: Comp Records, 23rd Cave of Lonely Mountain (or Erebor if you like that better), Middle Earth.
Hello!
Name’s Manon, creator of The Thick Table Tavern, a chill bartender simulator in a tavern located in a fantasy land. If you want to take a break from reading, I have included an Arcade Mode so you can just have fun making drinks 
I’ve only started dabbling in IF last year and this is the first time I am participating in a big comp too!
Also, I forgot my pen, sooo signing the form will be a bit… complicated 
There are no whooping cranes where I live, would a grey heron be all right?
Anyway, hi! This is my first IFComp and my first time publicly sharing a game I’ve made. My entry is A Long Way to the Nearest Star.
Yes me! I’m Graham and I wrote The Thirty Nine Steps game.
Just getting the whooping crane ready.
Hi! Never participated in an IF competition in general but hey, here I am (even though I wrote a horror story I am too much of a scaredy cat irl to sign your form in blood, my apologies). I wrote Graveyard Strolls!
That sounds super fun – and I just checked and your game is third in my queue so I’ll get to play it soon!
Hopefully someone’s posted a version of this in the author’s forum already, but as someone who was new to the comp in 2020 here’s some of the best tips I got from the old hands:
The first couple days of the Comp can feel oddly quiet – that’s because everybody’s furiously downloading the games and starting to work on reviews. It’s hard not to try to refresh the forum every two minutes to see what folks think of your game, but if you can, it’s probably better to similarly dig into your fellow authors’ games, or go for a run, or otherwise try to decompress a bit.
Along the same lines, your game will get at least a couple reviews, even if it’s a Unix-only game that requires a 1 GB download – but you might not get them soon. Even the most prolific reviewers need to have something come up 71st, and this year some of those folks are out of town for a week, like @mathbrush, carving out space for Ectocomp, like @rovarsson, or, er, spending the time they were looking forward to spending on IF on the first day of the Comp instead dealing with getting locked out of their house with a one-year-old, which is an example I pulled from nowhere in particular. But again, the reviews will come.
Once again relatedly, some of the reviews will probably be negative, and sometimes seemingly-unfairly so because the reviewers missed some stuff (though they will almost certainly be more positive than you expect, if you’re anything like me – this is a pretty positive, supportive community). But even if one annoys you, it’s probably best to drop a quick thank you and maybe send a DM with a “hey, you might not have noticed X thing” note if that seems warranted, rather than try to prove to the reviewer that they Just Didn’t Get It. For every reviewer, there’s like 10 players who didn’t say anything but probably enjoyed your game all the same!
If you have a game that gathers transcripts when folks play directly on the Comp site, you will quickly see a bunch of transcripts showing up where the player quits immediately after the opening text, or after typing ABOUT and X ME, or after typing ABOUT and X ME and FART. You will think these people must have decided your game sucks because the opening isn’t grabby or you didn’t have the right testers or you failed to implement lovingly-customized responses to all the mild profanity you could think of, but that’s not the case – everybody gets these. I can’t say I 100% know what’s going through those players’ heads, but often they’re just scoping out the options which they’ll come back to later.
Early players will likely find awful bugs that you have no idea how you could have possibly missed. This happens to everybody, even experienced authors – don’t sweat it and use the mid-Comp update feature! (And reviewers/players, if you find some bugs, it can be nice to politely pass those on to the authors, either via review or transcript or a discreet email or DM)
Enjoy the time and congrats on entering your first Comp - it’s a big accomplishment!
Hi! My name is Paige, and I wrote One Final Pitbull Song (at the End of the World) for this year’s comp. Super excited to be here!
Thank you for the lovely words and the advice, I really appreciate it. I hope you like the game
I’ve participated in smaller jams before. It’s just that this one is The Big One.
It’s nice to see you on the forums, Manon! You’ve done really great community building work over on the IF sphere over yonder on Tumblr and that associated Discord, and it’s cool to see familiar faces cross pollinating across the communities. Best of luck in the competition!
Thank you Sofia <3
In an example I could similarly pull from nowhere in particular, a friendly neighbour lady made for a pleasant passing of the time. Hot chocolate and a cooing teenage daughter/babysitter were involved.
Yeeaahh… I made a first pass over all the blorbs, convincing myself I would limit myself to the minimum of five to be eligible for judging… Didn’t quite pan out that way. I’ve got a download list of ten now and at least as many shorter (mostly twine/choice) ones I kinda really want to see too.
Hi! 
I’m Brad. My spouse and I wrote Esther’s. It’s our first comp entry. We hope you enjoy it!
I’m Jim Nelson, this is my first IF Comp rodeo. My entry is According to Cain, a parser-based mystery.
I’m frazzled, walking on eggshells, and excited to play all the new wonderfulness this year! I crashed @dfabulich’s IF meetup today and already saw some impressive entries in group play.
Esther’s was the first thing I played: adorable, both the artwork and the story.
Congrats, Jim! I loved loved loved Past Present, and it’s high time you dove into the Comp. I’m really looking forward to yours.
I tested According to Cain, and I have to say, I think you’re in for a treat - I really enjoyed the game even in beta version and I’m excited to check out the final!
I’m William “caranmegil” Moore. This is my first competition I have ever willingly entered. Really what I want out of this is the sense of community, getting constructive feedback, and to play other IF for ideas on how to write them!
Hi,
My name is Richard Develyn and I wrote Arborea. It’s my first entry into any IF competition and, indeed, the first game I have ever completed and published. My beta testers were very encouraging about the work and I’m now anxiously waiting to see what other people think. Thank you Mike R for all your advice!
All the best
Richard
Hi, I’m Rachel Helps and it’s my first time entering a game into IF Comp, but not my first time doing videogame writing! I wrote Admiration Point, an anti-romance where you play as a virtual environmental artist for a near-future digital culture museum.