Not a new game announcement as such, but I’ve recently discovered Wavedash and have set myself the goal of adding something of mine every Saturday for the foreseeable future. Twine games are the easiest option for me just now, so it’s likely that’s what I’ll be focusing on for at least the next few weeks. Already on the platform are Elftor and the Quest of the Screaming King, which you might recognise from Spring Thing 2023, and Draw Nine, which got the honourable mention for IntroComp 2018 but probably isn’t quite as well known. (I’m also just now noticing that it’s tagged “first effort” on IFDB even though I’d already been writing IF for…half a decade, I think?)
One of the reasons I’m putting my games up over there is that the platform offers some interesting features in terms of cloud storage, shared progress, multiplayer, and achievements. I very nearly approached them about setting up a system for players to share progress for Uninteractive Fiction 3 but ultimately decided it was probably safer to go with a more familiar option. Still, Elftor already tracks the various endings the player has found so it’s possible I could make those into achievements down the line. I figure that if I get some practice adding features like that to existing games, I might be able to do some more ambitious things for titles written with Wavedash’s features in mind.
Interactive fiction currently feels rather underrepresented on the site, so if anybody else fancies joining me over there I’d be very happy to have the company. I’d be especially happy if anybody else throws their hat into the ring figuring out how to make use of the achievements and cloud saves and whatnot.
Oh, also - full disclosure - Wavedash pays out money based on the time spent on games over there. I’m up to $1.19 so far! I’ll have to wait and see if that develops into a more meaningful amount once I’ve got a larger selection available, but figured I’d mention it in case anybody else was interested. (I feel as though text games have to be pretty large before it’s really practical to charge for them directly, so a setup like this feels more approachable.)