Non-IFComp competitions for Fall/Early Winter

Hi -

[tldr below]

I’ve missed the deadline for declaring my intention to enter in this year’s IFComp -

(I had thought the declaration period ran from September to November, when in fact that’s the period from the declaration deadline to winners announcements!)

  • so was looking on this site and elsewhere for other competitions/festivals going on around this time of year. There’s always the Spring Thing, but how about something sooner? I’ll be finishing my work soon, I’m proud of it - it is assuredly not the magnificent failure that my first IFComp entry was (I had only ever first downloaded Inform 7 a week or so before I entered, and didn’t realized the the… prestige, if you will, of the competition) - and want to showcase it somewhere.

The feedback I received on my first big project was of immeasurable worth, and I still regret not posting my thanks in this forum. Actually, since I’m here… thanks, by the way. Sincerely. I was tickled pink that people took their time to write what they thought; I account it an honor.

[tldr]

So the spirit of what I’m wondering is: what avenues do I have for getting feedback on my work? I don’t have a large personal community (meaning about one person outside of family who would be willing to play it) nor do I have any sort of digital media (no twitters or facebooks). Entering a competition seems like the natural course of action.

Thanks for any suggestions!

[size=50]Note to those who might look up what my previous IFComp entry was and either had the misfortune of playing it themselves or just see the ranking and think oh no not this guy, he shouldn’t enter competitions (thinking of the quote from the IFComp How-to-enter page, “Having more polished, high-quality entries improves the experience of the IF Comp for everyone”):

When I saw the quality of the other entries in the 2013 IFComp, I realized I should have just held on to my game, remastered it, let my friend beta-test it, re-written much of the laugh-out-loud terrible writing (I can get carried away, you know, with melodrama), and put it up for something later maybe. Now that I know more about IFComp and the interactive fiction community in general, I wouldn’t submit an entry to the IFComp or Spring Thing or IntroComp or what have you unless it’s something that should be there. May not be good, but it won’t be the unbearably pretentiously (but - but accurate!) titled ‘A Wind Blown from Paradise’.[/size]

We traditionally see the Saugus.net Halloween story competition (ifwiki.org/index.php/Ectocomp).

Neither has made a 2015 post yet, though.

Thanks! I’ll have to keep these in mind for future years.

But sadly, as my current work is a comedy in the spirit of Space Quest, I don’t think it would fit in very well into a Halloween-themed environment.

I do think that the interactive fiction medium has immense potential for creepiness. Shrapnel (I experienced it with the lights off at night) and The Space Under the Window (that one was you, right, Zarf?), and if you’re willing to take a walk on the dark side, Anchorhead (not because monsters are scary, but because of the ‘good’ ending).

Another non-competition option that has only existed recently: you could submit something to Sub-Q Magazine or the Interactive Fiction Fund and see if they like it.

“Interactive Fiction Fund”? First I hear of it.

Looks cool.