Now that the IFComp '24 is done & gone, let’s look forward and onward to the Spring Thing !
I don’t know if I enter or not (because of my well-known commitment…) but for sure if I enter something, will be in the backgarden, for now-obvious reasons.
A crazy idea I have is a new rule, at least for the backgarden: an entry can be in multiple language (both selectable or separate story file) whose can be interesting for other IF communities, (French, Italian, Spaniard) and even the english one, I think.
Anyway, who will enter, or mull entering, the 2025 Spring Thing ?
I am hoping to have two small back garden projects that I’ve been writing about at my blog. One is a short little story for children (with a cat protagonist) and the other is a weird art thing (poetry, I hope) that is not for children. Spring Thing is my favorite time of the IF year!
I’m planning to submit my intent to enter as soon as the registrations open.
About 85% of the content is done, although there’s still a sizable amount of content left to finish. Moreover, it’s going to need a lot of polish. I have received plenty of feedback from a tiny handful of testers, but I’ll need to see if I can get more for the final draft (I’m quite worried about that already).
I’m also leaning towards forgoing a Hosted Games release entirely and making the Spring Thing release the full version… but this is still a decision I’m constantly going back and forth on.
Maybe I will submit a prologue of a longer game (but a complete story, even short), that will allow me to have feedback on the game universe, the atmosphere and the gameplay. We need to have a finished product by March, right?
The deadline is usually the end of March, yeah
Like the IFComp, you need to submit an intent beforehand. That deadline is end of February. (Brian will probably wait a couple of months before updating the website with the exact date though).
With Brian’s announcement and the launch of intent submissions- how are people feeling? I’m excited, and I’ve gotten in my entry’s intent.
Hoping to finish up my space gothic romance Cuspid for the main venue. Just broke 13.5k on it so far- (and up to ~11k / Day 6’s base implemented, Day 1 fully so) and I’m pretty excited about it shaping up to be my longest finished work. Already have the cover art, CSS, and about blurb finished.
Above is a fun little graph charting my writing progress over the last month. There is also a chart that varies the intensity of filled in boxes to represent the relative amount of words written on said day. Apparently I get the most words punched in on Mondays and Wednesdays, but my most consistent writing days are Thursdays.
I’m in a mindset similar to when I design a role-playing game campaign for my daughters and their friends: focused, immersed in my own world, striving for both coherence and a twist in perceptions, and juggling a bunch of important tasks that I inevitably tackle at the last minute because they’ve fallen down the priority list.
I’ve been working for several months on my Python framework, to bring it to the point where it can host a substantial game.
Haven’t announced my intention yet, but I think Spring Thing 2025 is the one where I jump in with both feet. It’s something of a risk, but if not now, when?
I’ve tested some basic mechanics, and I’m fairly sure about how to define the story structure. There’s a minimal list of characters, and I’ve figured out a basic motivation for each one.
The dialogue itself is so far completely unwritten. I have a private GitHub repo, which I’ll make public when the time comes. I’m planning to add tags as I go, so that later on I can document the development process for those who are interested.
Stretch goal is to showcase some multimedia features, hopefully musical cues which will be part of the gameplay.
Now we’re getting into the even-worse-brain-fog-than-usual season, and progress is sluggish. Okay, I still haven’t released my 1995 IFComp entry, so “sluggish” is relative, but still.
Charging ahead! Of my two Back Garden entries, one is 90% complete (I think). Shifting focus to the other one now. It’s not nearly as far along, but hopefully most of the tech stuff is in place–I’d like to focus on the writing now.
For me, paradoxically, the 1+3+1 entry slots complicates the planning (not plotting ) phase, because of the need of evaluating also from a front/back garden perspective (the NG+ section is out of question, because I decided that in 2025, Railei don’t send teams into IF competitions…)
so, for now all options are still feasible for me, from a lone backgarden entry to one front and three back garden entries…
I am deffinitely entering our team’s traditional set topic antology of micro games. If there is an author to risk the sharks in the Main Festival waters, I will first consult with the organizer. Our topic this time has a song-inspired title “As I Sat on a Sunny Bank” and shall be a collection of story-games the storylines of which are triggered by objects found as litter on a river bank or beach. It’s a bit environmental, but so far there are just books and bottles, we’ll see. At least one game will be bilingual - English/Italian. Possibly I will add my baby daughter’s Slovak try-out with English translation.
I am currently designing a game for Russian Winter Comp which I might try and translate into English as a bilingual entry, but it is huge and I can’t see the end of the tunnel yet. It’s a role-play, move-based multiplayer designed originally for our sea scout kids as a storytelling pastime when waiting for a bus.
We’ll see. We are already deep into our Spring Thing fever here.
) phase, because of the need of evaluating also from a front/back garden perspective (the NG+ section is out of question, because I decided that in 2025, Railei don’t send teams into IF competitions…)