It was just announced on Twitter, but philome.la is effectively shutting down at the end of September 2019.
As per the announcement, it will be put into read-only mode at the end of the month. At that point, old links will (should) continue to work, but no new projects will be able to be uploaded.
Alternate locations you can post your Twine (and other) IF projects for free and link to:
https://www.ifarchive.org/
The default that’s been around for generations. Curated submission, accepts IF games, tools, and related files - no registration necessary. Best place to auto-link from IFDB.
http://textadventures.co.uk/
Though primarily a site for Quest games, they will also host parser and HTML web games with a download link or a “play online” button. Requires registration.
itch.io
About two hundred thousand indie games of all types including IF and VN, provides a storefront, allows payments or donations or free download, and in-browser online play with customizable landing page including optional screenshots, message board, and multiple file downloads per project. Projects may also be hidden (“draft mode”) before release and linked to with a secret URL for beta testing. Requires registration.
Note that the IF Archive is an archive and not a hosting service in the same way philome.la is: we store Twine games as zip files, so you have to download and unzip before playing. Which is not to say you shouldn’t upload your Twine games to the IF Archive (you should!) but you should also host it on a hosting service like itch.io or textadventures.co.uk.
Thanks for the correction. I know that some bare gblorb and zblorb games turn into automatic “play online” buttons when linked on IFDB even if not published with an interpreter - that may be a function of IFDB and not IFArchive and likely the source of my confusion.
Fixed.
That relies on iplayif.com, which is a third service cooperating with both.
I keep thinking about extending that idea to Twine, but it wouldn’t be exactly the same as Philomela.
I can recommend GameJolt as another hosting service.
It’s been good 6 years, thanks for your part in Twine Revolution. By the number of Twitter messages, I assume Philome.la is currently hosting ~24K games (announced 22.5K plus games before Twitter and all unannounced)?
