Review-a-thon 2025

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

As previously announced, Review-a-thon 2025 begins on July 1! So I’m now dropping the…

Review-a-thon spreadsheet

We have 19 games this year, all of which are listed along with details on length, development system, etc. in the “Games” tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet. You can also view the list via the IFDB poll.

Bingo

Like last year, there’s an optional bingo card:

Info on all the objective categories is listed in the spreadsheet (except “illustrated game”, which I didn’t think to include—if anyone wants me to add it, just let me know!).

RaT will run through July 30. Happy reviewing, everyone!

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Someone mentioned having trouble figuring out how to play “Return to home”. I’m linking this post by the author; my understanding is that you should download the first file linked in that post, delete the “.txt” from the file name, then open the resulting file in an interpreter (not sure if any interpreter will work, or if it has to be one of the two mentioned, Gargoyle or Agility).

Return to home, a little IF romp

I admit that both now and in 2022 (when the coding was largely done, then put in the freezer for the last three years…) I have nothing to do, so I have, in few sessions, cobbled together a tiny IF romp, coded in what was perhaps the most primitive (mainly because of many limits and hardcoded features) IF language: GAGS ! Actually was compiled with Magx, but the challenge I have put to myself is keeping inside these limits and rigid, hardcoded, parser and because of its tinyness (exist this word…

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

To anyone using the review spreadsheet, I’m going to reorganize it so that the reviewers’ names are in alphabetical order—hopefully this makes it easier, and doesn’t throw anyone off!

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Every Review-a-thon game now has at least one review! Thank you all for the enthusiastic participation; it’s made me as both the organizer and a participating author very happy, and I’m sure the same can be said for the other reviewees!

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

We’re almost at the halfway point, and now all but three games now have at least two reviews, and we’re up to 45 reviews total! Can we hit 50 within the first half of the month?

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Have you been watching Review-a-thon and wishing YOUR games were included? Next year, they can be! The poll for 2026 is up now:

2026 Review-a-thon - games seeking reviews (authors only) - an IFDB Poll

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

@alyshkalia

We’re almost at the halfway point, and now all but three games now have at least two reviews, and we’re up to 45 reviews total! Can we hit 50 within the first half of the month?

Yay, we’re now at 2 or more reviews per game, and 52 reviews total!

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

We’re in the last third now, currently at 66 total reviews and with all games but three at 3+ reviews! New reviewers are still welcome—it’s never too late to jump in and review a few games (or even just one!).

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

In light of the recent forum outage, I’m going to…

Thank you to @Ally for the adorable illustration! While Review-a-thon (aka RaT) was meant to end tomorrow, I’m extending it by one week, so through August 7th instead.

Looks like my latest update was lost in the outage, but we’ve now hit 80+ reviews!

[DeusIrae (Mike Russo)]

Appreciate the extension, and that’s a great long rat

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Last weekend day of Review-a-thon! (Unless you’re in Asia or Australia, in which case it’s already Monday. Condolences.) August has been quiet so far, but there’s still time to get those final reviews in!

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Shouting out some RaT reviews that were only posted to IFDB!

• Althea reviews take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die (now posted on the forum!)
• MathBrush reviews machina caerulea
• MathBrush reviews Quotient, The Game

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

So, I’m considering doing a further RaT extension since I know some people are still working on reviews! But curious what you all think, so…

Would you like to see another extension of the Review-a-thon?

• Yes!
• No, I think it should end on the 7th as planned

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Thanks to all who voted! Given the so-far unanimous support for a further extension, I’m going to add another two weeks and three days to the event—so the new end date will be August 23rd.

Thank you to everyone for your enthusiastic support of Review-a-thon; you’ve made running this event a great experience, and I’m happy to give more time to allow for the writing of even more reviews!

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Shouting out some IFDB-only reviews! crotovane has recently reviewed Lewd Mod: Noir and A House of Endless Windows: Reviews by crotovane

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Only a few days left for this year’s Review-a-thon! I’ll give it all day Saturday in my time zone, so it will officially end on 2025-08-24T03:59:00Z.

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Today is the last day of R-a-t 2025! Per the review spreadsheet we’re currently at 89 total reviews, which is amazing, but if anyone wants to write the 90th, you’ve got about 15 hours to do so!

[alyshkalia (Tabitha (ey/em or they/them))]

Review-a-thon 2025 Wrapup

After multiple extensions beyond the original end date, Review-a-thon 2025 is now over! Ultimately totaling 16 participating reviewers and 89 reviews, which is an amazing amount. Thank you so much to everyone who joined in! And if you meant to join but didn’t get around to it, or started writing any reviews that you didn’t finish, even though RaT is over it’s never too late to post a review.

I highly encourage anyone who hasn’t done so yet to cross-post your reviews from here to IFDB. Having reviews on IFDB benefits both authors and players by collecting all reviews in one easily discoverable place, and benefits you the reviewer by making your reviews more likely to be found and read in the future!

Looking Ahead

The 2026 Review-a-thon IFDB poll is up and ready for more authors to add IF works to!

As far as timing for next year, I’m thinking that I’ll make it July 1 – August 15, and if that goes well, stick with that period/length going forward.

If you have feedback or suggestions for future editions of RaT, I’d love to hear it! Feel free to post here or DM me.

Finally, Review-a-thon now has a dedicated webpage!

Potential spinoff event: Rate-a-thon

This is something I’m thinking of running sometime early next year. New IF works receive relatively few ratings on IFDB, and I think it’d be nice to change that! I’m imagining Rate-a-thon as a relatively short (two weeks?) event during which people are encouraged, perhaps through a friendly competition, to rate works they’ve played on IFDB. Ratings are useful because more ratings = better discoverability, and in the case of positive ratings, it’s another way to let an author know you enjoyed their work!

To gauge interest, here’s an anonymous poll:

Would you consider participating in a Rate-a-thon event?

• Yes
• No

Thanks again to everyone who joined this year’s Review-a-thon and helped make it a success!