A 2-round interactive fiction game jam, focusing on creativity and the growth of ideas.
SeedComp! is separated into 2 distinct rounds: Planting and Sprouting.
During the Planting Round, you are invited to submit ‘seeds’ into the competition (text, images, code, etc…). In the Sprouting Round, you get to select one or more seeds and use them as inspiration for your interactive fiction entry for fun, awards, and bragging rights!
For more details and the sign-up links, head on over to SeedComp.org!
I already have a seed. I’ll submit it as soon as the comp opens. A question: will seeds be public as they are submitted? Or will they all become available only on Jan 7?
To help encourage more submissions and to help get those creative juices flowing, seeds will be available to view as soon as they’re submitted.
You may also edit/update your seed all the way until the January 7th deadline if you wish.
(Note that we will be keeping an eye out for NSFW seeds that are missing Content Warnings and for simple trolling/abuse/hate; i.e. we reserve the right to pull a seed if necessary.)
For those who plan on participating in part two, what kind of seeds would you like best?
I’m not sure I’ll be able to participate in part 2, since I’m working on something else and already semi-committed to another comp, but part 1 would be fun. I have a worked-out game idea I had floating around for years, a partially-finished Inform game, and an extension for conversations. I only plan on submitting one seed, and it would be interesting to hear what people are most looking forward to from part 1.
Edit: Not just looking for what people are interested in out of my ideas, but also what people are interested in from others. I know @AmandaB gets a lot of mileage out of poems, and I have often been inspired by books and plays.
I have quite a few poem-inspired ideas lurking, but I don’t know if anyone actually wants those. You kind of have to love the poem to see how it would work for a game.
Yeah, I had similar questions too – I actually had an idea for a poem (like, a famous one, not something I wrote) as a seed rattling around in my head too, but my read of the rules is that that might not be OK since they say seeds must be the author’s own work. Is that rule still applicable if the work in question is out of copyright?
And then yeah, I’m curious about whether folks would be more excited to get some completed Inform code, vs. a transcript that could potentially be implemented in either a parser or choice-based language, vs. just a written-out piece of prose or description that could inspire a game.
(Personally, I’d probably be most interested in taking somebody else’s Inform code and running with it – largely I think since I’ve been playing a bunch of Cragne Manor lately so getting to do a mini version of that sounds fun!)
I’d run StingComp, of course! Imagine a map of dozens of rooms, every one a different person’s memory of getting stung by a bee. Move over Counterfeit Monkey, your days at the top of the IFDB poll are numbered…
I remember walking and feeling a sudden pain in my arm, looking down, and there was a wasp that had stung me trying to wriggle itself out of my skin. I wasn’t near a nest, I hadn’t noticed it or engaged with it in any way, I hadn’t made any sudden moves, I wasn’t carrying anything, I wasn’t even near any plants. I had no idea for the life of me why this wasp had chosen to sting me. I remember asking “Why?”*, as if the wasp might hiss that an innate spite unspeakable and uncaused pulsating within its instinct compelled it to wreak misery on any being its hatred could hurt or something, maybe engage me in a conversation about the Reason and Purpose of Pain.
*or, more accurately, “Wshtgwfwtwgwptwhuaaaflubgluaaaableaaaeuwhyyyyy?”
Character A opens mouth to say something. Bee flies in A’s mouth. A yells, “OW!”.
Character B, who watched all this, says “Did a bee just sting you in your throat?”
A says, “Wheeze, gurgle, gasp!” and begins turning purple.
B shouts for help and flags down passing car since this was pre-cellphone.
Drive to hospital is very scary, but all ends up OK even though both characters are scarred for life, and 30 years later when B’s husband convinces her to move to the country and insists on having bee hives there, there are several panic attacks after the bees arrive and B grasps that many, many bees live in a beehive.
EDIT: @DeusIrae , after running through your new game, I totally think this should be a thing. Also of interest: the bees are rented. There is seriously a Rent-A-Bee woman out here who puts hives on your land and maintains them. Also, within 5 minutes of her bringing the bees out, Tom got stung 3 times-- even though she told him to stay away because the bees would be angry, he did not.
I’d have to talk to the rest of the committee, but I would say the rule does still apply. Not for legal reasons, but because the spirit of the jam is to mutually create things, which you can’t do if one of the parties died half a century ago.
Now if you were to adapt the original work in some way, I think that would be a different matter.
I’d personal lean towards the latter two, only because I suspect unfinished games and extensions will be lighter on the ground than game ideas. Variety is cool. With that said, we’d be thrilled with however you choose to participate.
I personally feel that, while not everyone’s fare, poem seeds would be fantastic, and I would likely personally gravitate toward them. The more the merrier.
For nearly all cases:
+Does this work as a se-
+YES
If it’s in the public domain, it’s probably fair game.
I could see an argument made that it goes against the spirit of the comp, but I don’t know if I want to rule lawyer to that degree. Let me bounce that off the other organizers and we’ll get back to you.
Unknown. We’re treading virgin territory here AFAIK. I guess just submit whatever speaks to you, and we’ll all see what sticks in March/April.
I think ‘only it’s about gardening’ is enough of a spin on that to make it work. I just think that if you directly copy paste something as a seed then it’s not really in the spirit imo.
Alright, this one bounced around a bit, but we finally settled onto the following:
You may submit public domain material as a seed to round 1 without alteration.
We are unwilling to police how much spin is enough to consider it original. (Female Frankenstein’s monster, meh, Frankenstein’s monster is made entirely from executed political dissidents, and retains their sentiments, probably fine, where’s the line in between the two? Too subjective and nobody has the will to argue it.)
With that said, we strongly encourage the individual submitting the seed to include some sort of spin or reimaging to make it their own.
Also, we thought folks aren’t as likely to engage with seeds that are simply public domain material submitted as is, so we’re hoping this will disincentivize this behavior as well.
Anything with an interesting story or concept in an unusual setting. For example, rather than the usual myths and legends based on Greek and Roman mythology, how about Celtic or Oriental mythology? Rather than cowboys in the American old west, how about cowboys in Argentina? Oh, and something that lends itself to lots of puzzles, as I would be doing a parser-based game.
I had the same question. I have an idea in my ideas file that is based on a concept in a short film. I think I originally found this in a graphic design magazine around 30 or 40 years ago. I recently watched the film on YouTube and thought it was pretty crap, but the idea still has merit. As the storyline is based on someone else’s idea, it doesn’t sound like I can use it.
