Spring Thing 2023 is Live!

I’m very pleased to announce that the 2023 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction is now open!

This year, there are twenty-six games, spread across two categories. Authors chose whether to submit games to the Main Festival, where they are eligible for ribbon nominations and the prize pool, or the Back Garden, which opts out of ribbons and prizes but has looser entry requirements (including allowing excerpts from unfinished or commercial games).

In the Main Festival:

Title System Length
Aesthetics Over Plot, by ro-han Twine short
Beat Me Up Scotty, by Jkj Yuio Strand micro
Elftor and the Quest of the Screaming King, by Damon L. Wakes Twine short
Etiolated Light, by Lassiter W. Twine short
The Familiar, by groggydog Adventuron full
Galaxy Jones, by Phil Riley Inform/Glulx full
I Am Prey, by Joey Cramsey TADS 3 short
Insomnia: Twenty-Six Adventures After Dark, by Leon Lin Twine short
The Kuolema, by Ben Jackson Google Forms full
Lady Thalia and the Masterpiece of Moldavia, by E. Joyce & N. Cormier Twine full
Marie Waits, by Dee Cooke Inform/Z short
Nothing Could be Further From the Truth, by Adam Wasserman Inform/Glulx full
Protocol, by 30x30 Twine full
Red Door Yellow Door, by Charm Cochran Inform/Glulx short
Repeat the Ending, by Drew Cook Inform/Glulx full
The Roads not Taken, by manonamora Twine short
The Sacred Shovel of Athenia, by AndyG Inform/Glulx short
A Single Ouroboros Scale: My Postmortem, by Naomi Norbez Twine
Structural Integrity, by Tabitha O’Connell Twine short
The Withering Gaze of the Earth, by Emily worm Twine short
Your Post-Apocalyptic To-Do List, by Geoffrey Golden Ink short

In the Back Garden:

Title System Length
The Mamertine, by K Vella Twine short
Mirror, by Ondrej Odokienko Twine micro
Secret of the Black Walrus, by spaceflounder HTML/Javascript short
Stygian Dreams, by Giorgos Menelaou Inform/Glulx full
Write or Reflect?, by Andrew Schultz Python short

You can play the games and find out everything you need to know about the festival at the official site, or follow us on Twitter at @SpringThingFest.

Instructions for making ribbon nominations will go up in a couple of days. There are two kinds of ribbons this year:

  • A Best in Show blue ribbon, for Main Festival entries. The top two nominees each year win a Best in Show ribbon to display by their game.
  • Audience Award ribbons, for all participants, which are suggested by nominators and can be anything they like: “Best Story,” “Best Parser Game,” “Personal Favorite,” “Alumni’s Choice,” “Cutest Vampires”… you get the idea.

The festival will be open for ribbon nominations until 11:59 PM EDT, May 13, 2023.

To all the players, and all the entrants, have fun!

– Brian

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:partying_face: :partying_face: :partying_face:
Exciting to see so many new games :smiley:
(Thanks Brian for all your hard work!)

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These entries look like they’re going to be great this year! Congrats on the hard part everyone (which is always submitting), I look forward to reviewing them!

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Excellent! Time to get some downloading done :smiley:

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A special kind of giddiness already tickles me when I think of all the customised ribbons we’ll get to enter during the festival . Let’s get creative folks!

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As expected, some original SeedComp entries missed their exit and pulled into SpringThing instead. This was encouraged and we congratulate you on finishing your games! Very happy for you!

I just want to include a friendly reminder that you should still acknowledge the author of the seed you chose to sprout, as virtually all of them were submitted as CC-BY or CC-BY-NC which requires acknowledgement to use.

Please carry on if you’ve already done this. I have not been through all the titles yet, so I very well could be talking to no one.

Again, yay for honorary SeedComp games!

Excited to see these late-bloomers blossom!

:partying_face:

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It’s my first Spring Thing! I’m thrilled to have a game in the festival.

Can’t wait to play these amazing looking games!

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