Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2026 games available for playing and judging

Competitions
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The submissions are in, the starter’s flag is down and the entries submitted for Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2026 can now be played and rated at itch.io.

Despite the record-breaking number of registrations, there were only 9 entries submitted. That’s a comfortable number of games to play over the coming month.

In alphabetical order, the entries are:

  • The Abbey of the Hidden Rose (Philip Richmond; TAB)
  • Adventure in the Crypt (Candy64; MAD Candy Interactive Fiction Studio) (See warning below)
  • The Antediluvian Weapon (Daniel Stelzer; Dialog/Z-code)
  • Beneath the Exhibition (patricksgamecorner; Custom Javascript)
  • Big Deal, Oh! (Andrew Schultz; Adventuron)
  • Epic Expedition (dgtziea; Adventuron)
  • The Gnomish Treasury (Lamp Post Projects; Inform 7)
  • The Pattern Beneath (Relei; Quest 6)
  • Ransack! (Charles Moore Jr; Dialog/Z-code)

Try to play and rate all games. The judging closes on 31 May 2026.

Now, which one to play first?

WARNING: Whatever you do, do not run Adventure in the Crypt in Windows 7, as it will lock up your system, require a forced reboot and all the associated trauma that comes with that.

18 Likes
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Oh, this is a pretty bunch of games to play, thank you.

6 Likes
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Excited to release my first parser! I hope folks have fun with The Gnomish Treasury.

Congratulations to all the participants. And thank you for this platform to share our work, Garry. Looking forward to diving into the other entries :blush:

11 Likes
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We’re a week into the judging period and there’s already 27 ratings. Thanks to those who got in early.

If you’re wondering which games to play, there’s a link on the Submissions page that says “Submissions in need of ratings”. I think this only shows if you haven’t made any ratings. If it shows, click this to see how many ratings have been made and play the games with the lowest number of ratings, as they’re the ones that need your support.

At the moment, The Abbey of the Hidden Rose has only one rating, probably because it’s Windows only, but you can play it on Mac and Linux if you have the appropriate Windows emulation software. For what it’s worth, I tested this one and thought it was pretty good, so it’s worth playing.

Two of the other games have only 2 ratings each, and the highest number of ratings is 5. Let’s try to get at least 10 ratings per game by the end of the month.

6 Likes
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We’re two weeks into the judging period and there are now 39 ratings. Things will pick up towards the end of the month. We currently have three games with 3 ratings, three games with 4 ratings and the remaining three games have 5, 6 or 7 ratings. The Antediluvian Weapon is in front with the most ratings.

Keep 'em coming, folks.

7 Likes
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We’re now three weeks into the judging period and we have 50 ratings, so we’re getting there…slowly, but surely.

The fewest number of ratings is 3 and Epic Expedition has hit the front with 8 ratings, so it’s quite unbalanced. I’d like to see at least 10 ratings per game, so get those ratings in as soon as you can. The judging finishes on Sunday, 31 May 2026.

5 Likes
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I was … elsewhere much longer than I meant to be.

I’m playing Abbey of the Hidden Rose right now, the one with the fewest ratings. So if we want every entry to get 10 ratings people may want to get acquainted with it before the deadline.

It appears to be pretty straightforward to run and install on Windows. I don’t know how it would work with WINE or whatever.

1 Like
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Adventure in the Crypt, et al. are designed as modern Windows 10/11 applications for modern reasons related to Steam and the Windows App store.

1 Like
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That would be helpful. By “DOS version”, do you mean MS-DOS or it just needs a command prompt?

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I’ll be returning from vacation today and hoping to play and review at least three or four of the entries before the deadline!

Also, yeah, a pure console version is typically much easier to emulate via WINE. Fewer APIs to handle and such.

1 Like
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This will probably be my last reminder about getting your ratings in for TALJ 2026. We currently have 72 ratings and there is less than 5 days to go. I’m expecting a rush towards the end.

Thanks to those who have already voted and good luck to all participants. Results will be revealed on 1 June 2026.

4 Likes