Welcome…
…to the inaugural IF Review-a-thon! (Thanks to @manonamora for the graphic idea—“thon” means “tuna” in French!)
Backstory
First mentioned in this post (four months ago… 
), this idea had a dual inspiration. One motivator was, simply, my love of the community’s reviewing culture. I came to the community via Spring Thing 2023, and it was an amazing experience to receive so many thoughtful, in-depth reviews of my work. I’ve also very much enjoyed reading reviewers’ takes on others’ games (and writing reviews myself) during events since then. Basically, the reviews and reviewers here are great.
However, the community’s review culture is specifically tied to the few big annual comps, and I’ve seen and been part of multiple discussions about how non-comp games receive less attention. This is something the community has attempted to address in various ways in the past—see the IF Review Conspiracy, the Non-Comp Review Project, and Emily Short’s impetus for SmoochieComp. So, in the spirit of these past efforts, here’s my own initiative!
What is the Review-a-thon?
The IF Review-a-thon is an event meant to spur reviews of games released outside the major comps—specifically, games whose authors have indicated they’d like more reviews by submitting them to this poll. From now until August 30, I’m encouraging anyone who’d like to participate to play and review games from that list, posting your reviews both on IFDB and in forum threads. I’m hoping to replicate the experience of multiple people reviewing the same games at the same time that happens during comps.
There’s a review spreadsheet here, which has a second sheet with info about the games (author, whether parser or choice, etc.). Thanks to @Zed for extracting the info from IFDB! For any authors who are just learning of this and would like to add your games, please do so via the IFDB poll; I’ll be keeping an eye on it and will add any new entries to the spreadsheet.
For Fun
At the end of the event, I’ll give out some awards to reviews/reviewers (“award” meaning recognition in a forum post 
)—one will be for most reviews, with the others TBD.
I’ve also created a bingo card you can also fill in as you go if you like, or just use to help you choose games. Thanks to @manonamora for the idea!
Sponsorships
Finally, this event will incorporate reviewer sponsorships in order to raise more money for the GoFundMe for Pinkunz. Thanks to @DeusIrae for the idea and helping me work out the details! The way this will work is that reviewers can opt in to be sponsored, and then anyone can sign up to sponsor a reviewer at either $2 or $5 per review, donating the end total to the GFM. So the more reviews, the more money donated—although sponsors are free to cap their max donation amount (e.g., committing $5 per review for up to 5 reviews). As an extra incentive for the $5 tier, sponsors can choose one of the games the reviewer reviews (unless the reviewer has opted out of this—see below).
Here is the sponsorship spreadsheet. Reviewers: if you’d like to be available for sponsorships, add your name to the Reviewer column. If you’re not comfortable with sponsors picking one of the games you review, you can opt out of the $5 tier by putting “($2 only)” after your name. Sponsors: check back soon to see which reviewers have signed up, then pick one (or more) to sponsor! Enter your name, tier, and cap if applicable (I’ve put in some fake entries as examples). Or, if you’d like to remain anonymous, reach out to me via direct message with your tier and cap, and I’ll add you to the sheet as “anonymous”. For those sponsoring reviewers at the $5 tier, DM them to let them know which game you’re requesting they review.
Now… let’s get reviewing!
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