The 2017 Spring Thing* Festival of Interactive Fiction

* or Fall Fooferal, for our Southern Hemisphere Friends

E-mail the organizer

Connect with Spring Thing on Twitter at @SpringThingFest

We think games are for everyone.

is an annual online festival celebrating new interactive fiction from all kinds of people. Everyone is welcome!

What’s Happening Next?

About the Thing

Held annually since 2002, is a smaller, more informal counterweight to the busier fall Interactive Fiction Competition. Originally a ranked competition for parser IF, the today puts the focus more on bringing authors together to celebrate new text games in many different formats: choice-based stories, gamebooks, hypertext fictions, visual novels, text adventures, narrative roguelikes, and wild new experiments.

especially welcomes diverse voices and populations traditionally underrepresented in gaming, including women, people of color, queer folks, and blind, neuro-diverse, or disabled creators. People from all walks of life should feel encouraged to participate as players, authors, or reviewers.

Games in the Main Festival can be nominated for two "ribbons": an Audience Choice ribbon, which anyone can nominate a game for, and an Alumni's Choice ribbon given by past participants. Prize donors also gift fun, unique prizes, which every entrant has a chance to receive.

Welcome! From the rest of the site you can find out how to submit an entry, play the games, or donate a prize.

What’s New?

There are a few minor rules and conduct clarifications for this year's .

Starting in 2015, the Thing changed formats. The current requirements for entry can be found on the Submit page.

IF Resources

Looking for another event to enter text games in? The Interactive Fiction Competition is the oldest regular event for IF games. Have just the start of a game? Try IntroComp.

Looking for tools to make text games? There are plenty. For parser-style games, try Inform 7, TADS, or Quest. For node-based hyperfiction projects, consider Twine, Squiffy, Raconteur, or (for multi-player worlds) Seltani. Want a choice-based structure like classic gamebooks? Check out ChoiceScript, ChooseYourStory.com, or inklewriter (or its code-based cousin ink). The visual novel engine Ren'Py can help tell stories about characters and conversation. Some newer systems include StoryStylus and Texture.

Need a community? Check out IntFiction for forums, or the Interactive Fiction Database and IF Wiki to find games to play and learn about craft. Planet IF aggregates posts about text games, and you can chat with like-minded folks at ifMUD or the Euphoria IF Group. Many of the tools listed above have their own forums and networks, too: click through to find out more.

Interactive fiction games can be enjoyed by blind players with a little care from authors. Check out audiogames.net for forums and a resources page, or Includification for more tips on making games more accessible generally; the accessibility for blind players IFWiki page also has some good links to more info.

Special Thanks

The would like to thank the following people: