The 2019 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction!

* or Fall Fooferal, for our Southern Hemisphere Friends

Playing the Games

The 2019 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction featured twenty new interactive stories submitted by authors working across the spectrum of text games. Participants chose to place their games in either the Main Festival, where they were eligible for a Best In Show ribbon and prizes, or the Back Garden, with looser entry requirements allowing for more experimental or work-in-progress entries.

Main Festival

Among the Seasons, by Kieran Green - Twine
- Best In Show recipient
Bullhockey 2: The Return of the Leather Whip, by B F Lindsay - Inform/Glulx
Darkness, by Jeff Schomay - Elm Narrative Engine
Dashiell Hamlett: The Blue Dane Meets the Black Bird, by Tony Pisculli - Ink
The Devil and the Mayor, by Jonathan Laury - Twine
Do I Date?, by Aurora Kakizaki - Ren'Py
The Empty Chamber - A Celia Swift Mystery, by Tom Sykes - Inform/Glulx
Escape!, by Marnix van den Bos - XVAN
Founder's Mercy, by Thomas Insel - Inform/Glulx
I Will Be Your Eyes And Hands, by Cam Miller - Twine
The Missing Ring, by Felicity Drake - Twine
- Best In Show recipient
Our Darkest Thoughts, by Jesse Villa - Twine
Porter Cave Adventure, by Cam Miller - Inform/Z
Quiet, by Martyna "Lisza" Wasiluk - Twine
San Francisco, 2118, by Leah Case - Twine
WE R THE WORLD, by Dan Hoy & Mike Kleine - Twine
Writing Program Five, by Dan Cox - Twine

Back Garden

69105 More Keys, by Andrew Schultz - Inform/Z
The Ballroom, by Liza Daly - Windrift
a short walk in the spring, by Amorphous - Twine

All entries in one archive (108 MB zip): [Download from itch.io] - [Download from springthing.net]

Festival Readme and Changelog of updated games

Anyone is welcome to submit a game to Spring Thing. The organizer reserves the right to not show a game they feel is inappropriate for the festival, but entries are not otherwise vetted, and their contents and opinions reflect the views of the original author, not the Thing as a whole.

How to Play Parser IF

Spring Thing features all kinds of text games, but two of the major divisions are between what are sometimes called choiced-based games (where you interact by clicking links) and parser-based games (where you interact by typing commands).

To those unfamiliar with the parser, it can seem confusing or intimidating. Here are some resources for getting started:

Emily Short's Welcome to Interactive Fiction overview (8-page PDF)
A handy reference card (created by Andrew Plotkin and Lea Albaugh)
You might also try a game written specifically to help newcomers get used to parsers, such as The Dreamhold (iOS version) or Bronze.

To play some parser IF offline, the downloaded story file needs to be opened with a program called an interpreter, much like a .doc file needs Microsoft Word to open. Clicking on the story format (next to the download link) will take you to instructions for finding the right interpreter to play a particular game.

In the Main Festival

Play

Among the Seasons By Kieran Green

Twine short mild violence choices matter Among the Seasons by Kieran Green is a winner of the 2019 Spring Thing Best In Show ribbon.

A fleeting glimpse of the seasons from a magpie’s perspective. Author's Comment: “Every choice you make will affect chunks of the narrative later down the line, perhaps even the ending. I hope you enjoy it!”

BEST

TWINE GAME

BEST

WRITING

BEST

DESIGN

Play Online Download (Twine) Cover Art

Play

“Your girlfriend has disappeared. Again. Before your very ears.”

Bullhockey 2:
The Return of the Leather Whip By B F Lindsay Inform/Glulx full-length You wake up to discover that your girlfriend has disappeared into thin air. You resolve—again—to find her and bring her home. Author's Comment: “It’s a sequel to my first game, ‘Bullhockey!’—this time, Natalie magically disappears, and it’s an outright kidnapping. You are on a quest to find her, using clues and exploring the seemingly deserted mansion of your nemesis from the last game, Mabel—though you will not need to have played the first game to succeed in BH2. Nonetheless, it’s a challenging game and I recommend keeping a good, accurate map, and making use of ‘THINK ABOUT (something, someone, etc)’—this can provide some clues and/or help focus. I don't expect to ‘win’, I only hope to somehow connect to players who appreciate long, challenging games, as I enjoy burying my head into creating them.”

BEST

WORLDBUILDING

BEST PARSER

IMPLEMENTATION

BEST

PUZZLES

Play Online Download (Inform/Glulx) Solution

Play

Darkness By Jeff Schomay

Elm Narrative Engine short text-based adventure parable multiple-paths It is in the face of darkness, that we remember the importance of light. A parable about finding hope. Author's Comment: “Built with the Elm Narrative Engine—similar to Twine, but links do different things at different times, so don't be afraid to go back to a link you've already used.”

MOST

UPLIFTING

Play Online Download (Elm Narrative Engine) Cover Art

Play

Dashiell Hamlett:
The Blue Dane Meets the Black Bird By Tony Pisculli

Ink short violence innuendo Shakespeare film noir How would Hamlet fare if recast as a man of action in a film noir and hired to solve his father’s murder? Author's Comment: “I originally wrote this as a one-act play as an exercise in deconstructing Hamlet for a directing class and revived it while trying to learn Ink. This plays more like a story on rails than game. There are no wrong choices, and the end is inevitable. (Note: violence, innuendo and optional profanity.)”

MOST

LAUGHS

MOST

AVANT-GARDE

Play Online Download (Ink) Cover Art

Play

The Devil and the Mayor By Jonathan Laury

Twine short no puzzles comedy You've been summoned Up Top to make a deal, but do the humans really need much help damning themselves? Perhaps a little assistance wouldn't hurt...

MOST

REPLAYABLE

BEST

DIALOGUE

BEST PC

Play Online Download (Twine) Cover Art

Download

Do I Date? By Aurora Kakizaki Ren'Py short disability dating sim depression romance adult themes A dating simulator to raise awareness for mental disorders. Author's Comment: “This is the beginning of a game that I am creating for my thesis project.”

BEST ART

Download (Ren'Py): for [Win] [Mac] [Linux] Cover Art

Play

The Empty Chamber:
A Celia Swift Mystery By Tom Sykes

Inform/Glulx short mystery detective A game of observation, conversation, and deduction, set inside a run-down terrace flat in post-war Essex.

BEST

PARSER GAME

BEST CLASSIC

WHODUNNIT

MOST PROMISING

GAME MECHANICS

Play Online Download (Inform/Glulx) Cover Art

Download

“The mail only contained a link. The sender was ‘the dev team’. You don't know any dev team. All alarm bells should have gone off. But you clicked on that link. And now look where it got you...”

Escape! By Marnix van den Bos XVAN full-length old skool parser-based puzzles forgiving text-only Escape with a little help from Fred. Author's Comment: “Escape! Is a game-within-a-game (ask Fred why you are here). It started as an XVAN-demo but along the way it turned into a ‘real’ game. Many thanks to the testers, please remember to type ‘credits’.

Note: the game binary is platform independent, but for convenience we stored a game file in each OS interpreter download folder.

BEST

PUZZLES

BEST NPC

Download (XVAN): for [Win] [Mac] [Linux] Map (Spoilers) Useful Commands

Play

Founder’s Mercy By Thomas Insel

Inform/Glulx full-length You awake. You are lonely, so lonely. It was a thousand days ago today. All alone these thousand days. Your parents were the last. No, your father was the last. He held on for nearly a hundred days longer. Now you are the last. Alone. Adrift.

BEST

WORLDBUILDING

BEST

PUZZLES

BEST

IMPLEMENTATION

Play Online Download (Inform/Glulx) Cover ArtMap and Feelies

Play

“After a while, you forget which way leads back to the office. Somehow you feel it’s unimportant.”

I Will Be Your Eyes And Hands By Cam Miller

Twine micro puzzleless short linear sci-fi dystopian A short piece of interactive dystopian science fiction.

MOST

RETRO

BEST

ATMOSPHERE

Play Online Download (Twine)

Play

The Missing Ring By Felicity Drake

Twine full-length mystery Illuminismo Iniziato by Michael J. Coyne is the winner of the 2018 Spring Thing Audience Choice ribbon.

Sadie Goldberg-Lawson is celebrating Christmas with her whole dysfunctional family at her Gran’s house in Vermont. When Gran’s heirloom diamond ring goes missing, can Sadie solve the mystery of the missing ring before her family self-destructs?

BEST

CHARACTERS

BEST STORY

BEST TWINE

IMPLEMENTATION

Play Online Download (Twine) Cover Art

Play

“Our Darkest Thoughts”

Our Darkest Thoughts By Jesse Villa Twine micro different endings death loss You have no recollection of how and why you ended up there. Find your way out of the darkness. Author's Comment: “I created this game for those lost in the darkness of their own thoughts.
Trigger Warning: Suicide, depression.”

BEST

OPENING

Play Online Download (Twine)

Play

“You are standing outside the entrance to a cave.”

Porter Cave Adventure By Cam Miller

Inform/Z micro puzzles educational A text adventure about history and game design. Author's Comment: “This game was made as a final project for a game history course.”

MOST

EDUCATIONAL

BEST

HISTORY LESSON

Play Online Download (Inform/Z) Walkthrough

Play

Quiet By Martyna “Lisza” Wasiluk Twine micro conversation choice-based puzzleless A conversation where your voice bears no words. Author's Comment: “A simple premise—‘what if dialogue options but: no words’—quickly and quite naturally turned into an exploration of the consequences of not saying those words, of what is missing. It’s so easy to stay silent, stay vague—speaking out when it matters takes no small amount of courage, and is nothing if not a necessity.

Hopefully, a bit of a cold shower for the quiet people. I know it was for me.” Play Online Download (Twine) Cover Art

Play

San Francisco, 2118 By Leah Case

Twine short science fiction fantasy cw: suicide has graphics The sun is disappearing, your mother is lost. You don’t know why. Author's Comment: “Your choices cannot change the past. They can change how you feel about it.

In this game, it’s up to you to define the relationship the two main characters have.”

BEST SOUND

BEST STORY

Play Online Download (Twine) Cover Art

Play

WE R THE WORLD By Dan Hoy

& Mike Kleine

Twine short occult graphics celebrity stuff poem 1985 horror Recording of ‘We Are the World’ at Quincy Jones’ mountain chateau in Topanga Canyon after the 1985 American Music Awards, but the harmonics are coded to unlock another dimension and summon a great(er) power. Author's Comment: “Each chapter focuses on one artist’s occult/horror experience while at the lodge. The final chapter (The Chorus) gives temporal/spatial context to the preceding chapters.”

MOST

BIZARRE

Play Online Download (Twine) Cover Art

Play

“A 1984 ad for Writing Program Five in Computer magazine once described it as ‘noteworthy.’”

Writing Program Five By Dan Cox

Twine short contains footnotes The story has already been written. But you can change it.

MOST

ORIGINAL

MOST

SURPRISING

Play Online Download (Twine)

In the Back Garden

Play

“A tribute to David Welbourn’s original game.”

69105 More Keys By Andrew Schultz

Inform/Z short A small guessing game in two flavors. No wins or losses, just compete against yourself. Organizer's Comment: David Welbourn’s 2009 logic puzzle and parser challenge 69,105 Keys is available on IFDB, but not required playing for this new and unique challenge. Play Online Download (Inform/Z) Source CodeLogic Notes

Play

The Ballroom By Liza Daly

Windrift short choice-based some violence one-room You arrived at the ballroom well after midnight. The End. Author's Comment: “I wanted to explore writing a mutable story—a narrative that is always internally consistent and complete but can be nudged in sometimes unexpected ways. This is a proof-of-concept, and I'd welcome pointers to past (or future!) works that take the idea further.”

BEST IN THE

BACK GARDEN

MOST SURPRISING

TURN OF EVENTS

MOST INTERESTING

CONCEPT

Play Online Download (Windrift) Cover Art

Play

a short walk in the spring By Amorphous

Twine short A procedurally-generated Twine. It’s spring, and the flowers have sprouted in all the cities you used to go. Visit them to honor your ghosts, or wander away somewhere. Author's Comment: “Most of the text is generated by a Javascript / Python program, and so the design notes in the game’s afterword as well as the source code are as much a part of the work as the finished game itself.

I thought that this would be easier to publish than my other games because of the fact that I did not physically write most of the text. Instead, I have found it to be significantly more terrifying to not have control over every word in the story.” Play Online Download (Twine) Cover ArtSource Code

Platform Instructions

If you prefer to download and play the entries offline, or a game isn't available for online play, here are instructions for running each kind of story format on your local system.

Elm Narrative Engine: Open the .html file in any modern web browser.† [format details]

Inform (Glulx): You'll need to use the Download link on an entry's listing to get the game, and you'll need an interpreter for Glulx. Lectrote is a good cross-platform interpreter. [format details]

Inform (Z): You'll need to use the Download link on an entry's listing to get the game, and you'll need an interpreter for z-code. Lectrote is a good cross-platform interpreter. [format details]

Ink: You'll need to use the Download link on an entry's listing to get the game, and you'll need the Inky application to view and run the .ink file. [format details]

Ren'Py: These games are compiled as platform-native binaries. Mac, Windows, and Linux builds are available. [format details]

Twine: Open the .html file in any modern web browser.† [format details]

Windrift: Open the .html file in any modern web browser.† [format details]

XVAN: These games are compiled as platform-independent binaries. You'll need the XVAN intepreter for your operating system: the downloads for each platform bundle this along with the game file. [format details]

† For offline play of browser-based formats, note that the Chrome browser's default security settings may prevent these games from running correctly: use a different browser for these, such as Firefox or Safari.

Festival Ribbons

Players of the 2019 festival could nominate games for two kinds of prize ribbons:

A Best in Show blue ribbon, for Main Festival entries. The top two nominees each receive a Best in Show ribbon. The two recipients for 2019 were:

Among the Seasons, by Kieran Green
The Missing Ring, by Felicity Drake

Audience Award ribbons, for all participants, which are suggested by nominators and can be anything they like. Audience Award ribbons appear alongside their games in the listings above.

When the festival closes, the organizer curates Audience Award suggestions to cull anything not in the celebratory spirit of the Thing before sending them to each author. The author may choose up to three Audience Awards to display on their game. Authors may choose to opt-out of receiving Audience Awards.