The 2023 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction!

* or Autumnal Jumble, for our Southern Hemisphere Friends

Playing the Entries

The 2023 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction features twenty-six new interactive stories submitted by authors working across the spectrum of text games. Participants chose to place their stories in either the Main Festival, where they are 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 titles.

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 30x30Best In Show recipient	Twine	full
Red Door Yellow Door, by Charm Cochran	Inform/Glulx	short
Repeat the Ending, by Drew CookBest In Show recipient	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

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

Archive of all 2023 entries (362 MB zip): Download from itch.io

Festival Readme and Changelog of updated games

Anyone is welcome to submit to Spring Thing. The organizer reserves the right to not show a submission 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.

Main Festival

Play

“In a world where interviews have not gotten you anywhere, you go on a quest to acquire a job through networking, but your potential bosses don't seem that typical and let's just say talking isn't your biggest skill.”

Aesthetics Over Plot By ro-han

Twine short funny whimsical absurdism puzzlesless chat social-commentary cactus donkey After losing your job as a well paid biologist, you have been living rather ... let’s say frugally. With the oppurtunity of getting invited to one of your buccaneer friend’s party/banquet (really though?), you are determined to get the next job. But your potential bosses involve a omniscent mind reading cactus, a really cool donkey, and a wall. How would you win the job? Author's Comment: “Most of my projects are written with the aim to write a story so ridiculous that the unexpected twists and turns appear like a relief, and I hope the readers will find themselves laughing out loud at the absurdity of the whole premise and twists.”

BEST TALKING

CACTUS

TOUGHEST JOB

INTERVIEW

Play Online

Play

Beat Me Up Scotty By Jkj Yuio Strand micro parser comedy word guessing catchphrase silly A catchphrase word game.

SILLIEST

BEST

TREKKIN'

MOST

FUN

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

Elftor and the Quest of the Screaming King By Damon L. Wakes

Twine short comedy fantasy choice-based short humour You are Elftor, legendary hero! You’re quite accustomed to adoring peasants shouting your name, but now you’ve come across a town where everyone is shouting everything - and it’s getting a little annoying!

TIE: FUNNIEST

GAME

LEAST VOLUME

CONTROL

DEADPANNEST

NPC DEATH

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

Etiolated Light By Lassiter W.

Twine short horror gothic horror creepy cw: death surreal LGBT A marriage contract, an isolated island, a house that seems to gnash its teeth in waiting. You have saved your family - but at what cost? Author's Comment: “For those with jewel-eyed ancestors.”

BEST

ATMOSPHERE

BEST

STORY

MOST TRAGIC

BUTTERFLY

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

The Familiar By groggydog

Adventuron full-length beginner-friendly You are a witch’s crow familiar, headstrong as anything but still young and untested. What starts as a normal day soon takes a harrowing turn when your pacific caretaker, Valmai, is struck down by a terrible hex of mysterious origin. Now it’s up to you, little bird, to cure your caretaker and discover the hex’s source. Author's Comment: “This is intended as a beginner-friendly parser game and features a limited vocabulary set.”

The Familiar received an Audience Award for 'Best Art.'

TIE: BEST

ART

MOST

HEARTWARMING

SWEETEST

BIRD

Play Online

Download

Galaxy Jones By Phil Riley

Inform/Glulx full-length science fiction action fast-paced accessible The Solar System’s greatest hero, Galaxy Jones, against the evil Admiral Thallium!

COOLEST

BEST

SCI-FI

PRETTIEST

MAUVE

Play OnlineCover Art

Download

I Am Prey By Joey Cramsey

TADS 3 short sci-fi science fiction npc horror violence A horror-lite science fiction game of evasion. Author's Comment: “This game is fully-functional, thoroughly-tested, and some final details are on the way! This version has been labeled as a BETA for this reason, but the gameplay is designed for round-based replayability! It's very experimental, and this specific version is part of the experiment! Recommended interpreter is QTADS.”

MOST

INNOVATIVE

MOST AGILE

LONGEST TIME

BETWEEN BREATHS

Play OnlineCover ArtMapPrint-friendly MapSurvival Guide

Play

Insomnia: Twenty-Six Adventures After Dark By Leon Lin Twine short comedy humor violence multiple endings What adventures will you have when you can’t sleep at night? An enthralling tale with more than 25 endings! Author's Comment: “A short comedic game with lots of endings good and bad - can you find them all?”

BEST

ACHIEVEMENTS

BEST BUTTERFLY

EFFECT

Insomnia received an Audience Award for 'Funniest.'

TIE: FUNNIEST

GAME

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

The Kuolema By Ben Jackson Google Forms full-length very visual CYOA gamebook present-day thriller mystery puzzles dark themes An abandoned vessel is found, lost and adrift in the South China sea. Its radio is silent, there’s no sign of anyone on board. Your task: find out what happened, what cargo it was carrying and if it really is as empty as it seems. As the ship powers on its blind course towards Chinese waters, you find yourself in a race against time. Uncover the mystery and avert a disaster that threatens to shake the world… Author's Comment: “A (potentially divisive) CYOA present-day thriller/mystery.

Why divisive? Well… it’s all created using Google Forms. This is a very limited system not designed for interactive fiction and those limitations may end up being too frustrating for some. But for those willing to give it a try, this is an attempt to create an ambitious and complex choice-based narrative that pushes Google Forms to (and occasionally beyond) its limits.

It features a deep, compelling and lengthy story that slowly builds from part 1 to its thrilling conclusion in part 3. It’s fully illustrated - including locations, puzzles, letters, emails etc. It includes a variety of puzzles that try to use creative ways to get around the limited system. Whilst there’s no ‘save-game’ function, game progress is tied to the codes you discover – the notes you make are your save-game. A complete walkthrough is available to help ease play-through.

In the end, do the positives of the story outweigh the negatives of the system? You decide!”

BEST

THRILLER

BEST

ILLUSTRATIONS

BEST UNCONVENTIONAL

PLATFORM

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

Lady Thalia and the Masterpiece of Moldavia By E. Joyce & N. Cormier

Twine full-length historical humor crime lgbt Explore London, match wits with friends and foes, and steal everything that’s not nailed down (and some things that are) in this gripping installment of the Lady Thalia series!

BEST SEQUEL'S

SEQUEL

BEST

WITTICISMS

BEST WILL-THEY-

WON'T-THEY

Play OnlineCover Art

Download

Marie Waits By Dee Cooke

Inform/Z short PunyInform Inform 6 escape mystery Three hours. All you can do is wait... or is it? Author's Comment: “‘Marie Waits’ is a sequence of scenes that take place towards the end of the story started in ‘Pre-Marie’ (IntroComp 2020). The main story will be told in ‘Marie’, coming soonish - the other two games are (or are being) made in Adventuron, but PunyInform felt right for this piece.”

BEST

OLD SCHOOL

BEST

TENSION

GREAT

ESCAPE

Play OnlinePlay on ItchWalkthrough

Download

Nothing Could be Further From the Truth By Adam Wasserman Inform/Glulx full-length sci-fi social-satire dark-comedy dystopia world-building not-for-kids just-have-fun You, Oliva Mirram, are a dust bunny assigned to Research Lab A-U61, a facility in the Developmental Engineering conglomerate. Today, however, you linger longer than you should, and suddenly, your boring, dust-free existence gets turbo-charged. Author's Comment: “This game takes place in the Bunker, the underground, dystopian setting of a series of sci-fi adventure novels by the same author. Familiarity with the novels is not required to enjoy this game.”

BEST

CHARACTERS

MOST

SNAFUS

LONGEST JELLO

BALANCING

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

Protocol By 30x30

Protocol is a winner of the 2023 Spring Thing Best In Show ribbon.

Twine full-length science-fiction story-rich atmospheric cw: violence cw: death cw: unreality You are a crewman aboard Observatory Station Calypso-54414d. Everything you know is a lie. Author's Comment: “An experimental science-fiction story about choice, consequence, and the fickleness of memory. Additional content warnings are provided in game.”

BEST VISUAL

DESIGN

CHEAPEST

HALLUCINOGEN

WEIRDEST

HORROR

Play OnlineCover Art

Download

Red Door Yellow Door By Charm Cochran

Inform/Glulx short horror multiple endings parser surreal cw: death cw: unreality Guide your sister through a game of visualization, adventure, and danger, and perhaps discover truths about each other along the way. Author's Comment: “This was originally intended for SeedComp!, but winded up being a bigger project than anticipated. I hope you enjoy it with the extra time it had to sprout!”

CREEPIEST

SLEEPOVER

MOST

SURREAL

BEST

PREMISE

Play OnlineCover Art

Download

Repeat the Ending By Drew Cook

Repeat the Ending is a winner of the 2023 Spring Thing Best In Show ribbon.

Inform/Glulx full-length meta feelies hints magic mental illness narrative Explore the “critical edition” of a forgotten 1996 Inform 5 game about loss, mental illness, and the second law of thermodynamics. Author's Comment: “I have a hard time telling the difference between Drew Cook and Drew Cook.”

BEST

WRITING

TIE: BEST

ART

BEST

ENDING

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

The Roads not Taken By manonamora

Twine short parser twine sci-fi existentialism choices Choosing a path is never easy, not when it will defined the rest of your life. Where will the Ritual bring you? Which road won’t you take? Author's Comment: “This was my first attempt at making a parser ever. I wondered if this was doable in Twine (as the program is usually not recommended for this type of games). So I took the opportunity of the Festival to solve this challenge and experiment with something new.
I should note that I am not good at playing parsers either... Hopefully I am not worse at making them than playing them....”

BEST

USE OF MEDIUM

LOVELIEST

BIGGEST STAKES

SINGLE CLICK

Play OnlineCover Art

Download

“The king is mad, dangerously so! - Someone has stolen the 'Sacred Shovel', a magical artefact that holds great powers. He has sent a multitude of men (one of which includes you!) out to help search for it in the hope that one will find it and return it to him. He has promised great reward for the first man to complete the task and return his prized artefact.”

The Sacred Shovel of Athenia By AndyG Inform/Glulx short kid-friendly easy fantasy puzzle game. A simple puzzle based IF game in the style of the early Infocom games. The Aim of the game is to find the lost ‘Sacred Shovel’ and return it to the king. Author's Comment: “We had recently acquired a kitten and my son was a little wary about stroking it. It gave me the idea of a game in which. to complete it, you needed to befriend a cat. And so, ‘The Sacred Shovel of Athenia’ was born. It’s not a very long game and the puzzles are fairly simple, but it is a fully working game, and my son enjoyed playing it.”

BEST GAME FOR

BEGINNERS

CUTEST

CAT

Play Online

Play

A Single Ouroboros Scale: My Postmortem By Naomi Norbez

Twine autobiographical no choices kinetic essay mental illness recovery A reflection on my Spring Thing project from the year I thought I would die. Author's Comment: “If you’re looking for a fun video game, you’ll be disappointed with this. I wanted to share my thoughts on ASOS’s development in a straightforward way, conveying my thoughts without choices or branches. I hope it is worth reading.”

MOST

HONEST

MOST

REFLECTIVE

Play OnlineCover ArtIf It Should Ever Come by Edward Dorn

Play

Structural Integrity By Tabitha O'Connell

Twine short lgbtq choices matter multiple endings cw: alcohol You are Yaan, a well-off government official romantically involved with former messenger boy Kel. Uncover the cracks in your relationship, and decide what you're going to do about them... Author's Comment: “This game is based on my novella of the same name. I had a lot of fun adapting it and exploring different possible ways the story could go, as well as making room for the reader’s perception to shape the story.”

BEST TWINE

GAME

BEST QUEER

GAME

BEST

TWO-HANDER

Play OnlineCover Artitch.io link

Play

The Withering Gaze of the Earth By Emily worm

Twine short horror supernatural lesbian On an island where the world ended, away from the judgmental eyes of the world, a new god (your terrible mother) is waking up. Author's Comment: “The game is shorter than I had initially planned, as I got COVID right when I was starting to work on it, and lost several weeks recovering from that. Content warnings inside the game. About 10,000 words and four endings.”

BEST

ICHOR

BEST PARENT

CONFRONTATION

MOST TANTALIZING

WORLD BUILDING

Play Online

Play

Your Post-Apocalyptic To-Do List By Geoffrey Golden

Ink short time management simulation satire comedy apocalyptic multiple endings You’ve inherited a mutant hog farm from your Uncle Crackpot. Take care of those hogs and check items off your to-do list, because the hog farm is your launching pad for a bigger and better endtimes career! Author's Comment: “I’ve had a written to-do list book on my desk since middle school. Digital to-do lists don’t work for me. There’s something satisfying about crossing off a real task in a real book, and I imagine I’ll keep doing this even as the flames of our collective hellscape grow larger!”

BEST

GENRE TWIST

WILDEST CAREER

ASPIRATIONS

MOST

HOGS

Play OnlineCover Art

Back Garden

Play

The Mamertine By K Vella

Twine short experimental engine mild violence death The Mamertine is a rather confusing cult escape story that evolved out of a tech demo for the upcoming second iteration of the VIBAE engine for Twine.

The Mamertine received an Audience Award for 'Best UI.'

TIE: BEST

MOST HELPFUL

SPANNER

MOST FUN TO

SAY ALOUD

Play Online

“Senica Thing 23: A Compilation of Games written by students from Senica, Slovakia”

Mirror By Ondrej Odokienko Twine micro All four Mirror game books are a result of an assignment for the Senica Thing creative writing event which had taken place just before Spring Thing and at which the participating students and teachers were asked to exploit a theme/motif/topic of a “mirror” in their entries.

Organizer's note: This is a special entry, with four games presented as one. These games come from a classroom in Slovakia that encouraged students to enter a 'mini competition' called the Senica Thing. These students are looking to learn and grow, and would benefit from constructive feedback.

BEST

NEWCOMERS

BEST USE OF IF

IN EDUCATION

BRIGHTEST KALEIDOSCOPIC

REFLECTIONS

Lilian LalonderMihiJamesDr John

Play

Secret of the Black Walrus By spaceflounder HTML/Javascript short atmospheric first-person short mystery Victorian female protagonist difficult racism sexism murder A wicked plot is afoot in Victorian London. Are you a clever enough to discover the Secret of the Black Walrus? Author's Comment: “This game is short but challenging, and can easily become unwinnable if you do not take good notes. Write down the clues as you go!

I wrote this after a strange thought experiment: what if interactive fiction had been invented after the development of the smartphone? I’m still not sure if this is the answer, but it plays well on mobile.”

MOST ENDEARING

DETECTIVE-SGT

QUICKEST

TAXIS

BEST

DETECTIVE GAME

Play OnlineCover Art

Play

Stygian Dreams By Giorgos Menelaou Inform/Glulx full-length Mythological An interactive exploration of death, and the acceptance of it. Author's Comment: “Submitted as part of my bachelor’s thesis “Development of an interactive fiction game using modern tools”.
Ai has been used to generate all images, and even some of the text.
It’s my first actual foray into writing, rather than consuming IF and this was an absolute joy to make, if a a bit stressful due to time constraints.

I’m submitting it in the back garden because of a lack of polish, as well as not all the features i wanted being fully implemented and i would appreciate any feedback!”

Organizer's note: This entry uses html features that do not work on a local machine, and is intended for online play only.

ICIEST

SCULPTURES

Stygian Dreams received an Audience Award for 'Best UI.'

TIE: BEST

Play OnlineCover ArtSolutionitch.io link

Download

“There are only two stages of writing, really. But you can combine them in different ways.”

Write or Reflect? By Andrew Schultz

Python short A semi-autobiographical thought experiment about Getting Stuff Written

Write or Reflect received an Audience Award for 'Write or Reflect.'

BEST

FIBONACCI

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.

Adventuron: To play offline, open the .html file in any modern web browser.† [format details]

Inform: To play offline, you'll need to use the Download link on an entry's listing to get the game, and you'll need an interpreter that supports 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: This year's Ink games have been compiled into a standalone webpage or a platform-native application, so no special instructions are needed to play them offline. [format details]

Online Only: These games cannot be downloaded for offline play.

Python: You will need to be familiar with a command line to run these programs, and have the correct version of Python installed: "Space Diner" should work with any version of Python 3, while "Theatre of Spud" requires Python 3.9. Refer to the instructions in the download for correctly installing and running each game. [format details]

Twine: To play offline, open the .html file in any modern web browser.† Some of this year's Twine games require access to online-only resources, and/or their authors chose not to make them available for download. [format details]

† For offline play of browser-based formats, note that some browsers' default security settings may prevent some games from running correctly: trying using a different browser if you have trouble playing one of these games offline.

Festival Ribbons

Players of the 2023 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 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.