Spring Thing 2024 is live!

Competitions Spring Thing
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I’m very pleased to announce that the 2024 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction is now open!

This year, there are thirty-three games, spread across three categories. Authors chose whether to submit games to the Main Festival, where they are eligible for ribbon nominations and the prize pool, or the Back Garden, which opts out of ribbons and prizes but has looser entry requirements (including allowing excerpts from unfinished or commercial games).

Main Festival

Title System Length
Alltarach, by Katie Canning and Josef Olsson Twine full
The Case of the Solitary Resident, by thesleuthacademy Twine short
Do Good Deeds…, by Sissy Twine short
Doctor Jeangille’s Letters, by manonamora Twine full
Dragon of Steelthorne, by Vance Chance ChoiceScript full
A Dream of Silence, by Abigail Corfman Twine short
Loose Ends, by Daniel Stelzer and Anais Sommerfeld Ink full
Octopus’s Garden, by Michael D. Hilborn Inform/Glulx short
Pass A Bill, by Leo Weinreb Twine
Potato Peace, by ronynn Ink short
PROSPER.0, by groggydog Twine short
Rescue at Quickenheath, by Mo Farr Twine short
A Simple Happening, by Leon Lin Inform/Glulx short
Social Democracy: An Alternate History, by Autumn Chen DendryNexus full
Studio, by Charm Cochran Inform/Glulx short
Thanks, but I don’t remember asking., by Mea Murukutla Twine
To Beseech Old Sins, by Nic June Twine short
The Trials of Rosalinda, by Agnieszka Trzaska Twine full
The Truth About PRIDE!, by Jemon Golfin Bitsy short
Voyage of the Marigold, by Andrew Stephens Ink short
You Can Only Turn Left, Written by: Emiland Kray, Programmed by: Ember Chan, Music by: Mary Kray Twine micro
Zomburbia, by Charles Moore, Jr. Dialog/Z full

Back Garden

Title System Length
Bydlo; or the Ox-Cart, by P.B. Parjeter Bitsy micro
Deep Dark Wood, by Senica Thing Twine short
Escape From the Tomb of the Celestial Knights, by Megona Quest short
Ink and Intrigue, by Leia Talon ChoiceScript short
Luna Gardens, by Bruhstin Inform/Glulx short
Nonverbal Communication, by Allyson Gray Inform/Glulx short
The Portrait, by dott. Piergiorgio TADS 3 short
Provizora Parko, by Dawn Sueoka Twine short

New Game Plus

(This is a new subcategory this year for Back Garden games that have previously been released but have been substantially revised or ported to a substantially different platform. It may be folded back into the Back Garden next year, or remain as a separate entity).

Title System Length
The Kuolema, by Ben Jackson Twine full
One King to Loot them All, by Onno Brouwer Twine short
The Time Machine v2.0, by Bill Maya Inform/Glulx short

You can play the games and find out everything you need to know about the festival at the official site.

Instructions for making ribbon nominations will go up in a couple of days. There are two kinds of ribbons this year:

  • 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.

The festival will be open for ribbon nominations until 11:59 PM EDT, May 11, 2024.

To all the players, and all the entrants, have fun!

34 Likes
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Nice! Remind me again how long is “short” and how long is “full”?

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I disagree with this comp becouse most of the games hasn’t a downloadable version to play offline. Nevertheless i will play those games I can download and expect to have a lot of fun.

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micro: 5 minutes or less.
short: between 5 minutes and one hour.
full-length: longer than one hour.

At least that is what the popups on the labels say… my game is listed as ‘short’ since I estimated max 1 hour.

I did spot one inconsistency: Manonamora’s game has label ‘full’ and the hover text says ‘between five minutes and an hour’ which is actually ‘short’…

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I have seen "“The Kuolema” listed again. I really enjoyed a lot playing this title in the past.

I understand a short game to be 5 - 15 minutes. Medium lenght 30 - 60 minutes. Full lenght 2 - 20 hours of gameplay.

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I have to agree a ‘medium’ category might have helped here, but I have seen only ‘micro’, ‘short’ (and ‘full’), and ‘full-length’.

But player time might vary wildly. Manonamora zipped through my One King entry for IFComp in 15 minutes while Mathbrush spent 1.5 hours :smiley: … (To be fair to Brian, Manon was testing my story mode…)

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The game “Social Democracy” ask some password to play. It is located in itchio.

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Ouch @cchennnn probably forgot to change the project status?

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“Deep Dark Good” reports a 404 error.

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Just to let you know that our entry Alltarach should be downloadable via its itch.io page now. Let us know if you have any problems :slight_smile:

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I’m sorry it was still password-protected; the game should be working now…

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I dove in this morning. My personal SpringThing is off to a great start with Alltarach !

I’ll start a review-thread when I’m done with it.

@mathbrush First line of the “PLAY”-page:

The 2023 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction features thirty-two new interactive stories submitted by authors working across the spectrum of text games.

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The link send me to Spring Thing page, not to itchio. Furthermore, I can’t find out your game in itchio…

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Yes the game is working fine by now.

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You can download all Spring Thing games here:

https://mathbrush.itch.io/spring-thing-2024

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Just fixed this as well! It has 7 individual stories, so the link from the title and cover art had nowhere to go, and those have been removed.

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YAY!! It’s ALIVE :smiley:
Such a good harvest of games, this is exciting!!

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Thanks a lot! You are awesome!

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Hi @Jade I seem to remember you had some issues playing the original version - well this new version has been entirely remade in Twine (with new features and story elements). You should find it a lot easier to play. I think @mathbrush has made all games available to download, but if you need the files for this game, let me know and I can PM you a link.

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Yeah, we all had to include a downloadable version when we submitted to the comp (unless it had to be hosted on a server to function), so we should all have one available; if downloading the whole bundle of games becomes a hassle, I’ll put that version on the Archive separately so you can download it from there.

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