Interactive Seasonal Fiction: Spring Thing 2015 In Bloom, Rebranded as Festival

Interactive fiction fans rejoice: Spring Thing is back, although with a few changes to the format. No more of this silly competitive craziness. Instead, it’s now more of a festival, complete with ribbons in favor of cash prices, and – I really like this next bit – both freeware and commercial projects are welcome! Groovy.

Now, while last year set a new record with its grand total of ten entries, this time, that number has been lowered slightly… to nine. But that’s still nine potentially awesome interactive tales, just waiting to be read, explored, examined – played! Oh and since the submission period is over, needless to say, it’s time to vote. If instructions were readily available that is, but alas, “information on submitting nominations for the Audience Choice ribbon will appear here shortly“. Hopefully that’ll be fixed before the deadline (May 4th) is upon us. Less than a month to go!

Originally a ranked competition for parser-based IF, the Thing today puts the focus more on bringing authors together to celebrate new text games in many different formats.

The so-called ‘ribbons’ up for grabs following its rebranding are the Audience Choice, which is basically voted by the public (ie. anyone), as well as the more exclusive Alumni’s Choice, given by past participants. Yet another good reason to participate, I’d say. Just keep in mind that Spring Thing is not about fame and fortune, as much as sharing your creation with the world, having people play it, maybe even get some genuine feedback. Or at least, that’s how I see it.

But enough of my ramblings. Brand new interactive, text-based worlds await exploration, all of which can be found here, or alternatively, by following the links below.

• Toby’s Nose by Chandler Groover [Glulx]
• Ruiness by Porpentine Charity Heartscape [Twine]
• Doggerland by A. DeNiro [Twine]
• A Trial by B Minus Seven [Twine]
• Sunrise by Lucky Sun Scribes [Ren’Py]
• Mere Anarchy by Bruno Dias [Undum]
• Missing Since ’77 by Andrew Watt [Twine]
• Aspel by Emily Short [Seltani]
• Dirk by Andrew Schultz [Z]

All downloadable games in one 99mb zip file: itch.io and springthing.net.