Spring Thing is an annual competition to highlight works of text adventure games and other literary works, also known as Interactive Fiction.

Adam Cadre Adam Cadre (born February 5, 1974, in Silver Spring, Maryland) is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction. Biography Cadre's 1998 piece ''Photo ...

, author of several works of Interactive Fiction, including ''

Photopia ''Photopia'' is a piece of literature by Adam Cadre rendered in the form of interactive fiction, and written in Inform. It has received both praise and criticism for its heavy focus on fiction rather than on interactivity. It won first place in ...

'' and '' Varicella'', announced the Spring Thing in 2001, both to promote works that would be longer than those entered into the

Interactive Fiction Competition The Interactive Fiction Competition (also known as IFComp) is one of several annual competitions for works of interactive fiction. It has been held since 1995. It is intended for fairly short games, as judges are only allowed to spend two hours pla ...

, and to encourage authors to submit works to the general public during other times of the year. It was run in 2002 and 2003, but Cadre did not host it the following year.

Greg Boettcher Greg is a masculine given name, and often a shortened form of the given name Gregory. Greg (more commonly spelled " Gregg") is also a surname. People with the name *Greg Abbott (disambiguation), multiple people * Greg Abel (born 1961/1962), Canad ...

picked up the slack, and hosted the Spring Thing from 2005 until 2013. {{As of, 2022, Aaron A. Reed runs the competition and has been doing so since 2014. As with the better-known Interactive Fiction Competition, works submitted to the Spring Thing must be released as

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

. Unlike that competition's limit of two hours per work, judges may spend as much time as necessary with an entry in the Spring Thing.

List of winners to date

*2002: ''Tinseltown Blues'' by

Chip Hayes Chip Hayes (born December 15, 1956) is an American soap opera writer, producer, and director. Personal life He is married to actress Deborah Adair, with whom he has two adopted children. He is the son of Nancy Gates and William Hayes. Positions h ...

- the sole entrant in that year *2003: ''Max Blaster and Doris de Lightning Against the Parrot Creatures of Venus'' by Dan Shiovitz and

Emily Short Emily Short is an interactive fiction (IF) writer. She is perhaps best known for her debut game ''Galatea'' and her use of psychologically complex non-player characters (NPCs). Short has been called "a visionary in the world of text-based ga ...

*2004: No competition *2005: ''Whom the Telling Changed'' by Aaron A. Reed *2006: ''De baron'' / ''The Baron'' by Victor Gijsbers *2007: ''Fate'' by Victor Gijsbers *2008: ''Pascal's Wager'' by Doug Egan *2009: ''A Flustered Duck'' by Jim Aikin *2010: No entrants *2011: ''The Lost Islands of Alabaz'' by Michael Gentry *2012: ''The Rocket Man from the Sea'' by Janos Honkonen *2013: ''Witch's Girl'' by Mostly Useless *2014: ''The Price of Freedom: Innocence Lost'' by Briar Rose *2015: ''Toby's Nose'' by Chandler Groover (Audience Choice and Alumni's Choice) *2016: ''Tangaroa Deep'' by Astrid Dalmady (Audience Choice), ''The Xylophoniad'' by Robin Johnson (Alumni's Choice) *2017: ''Bobby and Bonnie'' by Xavid and ''Niney'' by Daniel Spitz (tie for Audience Choice) *2018: ''Illuminismo Iniziato'' by Michael J. Coyne (Audience Choice and Alumni's Choice) *2019: ''Among the Seasons'' by Kieran Green and ''The Missing Ring'' by Felicity Drake *2020: ''4x4 Galaxy'' by Agnieszka Trzaska, ''Hawk The Hunter'' by Jonathan B. Himes, and ''JELLY'' by Tom Lento and Chandler Groover *2021: ''The Weight of a Soul'' by Chin Kee Yong and ''Fish & Dagger'' by Grave Snail Games *2022: ''The Bones of Rosalinda'' by Agnieszka Trzaska and ''Fairest'' by Amanda Walker

External links

Spring Thing Home Page
Interactive fiction Video game development competitions

List of winners to date

See also

External links