The Spring Thing is an annual competition for interactive fiction (or IF, i.e. text adventures). It was started by Adam Cadre, who ran it during 2002 and 2003. After a brief hiatus, Spring Thing was revived in 2005. The 2010 competition is now scheduled to begin.

If you're an author of IF, check out the rules. If this sounds like a good place to release your next game, feel free to participate.

If you're a player of IF, you're welcome to take part as a judge. We're also looking for people to donate prizes.

In addition, you can read about the history of the Spring Thing, and find some cool games to download and play. And if you have any questions, you can email me at:

Mar. 8, 2010: The deadline for authors to submit their games and entry fees has been extended to April 8. For players, this means an extra week to wait before you can download the games. For authors, this means extra time to compensate for my slowness in getting back to one of the entrants.
Nov. 5, 2009: Spring Thing 2010 has been announced, and the site is up and running.

Mar. 1, 2010: Deadline for authors' intents to enter.
Apr. 8, 2010: Deadline by which authors' entry fees must be received by the organizer.
Apr. 8, 2010: Deadline by which authers' games and walkthroughs must be received by the organizer.
Apr. 8 or 9, 2010: Games will be released, voting will start, and the end of the voting period will be announced.

Note: deadlines for authors are at noon, Eastern US Time, of the dates in question.

The Spring Thing would like to thank the following people:

Adam Cadre, for starting the competition;
Mike Snyder, for writing the voting program and for running a mirror;
Peter Seebach, for past hosting and technical help;
Stephen Granade, for occasional advice; and
the prize donors, for their generosity. here here

Obviously, the general purpose of Spring Thing is to promote interactive fiction. More specifically, there are three aims that make the Spring Thing different from the annual IF Comp:

1. To provide a place for promoting medium-sized to long works of interactive fiction.
2. To provide some springtime relief to the dry season between the autumn deluges of the IF Comp.
3. To encourage excellence in game authorship and discourage shoddiness. (The entry fee seems to be fairly effective for this purpose, usually weeding out substandard games.) .