The 2020 Spring Thing Festival of Interactive Fiction features twenty-one new interactive stories submitted by authors working across the spectrum of text games. Participants chose to place their games 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 entries. This year only, there is also a special Late Harvest category for authors who were unable to meet the deadline due to real-world concerns.
Main Festival
- 4x4 Galaxy, by Agnieszka Trzaska -
- Another Love Story, by Hélène Sellier -
- Assemblage of Angels, by Els White -
- Braincase, by Dan Lance -
- Catch that kitty, by Rohan -
- composites, by B Minus Seven -
- The Golden, by Kerry Taylor -
- GUNBABY, by Damon L. Wakes -
- Hawk the Hunter, by Jonathan B. Himes -
- JELLY, by Tom Lento and Chandler Groover -
- Khellsphree, by Ralfe Rich -
- The Land of Breakfast and Lunch, by Daniel Talsky -
- A Murder In Engrams, by Noah Lemelson -
- Napier's Cache, by Vivienne Dunstan -
- The Prongleman Job, by Arthur DiBianca -
- Quest for the Homeland, by Nikita Veselov -
- States of Awareness, by Kerry Taylor -
Back Garden
Late Harvest
(Almost) all entries in one archive (45 MB zip): [Download from itch.io]
- [Download from springthing.net]
Another Love Story: [Win 37 MB] [Mac 18 MB] [Linux 100 MB]
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.
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:
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.
Download (Win)
“The memories evade me sometimes. People keep telling me it's normal, after such an incident.”
Another Love Story
By Hélène Sellier 
Ren'Py short supernatural story love story has graphics
Remembering the past is never easy, deciding if your love has died or not is worse.
MOODIEST
VISUALS
BEST
LOVE INTEREST
Download (Windows) (37 MB)
Download (Mac) (18 MB)
Download (Linux) (100 MB)
For this year's festival, authors who submitted an intent to enter but were unable to get their game completed by the deadline could instead submit to the Late Harvest, a special showcase of games outside the main festival. Other than the late deadline, Late Harvest games function exactly like Back Harvest games: authors do not take part in the prize pool and are not eligible for ribbon nominations.
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.
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]
Ink: To play offline, you'll need to use the Download link on an entry's listing to get the game, and you'll need the Inky application to view and run the .ink file. [format details]
Quest: You can play these stories online, or if you have a Windows PC, run them locally by downloading Quest for Windows. [format details]
Ren'Py: These stories are released as standalone applications for each platform. You'll need to use the Download link for your system type to play. [format details]
Texture: To play offline, open the .html file in any modern web browser.† [format details]
Twine: To play offline, open the .html file in any modern web browser.† [format details]
† For offline play of browser-based formats, note that the Chrome browser's default security settings may prevent some games from running correctly: use a different browser, such as Firefox or Safari, if you have trouble playing one of these games offline.
Players of the 2020 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. In 2020 two games were tied for second-most nominations, so three games received Best in Show ribbons:
- Audience Award ribbons, for all participants, which are suggested by nominators and can be anything they like. Audience Award ribbons appear alongside their games in the listings above.
When the festival closes, the organizer curates Audience Award suggestions to cull anything not in the celebratory spirit of the Thing before sending them to each author. The author may choose up to three Audience Awards to display on their game. Authors may choose to opt-out of receiving Audience Awards.
