It’s that time of year again: registration for IFComp 2023 is now open! IFComp is our annual interactive fiction competition and is open for anyone to participate as either an entrant or a judge. Submissions are open until September 1, 2023, so polish up your game and hurry to the IFComp website to get your entry started.
About IFComp
IFComp, which began in 1995, welcomes all kinds of text-driven digital stories and games, making them freely available to encourage the creation, play, and discussion of interactive fiction. Here’s how it works: Over a six-week period, judges play as many entries as they can, awarding a score from 1 and 10 to each of the games they play. A game’s final score is averaged based on all the scores it’s received.
Like any good competition, there are prizes at stake, with the top two-thirds or so of entries eligible for a modest cash prize. In addition to awards based on judges’ scoring, we’ve got a small handful of superlatives as well. The Miss Congeniality Award is a secondary competition that allows authors to vote on one another’s entries. Meanwhile, the Rising Star Award goes to the highest-rated game by a first-time entrant, while the Golden Banana of Discord goes to entries with the highest standard of distribution among its ratings.
Important Dates for IFComp 2023
If you plan to participate in IFComp 2023, keep the following dates in mind:
- September 1: Registrations close
- September 28: Authors upload their games
- October 1: Games are released to the public and judging begins
- November 15: All votes are submitted; results are announced and prizes are awarded shortly after
Keep up with all IFComp-related news over on the IFComp website. We can’t wait to see what the community creates this year!