There's a full moon rising
Let's go dancing in the light
We know where the music's playing
Let’s go out and feel the night
But now it's getting late
And the moon is climbing high
Let's all celebrate
Tell our stories around the fire
Somewhat of a Neil Young's Harvest Moon mashup.
Cover image: Ida Pulis Lathrop, Still Life with Pumpkins and Onions.
ECTOCOMP is an annual competition for interactive fiction celebrating the SPOOKY MONTH OF HALLOWEENTOBER. Whether you celebrate Halloween, Day of the Dead, All Saints' Eve, or just love ghost stories and creeping people out, this is your time to shine!
This competition is open to games written in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German, or any other language.
You can read the rules in other languages here:
Visiter les règles en Français
Lesen Sie die Regeln auf Deutsch
Leggi il regolamento in italiano
As per tradition, Ectocomp has two categories:
- La Petite Mort, for those who want to speed-write their game in 4 hours or less
- Le Grand Guignol, for games that, for whatever reason, took longer than 4 hours to write (perhaps a more thoughtful masterpiece? Perhaps you spent too much time writing SLIMY DETAILS?)
THE RESULTS
La Petite Mort - English
Games written in 4 hours or less
Winner: the lamp of your body, by Naarel
2nd Place: Every day I get emails, by Emery Joyce
3rd Place: Super Halloween Horror Show, by Adam Biltcliffe
4th Place: NOTHING IN MY VEINS, by Nulla and Naarel
5th Place: I Got You, by Kastel
6th Place: Heatsick, by Ormulum
7th Place: Beneath the Weeping Willow, by Lamp Post Projects
8th Place: A Normal Morning, by Damon L. Wakes
9th Place: Go-Strange-Ghost Range, by Andrew Schultz
10th Place: Slop, by Milo van Mesdag
11th Place: Find and Keeper, by Jacic
12th Place: The Walking Man, by mathbrush
13th Place: Dusk, Airy, Does Carry, by Andrew Schultz
14th Place: Diary of a Drowned Girl, by Autumn Chen
15th Place: The Horrible Escape Room of Horror, by Nils Fagerburg
16th Place: Chez Dark Shade Ark, by Andrew Schultz
17th Place: Dying A Little (Inside), by N. Cormier
18th Place: The Final Stew, by Norbez Jones (call me Bez)
19th Place: The Idle Demon, by Charles M Ball
20th Place: How To Never Talk To Other People Again, by AntiPersonnelAnecdote
21st Place: Walk A Mile In My Shoes, by Olaf Nowacki
22nd Place: Ghost Hunt II: Haunted Washing Machine, by Dee Cooke
23rd Place: Night of the Living Not-Dead, by DissoluteSolute
24th Place: A Life Rewinding, by tzbits
25th Place: Game of Doom and Despair (by Storyteller), by One Boat Crew
26th Place: Pumpkin Patch, by tzbits
27th Place: a walk in the hallways, by augustgloom
28th Place: What is this place (by Gooseberry), by One Boat Crew
29th Place: Dual I: Rhythm, by DissoluteSolute
30th Place: Room 88 (by Smurfs), by One Boat Crew
31st Place: Escape Room (by Hugo), by One Boat Crew
32nd Place: Unfair Escape from Underground (by Loki), by One Boat Crew
Le Grand Guignol - English
Games written in more than 4 hours
Winner: Warden: a (bug)folk horror, by Tabitha and baezil
2nd Place: Kinophobia, by Bruno Dias
3rd Place: Stage Fright, by Daniel M. Stelzer and Ada Stelzer and Sarah Stelzer
4th Place: Doctor Morben's Asylum, by solipsistgames
5th Place: Costumes and Candy, by Leon Lin
6th Place: Non-humain, by BenyDanette
7th Place: When the TV decides to Murder your Girlfriend - The Game, by Martin Shannon
8th Place: One Fifty-Nine: Drowned Secrets, by Jacic
9th Place: The Night Ferry, by kaetts
10th Place: Invunche, by hechelion
11th Place: Dad's Shiva, by Cidney Hamilton
12th Place: Loveless and listless, by Coral Nulla
13th Place: Oz, The Great And Terrible, by StarryMountainClimber
14th Place: Sparks Fly, by RatNibbles
15th Place: Annual Country Market, by Doug Egan
16th Place: …Grind exceedingly small…, by DissoluteSolute
17th Place: Exorcist Tipline, by distractedmosfet
18th Place: THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT, by Larry Horsfield
19th Place: requiescat, by rh9
20th Place: I Have No Verbs, and I Must, by DissoluteSolute
21st Place: Dual II: Cyclic, by DissoluteSolute
Le Grand Guignol - Spanish
Games written in more than 4 hours
Winner: Detective en habitación cerrada, by Strollersoft
2nd Place: Velatorio, by perezperez
3rd Place: Muerte de Berta Cáceres, by Ruber Eaglenest
4th Place: You promise, by Aster Fialla and Jake Gardner
5th Place: El Sueño del Caracol, by archtron
5th Place: Jailbreak, by n-n
6th Place: Más perdido que el barco del arroz, by Mery
7th Place: Mititz, by baltasarq
8th Place: En la Oscuridad, by Edu Sánchez
Congratulations!
SUBTHEMES AND INSPIRATION
Additionally, here we have some optional subthemes or inspiration prompts to improve the diversity of topics and ambiances. But feel free to ignore those and send whatever you want.
- Spooky adventure! That is, the common and loved usual ECTOCOMP games. Create a game destined to creep the hell out of players.
- Sweet supernatural. Yeah, your game can be supernatural, but maybe there is no need to be creepy. Maybe your ghosts and monsters are homies and sweet.
- Halloween fest. Base your game on the Halloween festivities, overall the activity of wearing costumes and going out with friends to "trick or treat".
- Día de los Muertos. Pay your tribute to the Mexican festivity. As Wikipedia says: "Day of the Dead involves family and friends gathering to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died." To celebrate Mexican folklore and mythology.
- All Saints', which commemorates the faithful departed. That is, an occasion to talk about how we miss the people who have left us.
- All Souls' Eve, a special moment for some European countries to gather the family around the fire, eat sweet wheat porridge, and tell scary tales.
- Or any other festivities around the world, folk horror or not.
THE RULES
(The organizers reserve the right to remove games from the competition that violate any of these rules.)
- Games submitted for La Petite Mort should be written in 4 hours or less.
- Any time spent planning, thinking, doodling, researching, etc, does not count.
- Any time spent writing words or code that ends up in-game totally does count. (Except for reusing a game engine or library, or code that you wrote in the past).
- Time spent coding the game's styling (e.g., CSS) DOES NOT count.
- Games submitted for Le Grand Guignol could have an indefinite number of hours in their development. Either more than 4 hours or more than 1 week, or even more than 1 month.
- ECTOCOMP games cannot be updated during the competition. Exception: if you find you have a game-breaking bug, you are allowed to fix the bug to guarantee players can complete your game. But... remember, NO UPDATES! NO POLISHING!
- Games should be recognizably "interactive fiction". (Comp admins are not here to police edge cases, but if your game isn't primarily text-based, why are you here? Bitsies, mind you, are welcome.)
- Games should be, y'know, spooky somehow. (Serious, psychological, campy, satire, etc., all included). Also, we have proposed some sub-themes; go and take a look at them. They are just up there!
- Generative AI, for game text, art, or coding, is strictly forbidden for ECTOCOMP. You know, this competition is designed to be a meeting place for the community. Machines have nothing to do with it!
- The tradition is to work on the games during October, but you can start working on your game any time. The games should be available on 31 October so that we can enjoy them during the proper festivities.
- The games should be original and previously unpublished, except for previously released games that are translated to a new language for ECTOCOMP.
- Presenting demos or incomplete games: We think a demo is okay as long as it is "self-contained". That is, remove all objects that do not make sense in the context of the demo. Like the first episode of a TV show, it still has to feel like a single piece of art. Also, ECTOCOMP is a competition, not a jam, so perhaps this is not the best environment for a game that feels unfinished. Also, remember that presenting your incomplete work publicly in this or any other event could disqualify your work from future events when it's ready and finished.
- To participate properly, please choose the correct category for your game.
- ECTOCOMP is generally a light-hearted competition meant to have fun. If the objective of your game is to be directly offensive to any type of group or person, then you don't understand ECTOCOMP, and you shouldn't be here anyway.
If you have any questions about the rules or the event in general, you can use the community tab to post a question, or email me at rubereaglenest at proton dot me.
May the harvest be plentiful!
VOTES, FEEDBACK, AND COMMUNITY
To vote and participate as a judge, you should rate each entry you play on a scale of 1 to 5 stars on the entry's jam page. The voting period ends on November 30.
Itch.io doesn't allow to leave categories unvoted, so vote and judge the games just as normal. Later, we'll make separate ranked lists for each category.
In addition to each entry page, each game has its own itch.io homepage. It is somewhat confusing, but it is a way of distinguishing when a game belongs to a jam.
Receiving feedback from players is an essential part of participating in an interactive fiction competition. Take the time to leave a kind comment for the authors to thank them for their participation and the good times with scary stuff. There are several places where the community can meet to discuss and comment on the works presented:
- Each page of each participant has a comment section enabled, here at itch.io.
- In turn, on the main page of each game, you can leave comments, but only if the author has enabled this section on the page of the game.
- In the intfiction.org forum of the English-speaking international community. This category includes the ECTOCOMP threads.
- Neo-Interactives Discord Server, an international community about Interactive Fiction: https://discord.gg/VAjGbEby68.
- The Discord server for the community in Spanish is called Textualiza. Invite link: https://discord.gg/6cG4YAJ.
- In the CAAD forum of the Spanish-speaking community. This way.
- The German-speaking community meets at https://if-forum.org/.
- The Discord server for the community in Italian: https://discord.gg/GrFhtjVAGp.
ARCHIVING OF THE ENTRIES
To foster the development of a strong and perennial community of interactive fiction players and writers, the organizers of ECTOCOMP have decided to upload all submitted games to the IF Archive. This will ensure that the games will be available for future players and authors and that they will be preserved for posterity. If you do not want your game to be uploaded to the IF Archive, please let us know by checking the opt-out box in the submission form.
FAQs
Q: Can I submit my project to other jams at the same time it's submitted to ECTOCOMP?
A: Yes! As long as your project isn't published before October 1, you can submit it to as many other jams as you like.
Q: Is there a limit on how many entries I can submit?
A: No, you can submit as many as you like!
Q: Does the "no generative AI" rule include machine translation?
A: No. Because translation services that use AI tools aren’t wholesale generating new content, their use is allowed.
Q: Is NSFW content allowed?
A: Yes!
Welcome to the harvest!
Submissions(62)
No submissions match your filter
