What is the Short Games Showcase?
The Short Games Showcase is an opportunity to show off shorter interactive fiction works made in the past year (Jan 1, 2025 to Dec 31, 2025), regardless of whether or not they are previously released.
Short games tend not to do as well as longer games in general-purpose, non-speed-IF comps, while if released outside of a competition or jam, they may not get eyes on them at all. We want to give shorter works their moment in the spotlight in a competition where they’ll be compared only to each other, and bring some more attention to the many excellent short games that get released every year.
This is meant to be showing off what you think are your best short works of the year; we do not encourage submitting troll games.
How short is short?
A person who reads at an average speed (and, if applicable, has a solid knowledge of how parser games work) should be able to complete a playthrough in 30 minutes or less. (For reference, the number of words an average adult can read in English in 30 minutes is about 8,000.) We know this can be hard to pinpoint exactly, so we do not police this very strictly. If you think your work may be borderline, consider whether you would be comfortable with people evaluating your game without fully completing it.
What if the game is meant to be played through multiple times?
A player should be able to have a relatively complete experience in 30 minutes or under. A game that runs 30 minutes for a single playthrough but requires or strongly encourages multiple playthroughs would not be a good fit for the SGS.
What are the other eligibility requirements?
A work must have been first released in 2025. Anything that was first released in 2024 or earlier will be rejected regardless of whether it meets the other eligibility criteria.
We take a broad view of IF, and will accept anything that's usually considered to fall under that umbrella, including parser games, choice-based/choose-your-own-adventure games, visual novels, point-and-clicks, and text-focused Bitsy games. However, if text is not a significant component of your game, it is probably not appropriate for this event.
In addition, to be eligible a work must not have been submitted to more than three prior jams or competitions. Part of the mission of the SGS is to get more eyes on games that may have been overlooked, and we don’t think games that have been submitted to a dozen jams already fit that spirit. We will be checking Itch and (if applicable) IFDB to see how many events a submitted game is listed as being part of. (The yearly Interactive Fiction Showcase and the Review-A-Thon are excluded. No other event is currently excluded.)
New for 2025, your game must not have any AI-generated text or art. Image editing and grammar checking with programs that have tools labeled as AI-based don’t count, and machine translation is allowed (although personally we prefer the slightly stilted output of Google Translate or DeepL to text that’s been ChatGPT-ified).
How many games can I submit?
You can submit up to two games.
How does voting work?
The SGS will have both a Best Overall winner and winners in several specific categories:
- Best Use of Short Form
- Best Use of Interactivity
- Best Story-Focused Game
- Best Puzzle-Focused Game
- Most Replay Value
- Best Previously Unawarded Game
Best Overall voting will be via Itch's built-in jam voting function, while category voting will be done through a Google form in order to have maximum flexibility in terms of what kinds of categories we can have. You will be able to select up to three games (unranked) in each category. The Google form will be linked here when voting begins.
We strongly encourage everyone who submits a game to vote and rate games. You do not have to play all of them, and it is fine to submit a Google form vote without having played all the games (if you play more and your opinions change, you can always edit your vote later). We would like all entrants to do their best to play and rate at least 5 games during the voting period.
For those who are not familiar with Itch’s ranked-jam ratings, they are separate from the non-jam-related rating system; they are private and anonymous and do not affect a game’s algorithmic popularity in other areas of the site.
Voting will run from January 1st through January 25, 2026.
What are the criteria for each category?
We don’t have a very strict set of criteria people should base their votes on, but here’s a brief description of what we intended each category to be:
Best Use of Short Form: A game that is perfect at the length that it is and would not benefit from being made longer. (AKA the Goldilocks Award, for a game whose size is “just right”--thanks, pinkunz!)
Best Use of Interactivity: A game whose interactive elements are particularly enjoyable or interesting or impactful; a game that does something that would be difficult to pull off in static fiction, or at least would take a lot more words to communicate.
Best Story-Focused Game: A game which primarily emphasizes narrative (and does it well).
Best Puzzle-Focused Game: A game which primarily emphasizes puzzle-solving (and does it well).
Most Replay Value: A game that is particularly enjoyable to play multiple times (whether due to randomization, branching, achievements, hidden things to find, or whatever else).
Best Previously Unawarded Game: A game that has not, in any previous competition: placed in the top three overall, placed in the top three in any category, or won any award determined by a popular vote or judging panel. (This question on the Google form will list only eligible games, so don’t worry about determining eligibility yourself—just pick your favorite from the ones that are listed.)
If a game takes less than 30 minutes for a single playthrough, you may play it multiple times before voting to see alternate paths/additional content, but we encourage you to vote based on no more than 30 minutes of gameplay.
Is there anything else I should know before submitting?
Upon submission, you’ll be asked three questions:
Does this work contain any flashing screen effects or images? The organizers vet all the games manually, and one of us has photosensitivity issues. In the interest of not causing a medical incident, please let us know if your work may trigger photosensitive epilepsy or migraines.
Which of the following categories would you like your game to be considered in? Every game is eligible for the Best In Show via the Itch ratings, and the Best Previously Unawarded Game list will be compiled by the organizers, but for every other category, you will choose whether you want your game to be eligible for an award in that category or not. You can choose as many as you want, but please take some time to think about whether your game is a good fit for a given category instead of just ticking all the boxes.
May we upload this game to the IF Archive (if it isn’t there already)? The IF Archive (https://ifarchive.org/) is designed to preserve interactive fiction games. If your game isn’t there already, we’d love to keep a copy of it there, though of course this is not required. Please note that if you say yes to this, we’ll need a file for your game, whether you upload a downloadable version or get it to us some other way. (You can email emeryjoyce at proton dot me if you prefer.)
Are there prizes?
No, this is just for fun (and bragging rights).