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We had a record number of registrations this year, but less than 10% of of registered users submitted a game. We normally get about 20 to 25%, so I'm wondering why it was so low. Is there something we can do to improve the submission rate next year?

I'll start.

I normally submit a game just to boost the numbers. I had a great idea this year, but didn't allow myself enough time to do the necessary research and design due to all my other commitments. I'll still write the game when time permits, but it may not be for a while.

How about you?

You can download it from the itch.io app, so the downloads you were seeing in your analytics were probably from that. A download link is much more convenient, so thanks for adding that. You'll now see more downloads.

Glad you liked it.

Yes, that's a bug. I have fixed it but I haven't uploaded the fix yet, as I was waiting to see if anyone found any other glitches. Thanks for reporting it.

Playing the games is half the fun. Good luck for next year.

A very generous anonymous donor has donated US$200 for first prize. Not only that, the same donor is donating a text adventure related ebook for every entrant. In order to make this work, we have to have some rules so that this offer is not abused. See the updated prize rules on the home page for further details. In particular, don't submit games that don't meet the competition rules, as they will be disqualified. At the time of writing, I have already disqualified three games. The main issues were that they were not even remotely like a text adventure, had already been published and/or used generative AI.

Here is a list of text adventure related ebooks that would qualify as prizes. If you know of others, please add them in a reply and I'll add them to the list. They must be available from Amazon and cost under US$10.

A Guide to ZX Spectrum Adventure Games: 1982 - 1985 by Shaun McClure

A Guide to ZX Spectrum Adventure Games: 1988 - 1990 by Shaun McClure

Creating a Text-Based Adventure Game with Python by Thomas Starr

Creating Text Adventures in Python by Mike Gold

Essential Adventure Games for the ZX Spectrum by Shaun McClure

How to Design Adventure Games by Shaun McClure

The Little Book Of Adventure Game Programming in C# by Huw Collingbourne

The Little Book Of Adventure Game Programming in Java by Huw Collingbourne

Text Adventure to RPG: Coding Interactive Fiction by Amara Hawthorn

You forgot to update the release number. We now have two release 1.1s with different release dates.

That fixed it. Thanks for the fast response. It was lucky that I noticed it early before too many people downloaded it.

The Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 versions start in a Deep Forest. The MS-DOS version doesn't seem to work. When I ran it under DOSBox, the opening screen and first few moves looked like this:

Any ideas?

Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I think the theme is a bit different to what you'd normally expect to find in a text adventure. The original game was very cruel and I had to work really hard to eliminate the sudden death, guess-the-verb, unwinnable situations and moon logic. I probably wasn't 100% successful in the latter, but there are lots of subtle clues for those that are prepared to examine everything and take notes along the way.

Thanks.

Thanks. That would be appreciated.

Sorry to disappoint you, but there's no third part in the original Bonaventura Di Bello series. The way Gianluca extended the ending on this one, it's really screaming out for a sequel. Let us think about it. We're open to suggestions.

Thank you. There's more to come.

Thanks for playing it.

Wow, you're really ripping through these games. We'll have to pick up the pace.

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

With all these games, it's always fun to explore, examine everything, try unusual things and maybe find a few Easter eggs along the way. When you're finished, there's always the extra challenge of trying to complete it in the minimum number of moves.

Thanks. I never thought about the spelling aspect, but I see what you mean. "Pete" is certainly easier to type than "platypus". When playing, I think I referred to all the animals by name.

Indeed. It was also fun to write.

Thank you. It's kind words like this that make it all worthwhile.

Thanks. I hope you enjoy the others just as much.

Things like name generators are quite acceptable, as they invent something from nothing using simple algorithms based on rules and patterns. I've never seen one that uses generative AI. (I'm not saying they don't exist, I just haven't seen one.)

Re LLMs, that's correct. The competition is about human creativity, not machine-generated slop.

Thank you. It's nice to know that these little touches get noticed.

Oh, no! We'll miss you. Your game last year was fun.

The email address is up to you. You might feel more secure if you offer testing on the Discord server (there's a channel for that), then people can send you a personal message.

Thank you. If you find any bugs or have any suggestions, please let me know, as I'll probably do a post-comp version.

It's not just a translation, but a complete rewrite with lots of extensions. The aim was not just to bring it to an English audience, but to bring it up-to-date for a modern audience. That means no sudden death, no (or very minimal) guess-the-verb, no moon logic, no unwinnable situations, richer descriptions and so on. You can still get killed if you ignore the in-game clues (which you may want to do just to see what happens), but you can always undo.

Your new release is release 1, so there are now two versions of release 1 dated 13-Jun-2025 and 04-Jul-2025. This is confusing and causes complications for database entry at CASA, IFDB, IFWiki et al.

Oops. Thanks for that. Another fix for the post-comp release.

For anyone that's really stuck, if you can't wait for me to respond, don't forget that there's a HINT command that's very helpful, sometimes too helpful.

I've sent you a step-by-step solution for the last few moves in a private message on intfiction.org.

Would anyone like to see the map and solution? I normally don't publish these until after the comp.

I think you've missed something. I can't say too much for fear of spoiling it for someone else. Just remember that you're trying to resurrect two people, not one.

You can only write the correct spell on the parchment. Anything else fades away. Remember what it said in the spell book about the spell you're trying to use.

You can only TALK TO ESMERALDA or ASK HER ABOUT <something>.  I think you meant the latter. There's currently no response for the crystal ball, but I can add that in a post-comp release. You can ask her about a lot of things. As an example, EXAMINE CRYSTAL BALL mentions the future, so ASK ESMERALDA ABOUT FUTURE is a good one to try.

Thanks for the bug reports. I'll fix those in a post-comp release.

You won't find a key for the drawer, so you'll need to pick the lock. Have you been to your aunt's bedroom yet? If not, that should be your next goal. (Hint: You can't get in through the bedroom door.) 

After talking to him, I did: I, STATS, W, W, W, W and he wasn't there. Would you like me to send my transcripts?

If you're a Discord user, there's some interesting  servers for text adventures and interactive fiction, including Adventuron and PunyInform, and some of the competitions, such as SeedComp, ParserComp and this one. The Text Adventure Literacy Jam server has announcements (of course) and some interesting discussion on game development, testing requests, help with puzzles, and so on. The traffic isn't heavy, but it's nice to be part of the community. Much better than Facebook.

I kept a transcript. When we got back, I talked to Andy and he rushed off in the direction of the Hackspace exit. I then checked every location and he was nowhere to be found. I talked to Julie, Stephan and Carl and they all congratulated me on finding Andy, but that's it. (I also checked the other time periods, but no sign of Andy.)

I've rescued Andy and he's gone back to his wife. The other characters in the hackspace have congratulated me for rescuing Andy, but the game doesn't end. What now? How do I get it to end?

The invite link is on the home page: Text Adventure Literacy Jam Discord server.

If you do an update, any update, no matter how minor, update the version number. This aids historians/biblographers and players. For example, if I'm look for a game on IFDB, IF Archive or IFWiki and it says the latest version is version 1.0.0 and I've already got version 1.0.0, then I'm not to know that theres' a different version 1.0.0. Use semantic versioning: a.b.c, where a is a major release, b is a minor release and c is a bug fix. So, in your case, it should have been 1.0.1.

You are lucky that Adventuron allows, even promotes, semantic versioning, whereas the stupid Z-code file format only allows a single release number and the serial number is the date in yymmdd format.

For those not paying attention, you may not have noticed that the submission period has closed and judging has started. There were 7 submissions and there's quite a variety in game styles and authoring tools used. It looks like three of the games opted to use the time travel theme, the others didn't. And that's okay, as the theme was optional.

Now's the time to start playing and rating the games. I'd suggest playing all the games before submitting your ratings to make sure that your scoring is fair. If one game is clearly better in one category than the others, then make sure it has a higher score in that category. Similarly, if one game is clearly worse in one category than the others, then make sure it has a lower score in that category. If two or more games are equal in one category, then make sure you give them the same score. You might like to consider using a sliding scale where the worst game in one category gets one star, the best gets 5 stars and the others are distributed accordingly.

Keep a piece of paper with your scores in a table. Write the titles of the games in the rows and the scoring categories in the columns. Fill in the scores for each game when you complete the game, while it's fresh in your memory. Try to complete each game before you score it. If it's a large game (and many of them are), make sure you play it for at least two hours before you rate it.

There are some interesting discussions on the games on the Discord server, so join in the fun or ask for hints there, but please use spoiler tags when necessary so that you don't spoil the game for anyone that hasn't played it yet.

Finally, if you didn't submit a game, consider writing reviews of the games in the Competitions category on intiction.org and tag your reviews with 'TALP'.

Andrew's game is the most recent in a series of games he's written that rely on word play. You can use conventional two-word input consisting of a verb and a noun, but most of the "puzzles" rely on you recognising Spoonerisms and entering them in place of a normal command. In case you're not familiar with Spoonerisms, this is where the morphemes of two words are switched to create two new words. The first few locations provide plenty of hints that lead to this idea. For example:

* name less -> lame ness

* ooh task -> to ask

* rare thing -> there ring

* veering choice -> cheering voice

* whoa guest -> go west

All you have to do is type the new words to gain points. Some of the Spoonerisms require you to have solved previous ones before they are accepted. So, if a Spoonerism doesn't work in one location, come back and try it later after solving some of the others. The hints are there, but they may be quite subtle. Once you get the hang of it, it's quite fun.