Spring Thing is an annual competition to highlight works of text adventure games and other literary works, also known as Interactive Fiction.
Adam Cadre, author of several works of Interactive Fiction, including Photopia and Varicella , announced the Spring Thing in 2001, both to promote works that would be longer than those entered into the Interactive Fiction Competition, and to encourage authors to submit works to the general public during other times of the year. It was run in 2002 and 2003, but Cadre did not host it the following year. Greg Boettcher picked up the slack, and hosted the Spring Thing from 2005 until 2013. As of 2022 [update] , Aaron A. Reed runs the competition and has been doing so since 2014.
As with the better-known Interactive Fiction Competition, works submitted to the Spring Thing must be released as freeware or public domain. Unlike that competition's limit of two hours per work, judges may spend as much time as necessary with an entry in the Spring Thing.
Interactive fiction (IF) is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the form of Interactive narratives or Interactive narrations. These works can also be understood as a form of video game, either in the form of an adventure game or role-playing game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be "text-only", however, graphical text adventure games, where the text is accompanied by graphics still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is by typing text. Some users of the term distinguish between interactive fiction, known as "Puzzle-free", that focuses on narrative, and "text adventures" that focus on puzzles.
The Interactive Fiction Competition is one of several annual competitions for works of interactive fiction. It has been held since 1995. It is intended for fairly short games, as judges are only allowed to spend two hours playing a game before deciding how many points to award it, but longer games are allowed entry. The competition has been described as the "Super Bowl" of interactive fiction.
Inform is a programming language and design system for interactive fiction originally created in 1993 by Graham Nelson. Inform can generate programs designed for the Z-code or Glulx virtual machines. Versions 1 through 5 were released between 1993 and 1996. Around 1996, Nelson rewrote Inform from first principles to create version 6. Over the following decade, version 6 became reasonably stable and a popular language for writing interactive fiction. In 2006, Nelson released Inform 7, a completely new language based on principles of natural language and a new set of tools based around a book-publishing metaphor.
Adam Cadre is an American writer active in a number of forms—novels, screenplays, webcomics, essays—but best known for his work in interactive fiction.
A visual novel (VN) is a form of digital interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with static or animated illustrations and a varying degree of interactivity. The format is more rarely referred to as novel game, a retranscription of the wasei-eigo term noberu gēmu (ノベルゲーム), which is more often used in Japanese.
The XYZZY Awards are the annual awards given to works of interactive fiction, serving a similar role to the Academy Awards for film. The awards were inaugurated in 1997 by Eileen Mullin, the editor of XYZZYnews. Any game released during the year prior to the award ceremony is eligible for nomination to receive an award. The decision process takes place in two stages: members of the interactive fiction community nominate works within specific categories and sufficiently supported nominations become finalists within those categories. Community members then vote among the finalists, and the game receiving a plurality of votes is given the award in an online ceremony.
The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which also hosts a screenplay competition, workshops, screenings throughout the year and events with an emphasis on independent films with budgets under US$1 million.
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Slime Time Live is a television show that aired on Nickelodeon from 2000–2004, lasting 8 seasons. During its run it was hosted by Dave Aizer, Jonah Travick, and Jessica Holmes and produced/directed by Jason Harper. It was located outside of the former Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios Florida. It mainly aired as filler during regular commercial time.
Super 8 is a 2011 American science fiction thriller film written and directed by J.J. Abrams and co-produced by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, and Kyle Chandler in lead roles. Set in 1979, the plot follows a group of young teenagers who witness a mysterious train derailment while filming their own Super 8 movie. As strange occurrences unfold in their small Ohio town, they realize that something dangerous has been unleashed from the train.
A laurel wreath is a symbol of triumph, a wreath made of connected branches and leaves of the bay laurel, an aromatic broadleaf evergreen. It was also later made from spineless butcher's broom or cherry laurel. It is worn as a chaplet around the head, or as a garland around the neck.
The Leeds International Film Festival (LIFF) is an annual film festival hosted in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest film festival in England outside of London. Founded in 1987, it is held in November in various venues throughout Leeds, including Hyde Park Picture House and Cottage Road Cinema. In 2022, the festival showed 140 films from 78 countries, shorts and features, both commercial and independent.
Spring Fling can refer to:
The Manchester Poetry Prize is a literary award celebrating excellence in creative writing. It was launched by Carol Ann Duffy and The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2008, and was the first phase of the annual Manchester Writing Competition. Open internationally to writers aged 16 or over, the Manchester Poetry Prize awards a cash prize of £10,000 to the writer of the best portfolio of poems submitted. In addition, during the 2008 and 2010 Prizes, a bursary for study at MMU was awarded to an entrant aged 18–25 as part of the Jeffrey Wainwright Manchester Young Writer of the Year Award. Entrants are asked to submit a portfolio of poetry. The poems can be on any subject but must be new work, not published elsewhere.
Lost Pig is a comedic work of interactive fiction about an orc retrieving an escaped pig. It was created by Admiral Jota and released as freeware. It took first place in the 2007 Interactive Fiction Competition with an average score of 8.27. Lost Pig won best game, best writing, best individual non-player character, and best individual player character in the 2007 XYZZY Awards. Lost Pig finished with 18.7% of the votes for the Audience Award in the interactive fiction category in the 2008 Jay Is Games Best of Casual Gameplay awards, placing it second after Violet.
Violet is a work of interactive fiction by American author Jeremy Freese. It is a one-room puzzle game.
Alice Kuipers is a British author living in Saskatchewan, Canada who is best known for her young adult novels. Life on the Refrigerator Door won the Grand Prix de Viarmes, the Livrentête Prize, the Redbridge Teenage Book Award in 2008 and the Saskatchewan First Book Award in 2007, was narrated as an audio book by Amanda Seyfried and Dana Delany, and has been adapted for theater in England, France and Japan. 40 Things I Want To Tell You won a Saskatchewan Book Award for Young Adult Literature in 2013. The Worst Thing She Ever Did won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Juvenile/YA Crime Book in 2011.
Choice of Games LLC is a video game developer based in California that creates interactive fiction.
The Oakville Festivals of Film and Art is a not-for-profit organization that runs the Oakville Film Festival, as well as special screening and Arts events such as the Sheridan/OFFA Annual Screening series. The festival celebrated its 10th year in 2023, and has been held the third week of June every year for over 10 years. The festival includes a juried award competition with senior members of the Canadian film and production communities, and Audience Choice Awards for the best feature and best short film. The festival uses Film Freeway for its submissions, which are open 1st November every year, and has a track record of programming over 70% of its programming from the platform. The festival screens its films at three primary venues in Oakville: Film.ca Cinemas, The Five Drive In, and the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts.
The Interactive Fiction Database (IFDB) is a database of metadata and reviews of interactive fiction.