WHO YOU GONNA CALL!?

ECTOCOMP is an annual competition for interactive fiction celebrating the SPOOKY MONTH OF HALLOWEENTOBER. Whether you celebrate Halloween, Day of the Dead, All Saint's Eve, or just love ghost stories and creeping people out, this is your time to shine!

This year we have all participating languages on the same page on itchio. Since the beginning of this initiative to have several languages on ECTOCOMP, it has arisen from the motivation to unite and strengthen ties between international communities. Which was somewhat lost on its purpose because each language had a separate page. Thanks to the improvements in jam hosting on itchio, this year it is possible to do this in a slightly more optimal way. Let's see if it works!

Initially the main languages are English, Spanish, French and German, and then there is a fifth option of "others". But if any person or group wants us to add a language to the list, they just have to ask.

You can read the rules in other languages in the following list:

Leer las reglas en Español

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 hrs or less
• Le Grand Guignol, for games that, for whatever reason, took longer than 4 hrs to write (perhaps a more thoughtful masterpiece? perhaps spent too much time writing SLIMY DETAILS?)

SUBTHEMES AND INSPIRATION

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Ghostbusters. As you may know, the name of the competition came from ectoplasm and from the Ghostbusters’ car license plate number ECTO 1, as named by the first organizer JJ. Guest. So, this year we pay tribute to the film that inspired the title.

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 doing the "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, and helping support their spiritual journey." 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 we leave behind.
• All Souls' Eve, at the same time, the evening of All souls' is a special moment for some European countries to gather the family around the fire, eat sweet wheat porridge, and tell scary tales.
• Any other festivity or mythology around the world.

THE RULES

1. Games submitted for La Petite Mort should be written in 4 hours or less.
   1. Any time spent planning, thinking, doodling, researching, etc does not count.
   2. Any time spent writing words or code that ends up in-game totally does count. 
      1. (With the exception of if you wrote game engine or library code in the past and now you're using it.)
      2. La petite mort games cannot be updated during the competition.
      3. Less in the case you have a game-breaking bug, in that case, you are allowed to fix the bug to guarantee players can complete your game. But... remember, NO UPDATES! NO POLISHING!
      4. Generative AI is strictly forbidden for La Petite Mort. You know, this is designed to be a test for the human resilience. Machines have nothing to do with it!
2. Games submitted for Le Grand Guignol could have an indefinite amount of hours into its development. Either more than 4 hours or more than 1 week, even more than 1 month. They can be updated to correct bugs or improve the present, but no additional content can be added during the competition.
3. 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?)
4. 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!
5. The tradition is to work on the games during October, but you can start NOW to work on your game. The games should be available on 31 Oct, so we can enjoy them in the proper festivities.
6. The games should be original and previously unpublished, except for localisations of previously unreleased games in the current competition language.
7. Presenting demos or incomplete games: we think a demo is okay as long as it is "self-contained".  Like, remove all objects that do not make sense in the context of the demo. Like it's 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 maybe this is not the best environment for a game that feels not finished. Also, think that presenting your incomplete work publicly in this or any other event could disqualify your work for future events when it's ready and finished.
8. To participate properly, please choose the correct category for your game. Also, you can start one of the main themes in the blurb of the game.
9. 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 didn't understand ECTOCOMP and shouldn't be here anyway.

Go forth and don't be cursed!

VOTES, FEEDBACK, AND COMMUNITY

To vote and participate as a jury, you must do so by giving between 1 to 5 stars on each entry page of the jam. The voting period ends on November 30.

Itchio doesn't allow to leave categories unvoted, so vote and judge the games just as normal. Later we'll make separate ranked lists with each category.

In addition to each entry page, each game has its own itchio 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 a competition about Interactive Fiction. Take the time to leave a kind comment for the authors to thank 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 itchio.
• 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.
• In the CAAD forum, of the Spanish-speaking community. This way.
• Narrative Games Discord Server: https://discord.gg/cEvWs6ZYrB.
• The discord server for the community in Spanish is called Textualiza, invite link:  https://discord.gg/6cG4YAJ.
• 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 appropriate opt-out in the submission form.

Don't be afraid of ghosts!