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, 2024 to Dec 31, 2024), regardless of whether or not they are previously released.

Short games tend to get less love than 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.

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. We know this can be hard to pinpoint exactly, so we will not be policing this unless someone submits something that is clearly way over the line. 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 2024. Anything that was first released in 2023 or earlier will be rejected regardless of whether it meets the other criteria. Your game should also be free to play for the duration of the competition. (We'd prefer if whatever version is submitted stays free indefinitely, but we can't make you do anything.)

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, new for 2024, 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. Please note that the Interactive Fiction Showcase 2024 doesn't count for this purpose, so go ahead and submit to that if you'd like! 

How many games can I submit?

You can submit up to three games.

Is there anything else I should know before submitting?

Upon submission, you’ll be asked two 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.

Does this work contain any text or images generated by AI? In order to allow players to make informed decisions about engaging with works that have generative AI content, we would like people to state whether their work contains text generated by a LLM such as Chat-GPT or images generated by AI art tools such as DALL-E or Midjourney. This does not include the use of spelling/grammar checkers, machine translators, or photo editing tools, regardless of whether such tools have been labeled as AI.

Also, while this isn't a requirement, we'd love to encourage people to upload their work to the IF Archive (if not already uploaded previously).  Instructions can be found at the link, or you can DM one of the organizers to give us permission to do it for you. 

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 15, 2025. Participants are welcome to discuss their games and respond to reviews at any times -- just be nice to each other!

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.

Are there prizes?

No, this is just for fun (and bragging rights)!