SeedComp! is a 2-round interactive fiction game jam, celebrating creativity, collaboration, and the growth of ideas. 

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The SeedComp! is divided into 2 distinct rounds: the Planting and the Sprouting  rounds. 
You can choose to take part in either or both rounds, or simple browse the entries of each round and vote for them!

The whole competition runs from May to April (includ. voting):

• Planting Round: Now to Dec, 1st
• Sprouting Round: Dec 1st to March 1st
• Voting Period: March 3rd to March 31st

All indicated deadlines are set to midnight (00:00 - 12am) UTC -10/HST time.
Don’t worry, Itch translates it to your local time automatically.

Round 1 : Planting

In this 1st Round, the Planting round, we welcome you to submit 'seeds' into the competition, to inspire authors in the next round to create their entries!

These seeds can be absolutely anything! From game introductions, visual pieces, blurbs, design drafts, full puzzles, poems, music, characters, I7 extensions, settings, feelies, or even code... we will take anything you have!

You can submit:

• As many 'seeds' as you'd wish.
• Seeds in any format you wish to use.
  • Unfinished  IF projects, only if you are the author of said entries.
• NSFW  seeds as long as content warnings are included.

If you submitted a seed in the previous edition through the re-enrollment program, there is no need to re-submit it! We've done it for you!

Other guidelines:

• Submitted Seeds must be your own creation.
• Seeds must be submitted with a license as or less restrictive than CC BY-NC.
  • You can also submit seeds under a CC-BY license or equivalent, or a less restrictive license (ex: public domain).
  • We also accept code-specific licenses, as long as it is not more restrictive than CC-BY-NC.
• All seeds must be downloadable.
• While there is no minimum word count for static text seeds (like blurbs/intros), we encourage you to submit more than just one sentence.
• All seeds will be screened by the organisers for trolling/abuse.

Auto Re-enrollment:

When submitting a seed, there is a chance that it might not be among the selected ones to help sprout a game this year. This is to be expected, as more seeds have been submitted than games in any given year (which is why we encourage the use of multiple seeds in game development).

So, when submitting a seed, you will be asked, if your seed is unused in this year's SeedComp!, whether you would like it to be resubmitted on your behalf every year until it is either used or 5 years have elapsed, whichever happens first.

This allows seeds a better chance of finding the right creator without leaving them in the active competition forever.

The Seedbank:

The SeedBank is a database of past seeds created during SeedComp! Authors may use seeds from this bank when crafting their entries. However, in line with the submission guidelines: "All entries must be based on at least one seed from this year's Planting round." This means authors must select at least one seed from this year's planting round in addition to any seeds used from the SeedBank. 

The individual licensing requirements of seeds found in the SeedBank, like Author attribution or restrictions against commercial works, remain in force into perpetuity. When submitting a seed, you will be asked whether you would like to have it added to the database when no longer active. If you opted for auto re-enrollement, being added to the database would occur either after your entry is finally used or the auto re-enrollment period ends after 5 years.

Round 2 : Sprouting

In this 2nd Round, the Sprouting round, we welcome you to submit your IF game, based on one or more seeds from the Planting round. 

You can sign-up your intent to use any seed via this sheet [TBL]. We encourage discussion of the submitted seeds both in our Discord and the Community Tab!

Submissions of entries should be done on the Sprouting round page.

Submission Guidelines:

• All entries must be Interactive Fictions.
  • SeedComp! embraces a permissive definition of Interactive Fiction (i.e. it's focused on text, and it's interactive).
• All entries must be completed games. 
  • While there is no requirement in length, a reasonable target should be about 15-30 minutes to play.
• All entries must be based on at least one seed from this year's Planting round. 
  • You may choose to incorporate more or all seeds if you wish to. Including from past editions of the SeedComp!.
  • The entries must follow the licensing type of the most restrictively licensed seed used (indicated on the seed page).
• All entries must indicate the seeds used in their submission form.
• Seed use is not exclusive to one person, multiple people can sign up for the same seed.  There is no 'dibs'.
• You may use your own seed from Round 1.
  • While you may use only your own seed, this does go against the spirit of SeedComp! and thus your submission won’t be eligible for awards. To remain eligible, you must use a seed created by someone else in conjunction with your own.
• Content Warnings must be indicated when submitting the entry.
• The entries must follow any and all restrictions placed by the license of the seeds used. 
  • Attribution of the author of the seed must be clearly indicated in your game/game page if the seed is under CC-BY.
  • The entry must be non-commercial if one seed is under the CC-BY-NC license, and attribution to the author should be clear.
• The entries must be freely available to play at least during the Voting Period.

We encourage you to provide a downloadable copy of your entry in your game page, for accessibility purposes.

Unranked Submissions

While the competition is ranked, with a voting period after the end of the Sprouting round, you can opt-out from receiving awards for your entry when submitting. You can still receive stickers but your entry won't be part of of any ranking.

Organisers can submit entries, but are not eligible to receive awards.

Archiving of entries:

• An IFDB page will be created for each entry at the end of the round.  The IFDB, or Interactive Fiction Database, is an IF game information catalogue, creating a historical record of the IF landscape. You are more than welcome to create it yourself beforehand.
• You can also opt-in to see your entry submitted to the IF Archive (the entry will be playable from its IFDB page and archived) or submit it yourself!
  • If you opt-in to archive your entry, please provide a downloadable copy of your entry.

Possible Software to create Interactive Fiction:

• Twine
• Bitsy
• Ren'Py
• Ink
• ChoiceScript
• PunyInform
• Inform 6
• Inform 7
• Adventuron
• ADRIFT
• Binksi
• and many more can be found listed in the IF Wiki.

Playing and Voting for Awards

All Sprouting entries will be made available to play shortly after that round ends.  We encourage every creator from each round to play the entries and vote for them :)   

Unless opted-out or disqualified, every entry is eligible for Awards. Awards are titles set by the organisers (such as Best Overall, Best UI, Best Puzzle, etc..).  You can find the full list of awards here [LINK TBA]. 

While Award eligibility is limited, every entry can also be nominated for Stickers, which are unique acknowledgements submitted by voters for specific entries (note: all stickers will be screened by the organisers).

Seeds will also be eligible for Awards. Awards will depend on sign-ups and use (e.g.: Most signed-up Seed, Most Finished Entries for a Seed), as well as votes (e.g. Most Innovative). If you have an idea for a Seed Award, please contact the organisers.

From the end of the Planting round until March 31st, you will be able to vote for your favourite Seed!

From March 4th to March 31st, through this form, you will be able to vote for Awards and submit stickers for the games.

The results will be posted in early April.

The SeedComp! Policy on AI use

In general, we discourage the use of AI, as the SeedComp! was created specifically to foster human creativity.

We recognize the topic is controversial, and as organizers, we cannot ignore the issue. Here is our attempt at reasonable rules and guidelines for the SeedComp!

Submitting Seeds:

• Do not submit AI generated output from your prompt as a seed. Submit your prompt instead.
• As the whole idea of the event is that you are collaborating with another creator, a human-AI ‘collaboration’ for a seed would go against the ethos of the event.
• This does not apply to seeds submitted in the first edition of SeedComp!, only to seeds (re)submitted from this moment forward.

Submitting Games:

• AI use in creative endeavors is a polarized and controversial topic. It might be worthwhile to avoid using AI altogether to broaden the appeal of your entry.
• It is a general rule that all use of art and assets not your own must be credited and this includes art and assets generated by AI. Tag and credit your project accordingly (ex: [asset], created with [AI program])
• While using AI programs to come up with writing ideas, as a name generator, or help detailing ideas, might not seem as controversial as submitting whole blocks of generated text, players may want to make informed decisions about the content they wish to consume. So, again, please tag your work appropriately and indicate what you did and how you did it so people can make their own decisions.