Another year has gone past and it’s that time again where everyone gets ready for some spooky goodness in the form of Ectocomp. This is a friendly competition run over at itch.io and the Infiction forums, open to any kind of interactive fiction including choicescript.
The deadline is the end of October, but there’s still time to put a short game together. In fact, this comp is perfect for it. Challenge yourself to write a petit morte entry, where you plan a game out, and then have 4 hours only to write and test it. (Sounds hard but is very do-able if you plan ahead and then keep the game short.) Otherwise there is a longerform category for anything that you plan to spend more than 4 hours writing. I’ve entered this comp a number of times over the years, and do recommend it
Just a note to remember, ectocomp bans generative AI, so no images or text to be included in the games in that category. (Spell/grammar checkers have been discussed as ok, but the writing needs to have been done by a human.)
This has been its biggest year yet, with 53 entries in English, 2 in French and 9 in Spanish, so if you’re looking for some spooky goodness in the month of November, head on over and take a look what’s on offer (it’s all free!)
If you plan to vote or leave comments on any of the games (and please do if you’d like! Authors love getting feedback) you have until the end of November (there’s a countdown timer on the main comp page.)
There’s also some discussion and review threads happening over at Intfiction.
appreciate the heads-up! I’ve done a few short interactive-fiction jams and find that mapping out scenes and choices in advance makes a one-day build realistic. I’ll enter a concise, focused piece this year and will register on itch.io. Can’t wait to see everyone’s spooky entries!
Just a friendly reminder that there’s just under 3 days left if you’d like to read and rate or comment on some games for Ectocomp . This is the biggest year yet for entries, so there’s a lot to choose from
Ectocom is a great opportunity for creativity! A time-limited task without generative AI is perfect for those who want to create a short interactive game.
Ecotocomp games are live and available to read 
