It’s almost time for the annual Spring Thing interactive-fiction competition!

The Thing is designed to create a place for longer, more polished games (which means it has often featured a more select set of entrants than the IF Comp) but is open to any new, completed interactive fiction. You need to pay a $7 fee to enter, but there are cool prizes. In some years there have been over $1000 of prizes!

To enter, you’ll need to submit an “intent to enter” by March 1, and submit your entry fee and your finished game by April 9. Be sure to read the rules carefully, especially rule 8, that “All entries must be previously unreleased at the time of voting—that is, they must never have been publicly downloadable or otherwise publicly available. Obviously, this does not prevent you from having your game beta-tested, which is much encouraged.”

Start thinking about it now if you’ve got a work in progress!