Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2025

[Garry]

I don't know how many text adventure authors are on here, though I suspect quite a few. If you're one of them, then you will be interested in this event. Come to think of it, if you're a text adventure player, you will also be interested in this event.

Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2025 has been launched. Despite the name, this is a competition, not a jam. The aim is to write a text adventure that is suitable for beginners to the genre. The game must include an in-game tutorial. This year's optional theme is 'time travel'. Submissions close at the end of April. Voting runs during May. See the competition home page at the above link for full details.

This is always a fun event and we're hoping for some more prize donors. Please donate something, if you can. Prizes don't have to be cash.

[Garry]

One month until submissions open. That gives you three months to write your game. Don’t delay, as time tends to slip away when a comp deadline is imminent.

23 people have joined so far and total prizes are worth over US$400. More prize donors are welcome.

[catventure]

Hi Garry,
Thanks for providing the info about this annual text adventure competition.

(Should any entrant decide to use the "TAB for Windows" creator to build a little example game I'm happy to be on hand to help answer questions about using the program, answer queries or playtest data etc. Contact me by PM, Tab forum or email.)

Regards,
catventure (Phil)

[Garry]

That's great. Thanks.

[Garry]

There's a little over one month to go before submissions close for Text Adventure Literacy Jam 2025. We currently have 50 people joined and we've received the first entry. Woohoo! Is there anyone on here that has joined or plans on joining? It's a lot of fun.

[Templar]

It's great that they create those competitions for beginners, so that newcomers will embrace the best genre in computer gaming more easily. Starting with easy text adventures will help them surely later to play some old masterpieces out there.

[Garry]

That's the hope. However, beginners don't even know that this genre exists, so it's almost impossible to draw them in to try the games. If you know any beginners, let them know about the competition and encourage them to give it a go. If they strike a bad game, encourage them to try nother one. Not all games will be bad. Some will be very, very good.

For anyone else, please play and rate the games when they're released. All games are free to play for the duration of the competition. Most stay free forever. You only need to register on itch.io to rate the games, but not to play them.