The twenty-third annual Interactive Fiction Competition, IFComp, is now open!  This year, I’ve entered The Unofficial Sea-Monkey(R) Simulation.  In some ways, it’s a period piece, akin to some forgotten DOS game from the late ’80s.  The official blurb is:

Sometime during 1987, your father comes home from work–late, as usual. He tosses a small box onto the kitchen counter. “Here,” he says, “you wanted fish. You get these. Let’s see how you do first, and then maybe we’ll get a real tank.”

However, I did toy with a shorter blurb before ultimately deciding it was a bit too cheeky:

A story about growing up, as mitigated by brine shrimp.

There are eighty entries this year–by far the most ever.  There are a lot of great-looking games out there, and I’ve had the pleasure of beta-testing one of them.

Head on over to the main website and peruse the continuing renaissance in interactive fiction.  Anyone can serve as a judge in the competition.  You just need to play and consider five games in earnest before rating them.