The Engine Jam is a month-long Interactive Fiction unranked jam for you to explore a new or unusual engine to create text-based games. As an offshoot of our previous Anti-Productivity mini-jam, the goal of this jam is to try something new!

So, pick up an IF engine you've never used before or a program not meant to create IF... Get set... And GO!

Constraint (pick one):

New-to-you Engine: choose an IF engine you've not used before and create a game!

For example, if you've only used Inform before, maybe try out Ink. Or reversely, if you're a Twine user, why not test out Adventuron? If you don't know where to start, check out a non-exhaustive list of IF engines below!

Non-IF Engine: in the spirit of the Anti-Productivity mini-jam, choose an engine or program that was never meant to create IF games in the first place.

For example, any office suite (Word/Docs), state websites (HTML), quiz/survey systems, etc...

Possible IF softwares:

Primarily HyperText/Choice-Based: Twine,  Ink, ChoiceScript, Dendry

Primarily Parser/Input: Inform 6, Inform 7, PunyInform, Adventuron, ADRIFT

Other: Bitsy, Binksi, Ren'Py

and many more can be found listed in the IF Wiki.

Possible NON-IF softwares:

Office Suites and Text processors: Microsoft Office (Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Sharepoint, etc.); Google Docs/Sheets/Slides, Google Forms, Maps, etc.; LibreOffice/OpenOffice, etc...;  LaTeX...

Static Sites: Raw HTML/CSS (no javascript),  Github (presenting your game as a repository),  Wordpress, MKDocs, Forums, Carrd

Others: 

Jupyter notebooks; R Shiny, Plotly Dash, Tableau; MediaWiki; uQuiz

The returning Valentine's Interactive Fiction Jam!

For this Valentine's month, you can help make romance happen with a smooch!

Smoochie Jam is a month-long unranked jam all about kisses, real or imagined, love and romance.  The name and concept of this jam were inspired the original SmoochieComp in 2001, hosted by Emily Short.

Games should be about romance, kissing, or the deliberate subversion thereof. Here is an optional list of story ideas and concepts:

♡ first kiss, last kiss ♡ kissing in the rain ♡ kiss of life (or kiss of death) ♡ sealed with a kiss ♡ kiss with a fist ♡ spaghetti kiss

Constraints and Rules:

Your Entry should relate to romance, love, kisses, or the deliberate subversion thereof.

The Jam is open to any program/medium, as long as the piece can be considered Interactive Fiction (i.e. the game is interactive, and its focus is on the text).

The Jam is open to any language.

You can submit up to 3 entries!

You should aim for a 15-30min maximum gameplay.

Entries can have NSFW content, as long as you indicate it in your submission.

Games should not include any generated AI content (incl. cover image/game page). Entries using AI/LLM will be removed.

Assets used must be properly credited.

Spam or hateful content will not be accepted.

Join the Jam!

We will track entries on Tumblr with #smoochiejam, but you can also tag @neointeractives!

ShuffleComp is a musical interactive fiction competition, first ran in 2014, where you make games based on songs chosen by fellow entrants. It has two phases: first, entrants submit a playlist of 8 songs. Then, playlists will be randomly created from the provided songs and sent to the entrants, and you’ll make games based on these playlists.

How it works:

Sign up for the game jam and/or submit a playlist of up to 8 songs here. This is due by December 15, 2025. You can make games without submitting songs, or submit songs without making games, but it is recommended that you do both. Songs from people not making games will only be used if there are not enough songs otherwise.

By December 20, if you indicated that you're interested in the jam, you'll receive a list of 8 songs by email, randomly selected from other participants' submissions. Now, you'll write a game (or up to 3 games) based on some of these songs. You can submit songs to this jam page.

Games are due by January 19, 2026. After which, you'll be able to vote for the following two weeks.

Rules for games:

Games should be interactive fiction in some way.

Games should be based on at least one of the songs you received, but can use any number of songs. You can interpret “based on a song” however you’d like.

Games should not include any generated AI content.

You can submit up to 3 games, using different songs or the same songs.

Voting will be based on the use of songs and the overall game goodness.

Sign-ups and music submissions

Let's make some super bare games :D

No customisation allowed!

We will track entries on Tumblr with the #barebonesjam, but you can also tag @neointeractives!

Do you have WIPs that you've put on indefinite hiatus?Projects you've started and then abandoned or forgotten?Then this is the place for you.

The Bring Out Your Ghosts Jam is a place to show off the ghosts of the game development process. Abandoned or forgotten WIPs. Overly ambitious projects that never got off the ground. Notes and ideas for games that never came to be.

The name and timing of the jam is inspired by the Ghost Festival (or Zhongyuanjie) in East Asian tradition, a time when the ghosts of the deceased are said to visit the living. Imagine being visited by the ghosts of dead WIPs. What would they say?

Inspired by the Bring Out Your Dead Jam, hosted by Emily Short.

Rules

Incomplete and abandoned games, ideas, notes, etc. are all welcome.

Projects updated because of this jam are also okay. If you decide to revisit (or finish!) an old abandoned project because of this jam, that's great!

As with the original Bring Out Your Dead Jam, it would be nice if you include some context in the Author's Notes when submitting. How did your project come about? Why was it abandoned or forgotten? What lessons can be learned from the process? This is optional but encouraged :)

While the creators of this jam come from the interactive fiction community, any games, physical games, text, etc. are allowed.

Games should not include any generated AI content (incl. Cover Image/Game Page). Entries using AI/LLM will be removed.

Assets used must be listed and credited.

No hate speech or spam entries.

Limit of 3 submissions per person.

The Jam is open to any language.

Returning for a third edition! Still fundraising for LGBTQ+ organisations! Come make a Tiny Game for charity!

The Neo Twiny Jam is an Interactive Fiction Jam with one rule:

Don't write more than 500 words.

Any type of Interactive Fiction is welcome, from any kind of IF system/format, regardless of genre/theme.

You are not limited to Twine only. Use any program you want as long as the output is interactive fiction.

NSFW content is acceptable (NSFW themes must be clearly indicated in the submission).

Sounds, graphics and code are not included in the word count.

No AI/LLM generated content, incl. game cover/title card.

No Hate/Spam submissions.

You must credit any asset used.

The Neo Twiny Jam will run from June 1st 2025 (12:00 AM/00:00 EST) to June 30th 2025 (12:00 AM/00:00 PST).

This Jam is unranked.

The inspiration for this jam comes from Porpentine's Twiny jam, which ran in 2015. During the original three-week jam, creators were asked to submit a Twine game with no more than 300 words.

Like the previous years, I will be matching the number of entries into a donation to an LGBTQ+ charity - Trevor Project and SAGE. Please contact us if you would like to donate as well.

Join the Jam!

We will track entries on Tumblr with the #neotwinyjam, but you can also tag @neointeractives/@neo-twiny-jam!

ShuffleComp is a musical interactive fiction competition where you make games based on songs, which are submitted by other entrants. Each entrant gets a random playlist of songs submitted by other entrants, and will make games based on these songs.

How it works:

Sign up for the game jam and/or submit a playlist of up to 8 songs Sign up for the game jam and/or submit a playlist of up to 8 songs here. This is due by December 15. You can make games without submitting songs, or submit songs without making games, but it is recommended that you do both. Songs from people not making games will only be used if there are not enough songs otherwise.

By December 20, if you indicated that you're interested in the jam, you'll receive a list of 8 songs by email, randomly selected from other participants' submissions. Now, you'll write a game (or up to 3 games) based on some of these songs. You can submit songs to this jam page.

Games are due by January 19, 2025. After which, you'll be able to vote for the following two weeks.. This is due by November 26. You can make games without submitting songs, or submit songs without making games, but it is highly recommended that you do both. Songs from people not making games will only be used if there are not enough songs otherwise.

By December 3, if you indicated that you're interested in the jam, you'll receive a list of 8 songs by email, randomly selected from other participants' submissions. Now, you'll write a game (or up to 3 games) based on some of these songs. You can submit songs to this jam page.

Games are due by January 5, 2024. After which, you'll be able to vote for the following two weeks.

Sign-ups and music submissions

You must sign up first before submitting; if you submit without signing up, your entry will be removed.

Rules for games:

Games should be interactive fiction in some way.

Games should be based on at least one of the songs you received, but can use any number of songs. You can interpret "based on a song" however you'd like.

Games should not include any generated AI content (incl. Cover Image/Game Page). Entries using AI/LLM will be removed.

You can submit up to 3 games, using different songs or the same songs.

Voting will be based on the use of songs and the overall game goodness.

Why work when you could make games?

The Anti-Productivity Jam is a place for you to create interactive fiction using tools that were decidedly not intended for making games. Take your favorite (or least favorite) office software and use it to make a game!

Constraints and Rules:

Your game should be made with a specialized software not used for making games (see jam page).

Games should be interactive fiction; that is, they should be interactive in some way, and focus on the text.

The Jam is open to any language.

You can submit up to 3 entries!

You should aim for a maximum gameplay length of 15-30min.

Entries can have NSFW content, as long as it is indicated in your submission.

You must credit any asset used in your entry, or it will be removed (ex: code, images, sound, etc...)

Entries using AI or LLM will be removed.

Spam or hateful content will be removed.

During the duration of the jam and the two weeks following the deadline, the submissions should be free to play.

You should not use dedicated IF/game engines such as Twine/Ink/Inform/Ren'Py/etc..., and you should avoid re-creating a game engine using JavaScript or other general-purpose programming languages.