This document lists all the entries of the 2019 Annual Interactive Fiction Competition, with their cover art, blurbs, and other author-supplied information exactly as they stood when the competition opened for public judging on October 1, 2019.
To play the games, please find and explore the folder labeled "Games" that accompanied this document. It contains a complete collection of all the listed work. You can always download a fresh copy of this collection from the IF Archive website.
The online version of this page features controls and links that can help you download and play these games individually.
You may also wish to read some further notes about the 2019 IFComp, including a list of the volunteers who helped make it possible, and advice for playing the different kinds of games found among the entries.
What exactly happened during the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel? How do we separate the fantasy of the folklore from the realities of starvation and abandonment?
While often viewed as a fantasy story, my intention was to view this story from a psychological perspective.
If you were a character in their story, what sorts of choices would you make?
Content warning: Child Neglect
Folklore/Fairytale, Drama • Half an hour • Choice-based •
James Beck
The brave companions enter the old wizard's tomb in search of wealth and adventure. Many have done so before but no-one has ever returned. Direct barbarian, cleric, mage and thief towards great wealth and survival of the trials of Arram's tomb.
Content warning: Contains some strong language and graphic violence.
Fantasy • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Waking Media
A surprising new spin on the "wander-and-wonder" game genre.
A tribute to an obscure early 2000s indie game. Can you guess what it is?
[Contains Audio and Video which is important to the game]
Experimental • Web-based
In the future, robots cater to man’s every want and need. That is, unless you’re a lowly line cook like Irene Turnsole. After Irene travels to her late father’s home, she discovers that her sister has gone missing and nobody is coming to help find her. Turnsole suspects the cultists of The Light of the Future, her own father’s extreme futurist corporation, but proving it isn’t going to be so easy. Irene soon discovers she has just two days to track her sister down before the cultists perform an ominous-sounding ritual. To solve the mystery, Irene must dig into the secrets of her father’s corporation, a world on the edge of the Singularity, and her family's own painful past – all before precious time runs out.
Cyberpunk noir mystery • Two hours • Choice-based • Web-based
A classic IF investigation/mystery set in an old mansion. What could ever go wrong in an old mansion?
Lord Bradford just passed away, and his inheritors are eager to get their hands on their inheritance. But there is a problem: the will is missing.
You are a young associate at the Twilight Brothers law firm. You got the assignment to visit the old mansion of the late Lord, and find his will. Because it has to be in there somewhere!?
Bradford Mansion is a classic parser based text adventure game. Runs on Windows (x64), Linux (x64) and MacOS (x64), in a console window.
Investigation, mystery • Two hours • Parser-based • Windows executable
What better way to get over a breakup than smashing things?
Content warning: Self-harm, suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety, profanity, mild sexual language. If you are feeling suicidal, want to hurt yourself, or are otherwise suffering from depressive or anxious symptoms, please contact the Crisis Text Line (https://www.crisistextline.org) or another organization who can help. You deserve to see tomorrow, and you are not alone.
15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based
Your bride-to-be, Princess Bronwynn, has been poisoned in a botched assassination attempt. The poison is a very rare one and you must travel to a far land to find the Shaman who is the only person who might know how to make the antidote.
Fantasy • Two hours • Parser-based • Windows executable
LeSUTHU
In the middle of endless prairies, and dynamic mysteries that await you, you are a chieftain of a village you created. You control everything about the village from obtaining food, encounters with the unknowns of nature, and with interference with other communities in the game. The citizens of your village uphold your decisions with certainty and with loyalty, but it is up to you to make the right choices to sustain your village to strive on and respond to their trust in you. In this game, you will have to continue striving by obtaining necessary goods such as food, soldiers. Every day, you will be able to decide whether to go on a search, rest, or party, each option with their own pros and cons. You can also choose to do something for your town activity. It is important to realize your priorities and make your decisions based on that. You can also obtain luxurious good that has its unique characteristic. So the objective of the game? Survive.
(WALKTHROUGH INCLUDED IN THE GAME)
Turn based game • Choice-based • Web-based
The King, your father, is dead.
You have refused to take the crown and the land of Nowhere has instead evolved into a republic.
A simple invitation to the capital city of Lost sparks an epic quest as forces from Somewhere threaten war.
Venture through twisted landscapes with only your faithful dog, and a dry sense of humour, for company.
A puzzle parser in the classic style.
Fantasy puzzle parser • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content
You have a new pet but it happens to be a talking mongoose. You have a new friend but she seems to have come from another place and time. And you have fun housemates but some of them have dropped off the face of the earth. Things have been kind of weird around here lately.
Content warning: profanity & some violence
Weird Mystery • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx
An interactive drama in the traditions of Soviet fiction about choosing a profession.
Mother and her teenage son live on the edge of the world amid hot springs, steam, mountains, five-story houses and rusty freight robots. Their present is routine. Their future is under the strict control of Progress-program. Which also means routine.
Making their choice they seem to be on the horns of a dilemma. But it may also be a rare chance to escape the dull grey surrounding them.
If they could only find a way to use it.
Сoming-of-age, science fiction, everyday life • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
The life of the world's first Dungeon Detective isn't exactly glamorous. You've spent many nights hungry, sleeping in the woods. But word is getting out, and the newest case has showed up at the foot of your bed in the first room you've rented in months. Like your other employers, he can scarcely believe you're a gnoll - something people say looks like a malicious hyena standing on two legs.
Pack clues into your bag while exploring a living city in day or night. Pick your suspect, then close the case. Oh, and try not to part with your soul in the process?
Fantasy-Mystery • Two hours • Choice-based • Web-based
There is an old adage: When you hear hoofbeats, think horses.
However sometimes that particular piece of advice does not always hold true.
Content warning: Parental guidence recommended for younger children.
Fantasy • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
There's a werewolf loose on the spaceship HMCS Plagoo!
Science Fiction • One hour • Parser-based • Hugo
You just got home and you're hungry as a dog. What smells so appetizing? Where can you find a snack?
Exploration • 15 minutes or less • Parser-based • Z-code • Download includes additional content
A coffee. A friend. Something to talk about.
Experimental • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based
Peter Eastman
It seems as if nothing in this cynical world can be entirely good. Everything must have a dark side, a secret flaw, an ulterior motive. But Faerethia is the exception. This is the story of how it came to be.
One part utopian vision, one part exploration of what it means to be human, generously seasoned with humor, physics, philosophy, and an original musical score.
(Score composed and performed by the author.)
One hour • Choice-based • Web-based
A strange boy in backwater Finland wants to establish his own amusement park, or so it seems.
This game features a character-driven story, flexible gameplay mechanics, multiple endings and a lack of common sense.
Contains crass humor. And worse.
Comedy • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx
You have one job: Correct the errors in the System code. It's menial work, but it pays the bills. Only, maybe you'd rather not... What are you? Just a CodeMonkey? Perhaps you could join the Resistance, or at least get an early vacation with a special friend... Warning: No parsers, no links. In this story, you'll be monkeying with the code!
Grim Humor Science Fiction • 15 minutes or less • Web-based
Your plan for a peaceful day out comes to a halt when you see a person selling cats on the pavement. The cats look sick and require immediate veterinarian help! It’s all legal, but it’s also wrong. You must find a way to save the cats.
The game offers three characters to choose from and a total set of 10 endings.
Content warning: Implied animal abuse (nothing explicit); environmental damage
15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based
This dream took an odd turn, somewhere. Why can't you wake up? And so much seems awry here: lost dreams are abandoned in the park, the local poetry trade is drying up, and nobody seems able to get into Night Town anymore.
Have all its fabled Eccentrics abandoned the city? And does that mean there's no one left to help you escape this dream?
Surrealist exploration • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content
You are Girth Loinhammer, Dungeon Lord! It's a pretty sweet gig, with a gigantic trap-filled underground dungeon and a vast collection of torture devices with which to torment those who venture within your domain.
Or rather, it would be a pretty sweet gig if the people venturing within your domain weren't as keen on all that as you are: you have seen things that cannot be unseen.
...or can they?
Content warning: comedic violence and implied sexual themes.
Comedy • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based
A strange story in a strange place.
A tense conversation about love and guilt.
Explore the weird, until the sunken things come for you.
A choice-based and narration-focused interactive story.
Content warning: Relationship conflict. Climate change. Orphanhood. Swearing (rare).
Fantastic / Horror • One hour • Choice-based • Web-based
You are the only human left alive.
Gods and monsters, blessings and curses, an island ruled by giant insects — and in their midst: you. Grief-stricken and bound by oath to obey the Queen’s newest divine decree, you will seek advice, encounter strange visitors, draw the attention of powers beyond comprehension, and surely make mistakes.
Before long, you will learn what it is to be holy — and perhaps what it is to be human.
Drama • Weird Fiction • Fantasy • An hour and a half • Choice-based • Web-based
Paul Michael Winters
Trapped in an old, abandoned house, you must solve the mystery that has cursed the house for a hundred years... and escape with your life!
Mystery • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content
Welcome to The Poetic Platform! Here, you can share, give feedback and view original poetry from and with other users. Rest assured that here at The Poetic Platform, we take your intellectual property seriously and that it is our highest priority to protect all original works from plagiarism as well as malicious commentary that could potentially damage a user's credibility. We hope you enjoy your time here at The Poetic Platform!
Content warning: Contains flashing images (Yandere Ending), light mentions of drug use
Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
A storm blows you course, leaving you stranded on an unfamiliar island. You need to repair your boat, so you can sail home, but you soon find that more lives than just yours are in your hands.
Explore the island. Talk to its inhabitants. Uncover the mystery of the storm that brought you here. Escaping alive is not as straightforward as it may initially seem.
Island in the Storm is the first full length game created with the IntFicPy engine. You can read about the engine at http://jsmaika.com/ifp_engine.php if you are interested, but the executable files included in the competition package (Windows & Mac) do not require any interpreter.
Fantasy • Two hours • Parser-based • Windows executable
Be Jon Doe, secret agent at MI5, and solve the mystery about the death of scientist Monsieur Edulard and his latest world-changing invention. A story with thrilling women, sinister villains and cutting-edge tech gimmicks. Be a hero, save the world, get the girl!
Content warning: PG
Mystery • Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx
Are you a creative problem solver looking for career in an exciting and fast growing field? Do you seek out intellectual challenges that others are scared to face?
Crystal Clear Communications, the world's leading corporate communications consultancy and makers of the Language Arts technology, is seeking talented Language Engineers to be a part of their growing workforce of problem solvers.
The successful applicant is organized and self-motivated, a team player with a passion for applying technology, creativity, and logic to the variety of communications challenges faced across the corporate world.
Previous experience desired, but not necessary. Crystal Clear Communications is an equal opportunity employer.
Puzzle, Zach-like • Longer than two hours • Parser-based • Web-based
The Legendary Hero of Time has failed.
The dancing Imp has won. The Moon will finish its descent from the sky and crash into the earth. When it reaches the ground there will be nothing left.
You sit by a roaring firepit on a grassy overlook just a few miles from the citadel that will become the point of impact, alongside 4 of your best friends - Eden, Byth, Wyatt and Mel - enjoying the last of your lives.
Can you help your friends come to terms with the end?
Content warning: Swearing
Grieving Fantasy • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based
You're dead, but you're not on Charon's list.
Impersonate mythological Greek figures (and Zeno!) and suffer eternal punishment in Hades in their place, for better or worse. Okay, it's definitely for worse.
Mythology • Half an hour • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content
Rule 1 is that no one gets iced.
Rule 2: the loot's evenly sliced.
There's only two rules.
Now listen up, fools!
We're pulling a...
.
Contains: vulgarity, lies, misanthropes, some drinking, unreasonable hopes, extravagant crimes, 100+ rhymes, and oodles and oodles of tropes.
Heist • One hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Dimitri Kaviani
Stricken with grief over the sudden kidnapping of her younger brother, one young woman must face her greatest fear and leave everything she knows, including her world, behind as she ventures into the depths of darkness on a mission to rescue her brother and redeem herself.
Dark Fantasy/Adventure • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based
Your job is to talk to people. Interview three patrons of the 'Mental Entertainment' virtual reality entertainment center in Dayton, Ohio, and determine if they have a problem. Conversation-driven parser IF.
Content warning: Profanity, allusions to violence.
One hour • Parser-based • Glulx
Peter Eastman
Your job is simple: do whatever you are told, without question or hesitation. If you don't, people will die. Probably including you.
Content warning: Includes violence, both physical and emotional. This story challenges you to confront difficult facts about yourself.
Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Years ago, orphan Henry Smyth was saved off the streets when he was adopted by Katherine Kellner - only to run away a few years later. Now, he’s finally made a decent life for himself. His world is turned upside down when he finds out that Kellner has been arrested on the charges of being a pedophile. This knowledge brings impulsive decisions and repressed memories along with it.
Play as Henry as he struggles to make sense of his past and come to terms with it. Your decisions throughout the story affect Henry’s confidence and morality – choose wisely.
Content warning: This game is intended for mature audiences only. Contains: strong language, violence, mention of child abuse and suicide.
Drama • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
My mother made a deal.
So here I am, working the night shift, alone with her work.
Content warning: Content Warnings in About Page
Horror • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
You are waiting for the end of day.
Symbolic • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx
When you heard that Uncle Jim has left you his convenience store in his will, you were initially delighted. After all, you've always wanted to stand on your own, make your own money and get forward in life, and the store would provide a convenient platform for all that. Little did you know that the store holds a secret that will change your plans.
Half an hour • Parser-based • Z-code
Stop me if you've heard this one before: You wake up alone in a room with no memories of how you got there and no way out. Oh, you have heard that one? Well, okay. Well, I guess you'll just have to trust me on this one. After all, what's the worse that could happen?
Experimental, Sci Fi • Choice-based • Web-based
Striding into the spotlight, you smile as you look out over the crowd. It's a good turnout tonight. Now it is up to the Bournebrook Rill Community Orchestra and you, maestro Nevada Elmsbee, to deliver a spectacular performance.
Keep an eye on your score—or don't!—in this multi-layered parser/choice hybrid. Casually explore the interactive scene, or tackle the full puzzle lurking underneath to reach the best ending. Available for the web (recommended) and as a traditional Z-machine story file.
An hour and a half • Parser-based • Z-code • Download includes additional content
Who doesn't love pirates? Who, that is, apart from the British, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch, innkeepers, crocodiles, flying children, other pirates, merchant seamen with valuable cargoes of gold and rum, and SCURVY LANDLUBBERS?
A puzzly adventure with the feel of a classic parser game carried in a point-and-click interface.
Content warning: Mild violence
Adventure, Puzzle • One hour • Web-based
Welcome to planet C and its small but growing colony of survivors from Earth. YOU are in charge of power generation, food production and limiting pollution. Land the ships carrying the colonists and technological upgrades. Grow the colony to two thousand people and complete the first phase of colonisation. But watch out – too much pollution and the weather throws a fit! YOU are in charge – good luck!
Content warning: suitable for all
Speculative fiction • One hour • Choice-based •
A ragdoll awakes in an empty house. You're not sure how long you've been asleep. You're not sure where you are. And, worst of all, you're not sure what happened to the girl who once treasured you as her favorite toy.
But you're going to find out.
Dark fantasy • One hour • Parser-based • Quest
It is late night in the middle of this silent street. What did you come to find? You slowly stand up trying to remember where you are, and how you ended up here. Half asleep, you start walking. Maybe you'll find something of use in here. Maybe you'll find a reason to be here.
Quick note on the mechanics: rooms, map, things, text and encounters are randomized every time you compile the game!
Content warning: violence, horror, despair.
Survival horror • One hour • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content
dgtziea
Lina is a first year student studying magic. Lina isn't doing very well at her classes. Lina is apprenticing for the Witch of Howling Woods because no one else would take her.
Tonight, Lina has messed up (she contends some blame should go to her master for giving unclear instructions). Now Lina needs to figure out what all the magical items (A wavering wand? An everfire? A *gasp* cauldron?) in her master's house do and use them all to fix her mistake, before she gets found out!
(Remedial Witchcraft is a light, puzzle-oriented parser game.)
Light, fantasy, puzzly • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx
Ambrosio
Luis couldn't stop reliving that day, the very same day he decided to dig into Felisa's silences, into Juana's sadness, into Marta's lies, into Mr. Eustaquio's cowardice... into his own troubled life.
What could be worse than forgetting your own memories? Remember them again.
Detective • Longer than two hours • Windows executable
When suspects and witnesses are “property, not people,” how should those who seek the truth proceed? Date robots. Avert scandal. Bring protection.
Content warning: Adult Situations, Language, and Humor, Sexual Content, Mild Violence, Alcohol and Recreational Drug Use. Includes optional "less-explicit" mode.
Dystopian Erotic Murder Mystery Dating Sim • Longer than two hours • Choice-based • Web-based
Hey you! Yeah, you! You think you have what it takes to be a detective? I mean a real, steel-oats-eating kind of detective that names your fists and barely cries at the end of Marley and Me? If so, prepare for the adventure of your lifetime! Armed with only your fists, who you've named Truth and Justice, navigate the rough-and-tumble streets of Saint City, where the denizens are as ruthless as they are sweaty and the similes are tight as a pair of new chinos, assuming a slim cut and maybe a slice of cake or two. Or paired with a tight belt. Hell even suspenders work, the point is they're tight. Will you be the new greatest detective strong guy, or will this city gobble you up like yesterday's potatoes? You decide in Saint City Sinners!
*This game is a comedy very much inspired by Clickhole click-ventures. If you like that style of pseudo-surrealist humor (or similarly that of the Onion), this will be a good fit for you! For best results, play in Firefox or Chrome (though some people have reported the music not working on Chrome)
Comedy • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Healy
It's a beautiful new morning. Time to work some evil into the world.
(Made in RPG Maker 2000; Windows only.)
Content warning: abuse, cussing
Fantasy Comedy • Half an hour • Windows executable
Skybreak! is a science-fantasy role-playing game of galactic proportions: explore distant stars, plunder alien ruins, hunt space pirates, collect beetles, slay gods, make out with sorcerers, and punch cosmic evil in its flabby, betentacled face!
The only thing you can't do is steer...
(Notes for online play: The ADRIFT webrunner is not designed for spacetime dimensions higher than the conventional 17. Minimize the map, which will be no help at all. For improved functionality, cooler fonts, an official soundtrack, printable character sheets, and a galaxy map, download the game).
Content warning: Horror and romantic elements, science-fiction and fantasy violence, mild foul language, alcohol.
Science Fantasy • Longer than two hours • Choice-based • Web-based
Giant slugs have mysteriously taken over your town and they just keep on growing and multiplying. Can you escape from the slugs, find out where they came from, or maybe even find a way to destroy them? This game is replayable and has three different endings.
One hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Mike Spivey
With a loud "click," the door closes behind you. Finally!
You are locked inside an antebellum Southern mansion, alone, wearing only a chicken costume.
You’ve fantasized about this moment for years.
______________________
Two hours • Parser-based • Glulx
But even the most potent of prayers are prone to overuse, and my life, I'm sure, would sooner or later have been extinguished by my own hand. That the timing of their arrival precluded this fate came strictly as a relief. Wretched is he who must decide between painless extinction and tormented, protracted existence, and I was glad the choice was not mine.
Content warning: brief gore and suicide references
One hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Candy Meldromon
An auto-biographical story
Slice of life • 15 minutes or less • Choice-based • Web-based
Anima is a unsure man, terrified by the idea of dying. But one day discovers that he cannot die. Instead, he wakes up from the beginning of the day, as if nothing had happened. ¿Will be Anima able to overcome his fear?
Content warning: Contains themes about violence, suicide, depression and death.
"Magic Realism", "Drama" • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Kenneth Pedersen and Niels Søndergaard
You have just received information about a legendary artifact in the Amazon. Will you be able to find it and return alive?
Old-school challenges are optional and can be enabled for a more challenging experience.
With permission, this game is a translation and an improvement of a Danish game from 1985 by Niels Søndergaard. Art work by Steffen Vedsted, also with permission. Music by Eric Matyas ( www.soundimage.org) in accordance with attribution-info.
Playable on Windows and Android.
Adventure • One hour • Parser-based • ADRIFT
Donald Conrad and Peter M.J. Gross
You only need one low-budget truck (and one high-interest loan) to start your own delivery service. It’ll be an adventure, hauling military-grade narcotics to the megachurches of Bean Station and driving flammable poultry to the casinos of Inverness. Will your choices get vital shipments to the places that need them?
Honestly, the stakes are pretty low. It’s not like your decisions are going to shape the fate of a nation… right?
Content warning: Murder, poorly described gore
Contemporary Adventure • One hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Deep under the sea lies the wreck of the sunken galleon Santa Tortosa. On your quest to find its treasure you will discover uncharted places, learn new skills, and make scaly friends. But will the honorable Adventurers’ Society appreciate your report when you return?
Text adventure, mildly steampunk • An hour and a half • Parser-based • Glulx
After spending months alone in your Cabin after the sudden loss of your brother, you find yourself on an unusual journey through the home you once thought you knew in a desperate search to retrieve what you have lost. As you explore the old forest helping its inhabitants and hunting for your possessions, you may find something you never realized you lost...
Fantasy/Exploration • An hour and a half • Parser-based •
Scoring well on the Undergraduate Readiness Assessment is the key to college acceptance. This interactive digital guide contains practice questions and instructional materials for each section of the Assessment, and it's the only online resource officially recognized by the creators of the test.
JavaScript® support is required for some optional features of this product.
Choice-based • Web-based
Ann Hoffmann
When you, a ten year old called Sam, fell into the ocean you expected to drown. Instead you find yourself on an island that's nothing like where you came from. The forests are vibrant, there's white sand beaches, and, well, there's magic.
You aren't the first child to be washed ashore on the island. Will you be the last?
Fantasy • Half an hour • Choice-based • Web-based
Spend a Christmas holiday alone in the world's most famous wizarding school...
What was supposed to be a couple of weeks of peace and quiet while the other students were home with their families gets disrupted, first by a lost wand, and then a lost housemate. It's up to you to unravel the mystery, learn some new magic, and save your housemate and yourself!
Fantasy • Longer than two hours • Parser-based • Glulx • Download includes additional content
Hotsy-totsy! It's 1928 and you're madcap flapper Hazel Greene, tottering around the city's finest hotel with a gullet full of giggle juice...until a gaggle of ghosts shows up to spoil the fun by turning every drop in the place into lousy, undrinkable WATER. Explore the beautiful Poseidon Grand Hotel, meet Barnaby Mooch the Magnificent Pooch, and get splifficated on a snootful of ectoplasm in this paranormal puzzle comedy.
Parser-based • Glulx