[personal profile] karios posting in [community profile] yuletide
Are you interested in text adventures, CYOA, Twine games, or other sorts of interactive fiction? Do you want to let your writer know you'd be happy to receive something along those lines? Are you looking for someone to write IF for? This post is for you.
 
 
(I copied and pasted this directly from last year which was also copy pasted from previous years. Let me know via comment or discord ping if any of the links broke or anything else needs editing.)
 
 
What is IF?
 

Interactive Fiction (IF) covers everything from text adventures through to visual novels, by way of all sorts of experimental works. It can be mostly a game, or mostly a story; it can be a way to immerse the reader, or to play around with the concepts of storyteller and audience; it can be an exploration of chance, or of fate; it can be a straightforward story, or something else entirely. From Healy's post:
 
 
[IF] is a term used for games which are made up primarily of text, like Adventure, Zork, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and other text adventures, or more experimental hypertext works like My Father's Long, Long Legs, or even visual novels. Interactive fiction these days is generally divided into two groups based on how you interact with the game: parser-based IF, and choice-based IF.
 
 
Parser-based IF, more commonly known as text adventures, are controlled by typed in commands, like "GET KEY", "OPEN DOOR", "GO NORTH", "LOOK UNDER BED", and stuff like that. Not every command you type in will work, though, so they're hard to get used to if you haven't tried them before. To make things easier, here's a card of most of the common commands. Some good parser-based IF to try first would be Ryan Veeder's So, You've Never Played a Text Adventure Before, Huh?, Admiral Jota's Lost Pig, Andrew Plotkin's The Dreamhold, and Adam Cadre's Photopia.
 
 
Choice-based IF is simpler; you just pick from a number of options. This can be done through hyperlinks and other clicky selections, though more rarely you may have to type a number from a list. Good examples of choice-based IF include Anna Anthropy's Star Court, Alan DeNiro's Solarium, the various games hosted by Choice of Games, and most every given visual novel.
 
 

Writing IF for Yuletide

 
IF is considered opt-in for Yuletide - please don't write it for people who don't want it. If you aren't sure whether it would be welcome or not, ask a mod to check with the intended recipient.
 
You are still required to follow the normal rules, such as focusing on requested characters (unless the recipient has said you needn't include them all).  

It can be hard to figure out what word count an IF story really is - what you've written is full of code that doesn't count, and what your recipient sees may vary in length depending on their choices. If you're posting to the main collection, try to overshoot the minimum requirement a bit, just to be on the safe side. Say a minimum of somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 words. Or probably about 10 to 15 minutes play through.
 
If your post to the main AO3 collection is under 1,000 words (e.g. you're just linking to an online playable version elsewhere), please drop the mods a note so they know it isn't someone posting something under the minimum, and provide them with an estimated word-count.




If you're writing a treat, unless it includes over 1,000 words of text and you're also sure your recipient would be happy with it as a main gift, please post it to Madness

Your recipient does need to be able to access what you've created! Please link to a suitable IF interpreter if required, or if possible make a web-playable version.
 

Requesting IF for Yuletide
 

If you would be happy to receive IF this year, please leave a comment below, following this template:
 

 
 

IF Canons Nominated for Yuletide

 
Plenty of IF canons get nominated for Yuletide! While it's still important to ask before writing IF for someone, someone who consumes IF already will probably be more interested in getting it. (Some of these canons were adapted into other mediums, so it's possible that someone who's interested in one of those isn't at all into the IF side of things. Thus why it's important to ask.) Consider requesting or offering one of these if you're interested in IF for Yuletide. For 2025 moontyger thoughtfully composed a list of IF canons in the tagset, available here: Interactive Fiction in the 2025 Tagset!
 
Some IF Tools

 
A * means they can make web-based games.
 

Parser-based

Inform*: One of the biggest development tools for making parser-based IF. Has an English-like code. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Quest*: Another big IF development tool. Has a click-and-point editor with the option to check out the code. For Windows and web.
TADS*: A long running engine for writing interactive fiction, though generally not as easy to use as Inform. The latest version can make web-based games, although they need to be hosted on a non-https address or on the IFDB.
 

Choice-based

Twine
*: Very popular tool for making choice-based IF. Has a visual editor, with some code-y bits for variables and the like. Can be extended with some Javascript passages. Available for Mac and Windows, and Twine 2 is web-based. See this comment for more notes.
ChoiceScript*: Used by the fine folks over at Choice of Games. Uses simplified Javascript to make games. It's very stat heavy. Requires a text editor. See this comment for notes.
Ren'py: Engine for making visual novels. Uses a simple scripting language. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and can make games for all those platforms.
Inklewriter*: A completely web-based engine for making CYOA-style games.
 

Season's Treatings mini-challenge

Oct. 22nd, 2025 07:09 pm
suzy_queue: Several houses have their lights on during a twilight evening (Winter: Snowy Streets)
[personal profile] suzy_queue posting in [community profile] yuletide
Do you love receiving or writing end of year holiday stories? Are you prompting a snowed in Hanukkah celebration or an Australian New Year's beach party? Season's Treatings may be for you!

This mini-challenge is all about November, December and January holidays, traditions, and cultural celebrations big and small and all over the globe--and perhaps some fantasy worlds, who knows. If you want to prompt it, someone may want to write it.

When you comment, please include:

AO3 Name:
Letter Link (if applicable):
Holiday(s) Requested:
Fandom and character(s):
Prompts:

When you upload, tag it as Season's Treatings so we can all find them.
which_chick: (Default)
[personal profile] which_chick
I've got some orchids. More orchids than you probably think, if you've been keeping track, and more KINDS of orchids than just phalaenopsis. Phals are fine and there's nothing wrong with having them but I am not ever... satisfied. I'm probably one of those Schulyer sisters, a fucking difficult and perpetually angry one, if there is one of those.

Obviously there are now more orchids. You knew this was happening. But there are also ones I've had for more than a full year.

Come and see the orchid pictures! )

Weeks 41 and 42 - bit of a write off

Oct. 21st, 2025 10:49 pm
ruric: (Default)
[personal profile] ruric
Week 41 (6-12 Oct) was ridiculously productive at work which left little time for anything else and then on 10th I got either a bad cold or the current round of Covid, so that was mostly about surviving the days and the crashing out in the evenings. So the last 14 days haven't exactly been productive.

#ORJENISE100 didn't get much done the last couple of weeks but I am plugging away at my master email account.

HOME: spiralled a bit back into chaos when I wasn't well - but have more or less clawed the kitchen, bathroom and hallway/stairs back from the brink!

HEALTH: it was a rough 10 days!

LIFE ADMIN: no progress for the last 2 weeks.

DIGITAL DECLUTTER: got my main email account down to 12500 emails before I got sick. Need to get back to that!

GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: nope.

COOKING/EATING: spent the last week living on tins of soup!

READING/LISTENING: nope.

WATCHING: quite enjoying Murder Before Evensong (an 80s version of Grantchester)!

CREATING/LEARNING: I did drag my unwell self to a pumpkin crochet class on Sunday 12 October and have since made 2 small and one medium pumpkins.

CATS: all good.

VOLUNTEERING: not recently.

SOCIALISING: Yes with [personal profile] ravurian last weekend two showings at the BFI London film festival. Pillion on Saturday night, a funny and quirky coming of age film starring Harry Melling (who I only recently realised is Patrick Troughton's grandson) and Alexander Skarsgard. Excellent performances and it's getting good reviews. The director had the cast and a lot of the crew on stage before the showing and Skars knows how to dress for his audience. *G* The back up Sunday morning for The History of Sound starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'connor- beautifully shot film about love, loss and folk music. Cracking soundtrack too. Then we went for lunch.

WORK: still busy but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

This week is shaping up to be busy but not awful and the weekend should involve time spent on the allotment in the garden.

MultiLingYule 2025

Oct. 21st, 2025 08:48 pm
morbane: a pair of headphones that turns into a flower wreath (headphones)
[personal profile] morbane posting in [community profile] yuletide
The MultiLingYule mini-challenge is for works in languages other than English.

Maybe there are very few fanworks in your first, second, etc language, and you'd love to connect with a fellow speaker who's also a fellow fan.

Maybe you're learning a new language and getting a gift in it would be a delightful way to improve your fluency.

Maybe you just want to talk about how much you love conlangs and invite someone to incorporate conlangs into your gift.

The possibilities are multi-ple!

MultiLingYule is an opt-in challenge similar to Crueltide and Interactive Fiction. Comment here to let people know

-if you are interested in receiving gifts in languages other than English
-what languages those are
-what you're prompting (link your letter; if you don't have a letter, you can link your prompts on the app after requests are revealed)
-any other useful notes.


With a Mod Hat On

On the requesting side: if you would be happy if a gift in a different language were your only gift, please also note this in the optional details of your sign-up form. This prevents mod panic when we go to check assignments and need to figure out if someone can actually read their gift!

On the creation side: unless someone has clearly indicated that a non-English work would suit as their only gift, gifts of that kind need be posted in Yuletide Madness, regardless of length. Works can only go in the main collection if they fulfil all the same requirements as an assigned gift.

Similarly, someone may be delighted to get a gift in a language you've just started to learn, and connect with you over enthusiasm for that language, but if you're posting a gift in the Main rather than the Madness collection, it should probably either be in a language you're fluent in or in a language you can call on fluent help for.

On the (tangential) beta side, people who can check text snippets, lines of dialogue, etc, in multiple languages are extremely valuable and appreciated, and if you can offer this service, please consider doing so when the beta post goes up.

Ponies

Oct. 20th, 2025 01:30 pm
which_chick: (Default)
[personal profile] which_chick
The two little bays (Snap and Switch) are coming along.

Read more? )

AWS outage

Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 am
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.

multifandom icons.

Oct. 19th, 2025 04:29 pm
wickedgame: I am the night (Louis | Interview With The Vampire)
[personal profile] wickedgame posting in [community profile] iconic
Fandoms: Bed Friend, Echo, Euphoria, Fallout, Hawkeye, I Will Turn Back This Time, Jessica Jones, Killing Eve, Legends of Tomorrow, Mako Mermaids, Moon Knight, Motorheads, Mr. Robot, Ransom Canyon, Superman & Lois, Wednesday, Yellowjackets

lot-7x02.png ransomcanyon-1x07.png superman&lois-2x01.png
rest HERE
[community profile] mundodefieras 

Babytide 2025

Oct. 19th, 2025 08:22 am
invisiblestring: (ingrid)
[personal profile] invisiblestring posting in [community profile] yuletide
A mini challenge for people interested in fics regarding characters being pregnant, having babies, and raising children. Can be for a single character or a ship, fluffy or angst, good or bad parents! The sky’s the limit.

To enter, copy/paste and fill out the following form:

AO3 Username:
Letter Link:
Fandoms:
DNWs (if any):
Prompts:

Short-Form Fiction and Poetry 2025

Oct. 18th, 2025 04:40 pm
[personal profile] embraidery posting in [community profile] yuletide
Thank you to donutsweeper for finding many of these! Feel free to ask me to add canons that would fit. 


Ballad of the Mari Lwyd - Vernon Watkins 

Benlian - Oliver Onions 

Casting the Runes - M. R. James

The Changeling - psychomachia 

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came - Robert Browning

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Craobh-Òir agus Craobh-Airgid | Gold Tree and Silver Tree (Fairy Tale)

The Day Before the Revolution - Ursula K. Le Guin 


Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen

Fandom For Robots - Vina Jie-Min Prasad

FAQ: The "Snake Fight" Portion of Your Thesis Defense - Luke Burns

For Sale: Baby Shoes Never Worn - Anonymous 

Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti 

The Green Hills of Earth - Robert Heinlein (Short Story)

Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - Alyssa Wong 

Jorinde und Joringel | Jorinde and Joringel (Fairy Tale)

La Barbe bleue | Bluebeard - Charles Perrault 

Ladies of Grace Adieu - Susanna Clarke (short story collection)

The Library of Babel - Jorge Luis Borges 

Little Red Riding Hood (Fairy Tale)

Lucifer's Wife - Eleanor M. Ingram

mulberry down!! - Nicole Kornher-Stace 

Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad - M. R. James 

Sandkings - George R. R. Martin

Seventy-Two Letters - Ted Chiang

Solitude - Ursula K. Le Guin

Sonata for Harp and Bicycle - Joan Aiken

A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman

There is No Antimemetics Division - qntm

Two Loves - Lord Alfred Douglas (Poem)

The Very Pulse of the Machine - Michael Swanwick 

Wind Will Rove - Sarah Pinsker 

Wulf and Eadwacer (
old English, modern English)

Yudah Cohen Series - Rebecca Fraimow (
one, two, three)

Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne | East of the Sun and West of the Moon (Fairy Tale)

Wrapping Paper 2025

Oct. 18th, 2025 02:45 pm
karanguni: (YULETIDE snowflake -)
[personal profile] karanguni posting in [community profile] yuletide

The Wrapping Paper art challenge for Yuletide is an opportunity for those who love art to opt-in to giving and receiving art treats! Comment here to request art, and/or read the comments to find someone to treat.

Please be sure to post your treats to the Madness Collection; art is not permitted in the main collection. Please respect your recipient's wishes as to whether they'd like art as a treat. Tag your treats with "Wrapping Paper" to help them be found!

If you want to receive art, please provide this info in the comments:

Happy treating!

(If you're here from the future in 2026 and want to post Wrapping Paper yourself because it's taken a while to go up: feel free!)

Today I learned...

Oct. 18th, 2025 12:08 pm
which_chick: (Default)
[personal profile] which_chick
I'm watching a youtube on Belgians in the Congo. This is not the song-time Belgians in the Congo, it's the later 1800's Belgians in the Congo, but whatever. (The song is this one and of course that's gonna be Billy Joel instead of some modern band because I have the olds). Belgians were in the Congo for a long damn time, none of it good. I'm watching it because this morning I was just kind of... Why is Belgian chocolate?

Do not judge me. Sometimes I just wonder why things are. )

Well that borked my plans

Oct. 18th, 2025 10:28 am
ruric: (Default)
[personal profile] ruric
I had a very productive week at work 6th-10th October.

Unfortunately I was incubating something and on the evening of Friday 10th I went to bed very early and woke up sick on Saturday. I made it to a pumpkin crochet class on Sunday and survived the week at work by staying as far away as possible from colleagues and more or less going to bed as soon as I got home and living on tinned soup and pasta.

Still not feeling great but a bit better than last weekend but I have done nothing around sorting the flat out - in fact many things spiralled backwards because I had very few spoons the last 7 days!

I am hoping to reclaim my kitchen and bathroom today.

Apparently Question of the Day is
The definition of an antique is something that is 100 years old – do you own anything that old?

Yes - most of the furniture in the cottage and flat is probably that old, as are some pictures and ornaments, my oil lamp collection and some of my jewellery, plus several books.
moontyger: (Arwen reading)
[personal profile] moontyger posting in [community profile] yuletide
This is a roundup of IF in the tagset, with links and nominated characters. There aren't many, but they're spread over a few categories, so can be hard to find. There are a few things I weren't sure if they counted or not, so this is just the ones I was certain of. Let me know if I've missed something and I'll add it.

16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds

1. Claire (16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds)
2. Lucy (16 Ways to Kill a Vampire at McDonalds)

Changeling Charade on Choice of Games website or Steam

1. Alistair Farrington
2. Rowan Forester
3. Valentine Dupont
4. Worldbuilding (Changeling Charade)

Freshman Magic: Spellbooks and Tangled Sheets Choice of Games website or Steam

1. Alistair (Freshman Magic)
2. Halim (Freshman Magic)
3. Main Character (Freshman Magic)
4. Worldbuilding (Freshman Magic)

Keeper Series - Brynn Chernosky (tumblr link, but it has links to places to play in the sidebar)

1. Astrid Adtaz (Keeper Series)
2. Cressida Monroe (Keeper Series)
3. Female Main Character (Keeper Series)

Lady Thalia series (interactive fiction)

1. Margaret "Mel" Williams (Lady Thalia series)
2. Matthew "Yorkie" Barker (Lady Thalia series)
3. Oscar Knight (Lady Thalia series)
4. Theodora "Thalia" Knight (Lady Thalia series)

Stay? - E. Jade Lomax

1. Esteban
2. Myka
3. Jo
4. Worldbuilding

Vampire: The Masquerade — Parliament of Knives - Jeffrey Dean Choice of Games website or Steam

1. Arundel
2. Qui
3. Robert Ward
elidelio: (hey listen)
[personal profile] elidelio posting in [community profile] yuletide
I started listening to so many great things last year thanks to making this list, so I'm back at it again with a compilation post for podcasts, audio dramas, actual plays, and radio shows in the tagset with links on where to find them on the internet (they can usually be found in your favourite podcatcher with little issue). I've also included links to transcripts when available.

Please comment with anything I've missed!

Read more... )

Unconventionyule

Oct. 16th, 2025 10:46 pm
[personal profile] mimihylea posting in [community profile] yuletide
Unconventionyule is a mini-challenge to help people who like unconventional formats find one another's requests, whether that’s poetry, epistolary, spreadsheets, social media, puzzles, or other unusual mediums. Please remember that works in the main collection must still be at least 1000 words, but shorter works can be submitted to the Madness collection!

To participate, simply copy-paste the following into a comment:
AO3 Name:
Letter Link:
Requested Fandoms:
Format(s): (e.g. epistolary, poetry, spreadsheets, social media)
(Optional) Prompts:

Tag your work with Unconventionyule and/or Unconventional Format to help others find your works!

Chromatic Yuletide 2025

Oct. 16th, 2025 07:27 pm
moontyger: (Zev wishes you to continue)
[personal profile] moontyger posting in [community profile] yuletide
Chromatic Yuletide is a collection post for Yuletide requests that include characters of colour. Posting here doesn't obligate you to do anything, but it helps writers find your requests and treat you.

Posting requirements:

Your request centers around at least one character of colour.

(I acknowledge there are some shortcomings with the "person of colour" descriptor. I'm also not going to police who is or isn't a character of colour; please just use your best judgment.)

To participate, simply copy-paste the following into a comment:

AO3 name:
Letter link:
Fandom:
Characters:
What is it? description of canon or a link to a canon promo (optional)
What kind of thing am I requesting? also optional



If you post a fic for Yuletide with one or more POC characters, tag it with Chromatic Yuletide so people can find it easily!
erinptah: Nimona icon by piplupcommander (nimona)
[personal profile] erinptah posting in [community profile] yuletide

A roundup all the webcomic fandoms in the 2025 tag set (plus all the characters you can request for each one), including links to where you can read them online. Fandoms are in the order/format AO3 puts the tags in.

I tried to flag everything that was (a) NSFW and/or (b) at least partly paywalled. If I missed any examples of that, please let me know!

 

Comics, on the web, (mostly) free to get and easy to read )

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