The 2026 Interactive Fiction Competition has officially begun!
For the next seven weeks, players and judges around the world will be diving into this year’s crop of brand-new interactive fiction. We’re delighted to share that 71 entries have been submitted this year. We’re excited to see what this year’s authors have created, and we hope you’ll find plenty to discover and enjoy.
As always, you don’t need to play every entry to be a judge. You only need to play and rate at least five entries to submit a ballot. Whether you’re a seasoned IFComp veteran or joining us for the very first time, welcome!
Judging is open now and runs through October 19.
A Note About Content Warnings
Authors may provide content warnings for their entries, and those warnings are shown by default. If you would prefer not to see them, whether to avoid spoilers or for any other reason, you can turn them off using the setting at the top of the ballot.
The Colossal Fund
Our annual Colossal Fund helps provide cash prizes to the authors of the top two-thirds of IFComp entries, while also supporting the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation and its work.
This year, we’re using Zeffy to process donations. Zeffy does not charge IFTF any processing fees, which means more of your donation can go toward authors and IFTF’s work. Zeffy will ask whether you’d like to make an additional, optional contribution to support their service. You can change that amount to whatever you’d like, including $0.
Our goal this year is $8,000, with a stretch goal of $10,000. If you’d like to contribute cash or donate another prize, you can learn more at https://ifcomp.org/about/prizes.
What’s New in 2026
Last year, we said that we planned to revisit IFComp’s rules around generative artificial intelligence after hearing from the community. We did, and IFComp incorporated a new rule for 2026.
All player-facing content in an IFComp entry must now be created by humans, including prose, cover art, and in-game assets. Entries also may not require judges or players to interact with external AI or generative services during play. You can read the complete rule, along with all of our author rules, here. Thank you to everyone who shared feedback with us as we worked through this change.
For Our Judges in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act continues to affect the availability of some IFComp entries to users in the UK.
As we did last year, we have taken a case-by-case approach rather than restricting the entire competition. Authors were asked during registration to identify whether their entries contain content that could be subject to the OSA, and our Curation Team reviewed entries for potential concerns as part of our pre-competition review.
As a result, UK judges may find that some entries are not available to them. As of launch, 15 of this year’s 71 entries are geoblocked in the UK. We continue to dislike restricting access to creative work, but we are required to comply with UK law. Our goal remains to limit those restrictions as much as reasonably possible.
Our Awards Ceremony
We’ll celebrate the conclusion of this year’s competition with our annual virtual awards ceremony, where we’ll announce the results and recognize this year’s authors.
The awards ceremony will be held on Twitch at 4:00 PM Eastern on October 24.
Until then, there’s a lot of IF to play!
Anything we haven’t covered? Still got questions? Email us at ifcomp@ifcomp.org.
Thank you in advance for judging, and welcome to IFComp 2026!
Jacqueline Ashwell
September 2026