IFComp features two kinds of prizes, both of which are donated by the IF community, and then shared among the authors of top-ranked entries after the competition ends.

• The Colossal Fund is an annual fund drive, run by our parent organization, to establish a cash prize pool for the top two-thirds of entries. Donations to the Colossal Fund also help pay for IFComp operational costs.
• The traditional prize pool contains all sorts of goodies pledged every year by members of the IF community.

The Colossal Fund

Support IFComp and its authors through a charitable gift to The Colossal Fund, providing a cash prize pool for top IFComp entries! Learn more about it, and see who has contributed this year.

The fund drive ended with a total $10,166 raised! Thanks, everyone!

The prize pool

The following competition prizes have been generously donated by members of the interactive fiction community. See below to learn how the prize pool works, or how you can add to it.

Expert services

• A handbound book, either blank or printed by the donor
  Up to A5 size, with basic typesetting/formatting for things like stories, essays, or game transcripts.
  Donated by iaraya

• Code review the source of an Inform 7 game or extension of your choice
  Zed Lopez will code review the source of an Inform 7 game or extension of your choice (previously released or not), up to 75,000 words (not counting any included published extensions), provided it's in English and can be compiled by Inform 7 9.3/6M62 or a subsequent version. Advance requests for particular topics you would like feedback on is encouraged, but not necessary.
  Donated by Zed Lopez

• Original music composition
  Up to ten minutes of originally composed instrumental music (various genres) or sound landscapes for a creative project.
  Donated by Jacqueline Ashwell

Games

• Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
  Distributed through GOG.
  Donated by Allyson Gray

• Sub-Verge
  Distributed through Steam. Three copies of the prize are available.
  Donated by Interactive Tragedy, Limited

• The Walking Dead: Season One
  Distributed through GOG.
  Donated by Allyson Gray

• There's Always a Madman: Do Your Worst
  Distributed through Steam. Three copies of the prize are available.
  Donated by Sunny Demeanor Games

• Unwording
  Distributed through GOG.
  Donated by Allyson Gray

Books and magazines

• 2120 by George Wylesol
  An illustrated gamebook.
  Donated by Sarah Willson

• 50 Years of Text Games: Ultimate Collector's Edition by Aaron A. Reed
  An unopened complete Collector's Edition with bonus box of feelies.
  Donated by Pinkunz and Aaron Reed

Money and gift certificates

Unless otherwise specified, cash prizes are expressed in U.S. dollars and delivered by PayPal.

• 0.07 ETH
  Donated by Diogenes

Other stuff

• A piece of IFComp or IFTF swag (shirt, magnet, coffee mug)
  Three copies of this prize are available.
  Donated by IFComp

• A small piece of physical fan mail for your game
  Can be sent internationally (from Canada).
  Donated by Allyson Gray

• Barcelona book/concealed stash box
  Shipped only within the US. This box appears to be a large travelogue coffee-table photo book about Barcelona that will look attractive anywhere in your dwelling or in your bookcase, however the inside conceals a small velvet-lined compartment to stash small items, letters, photos, or other documents. Perfect to hold spare keys, game dice, or extra cash in a non-obvious location; a fun place to hide a scavenger-hunt or escape room clue; or a unique surprise presentation for a gift such as jewelry.
  Donated by Hanon Ondricek

Donating to the prize pool

To donate prizes to this year’s prize pool, please contact the IFComp prize coordinator with a description of what you’d like to put forward.

We’ll accept pretty much any suggestion; from simple tokens to useful things and objects of value, no prize is too humble or too grand. Feel free to browse past years’ prize lists for inspiration. You are free to donate as many prizes per year as you’d like; in all cases, these prizes stay with you until the competition ends.

One thing we can’t accept, much as we’d like to: gifts of Steam games. Due to Steam’s restrictions on purchasing games for other users, we can’t offer them as part of our prize pool. Exception: Creators or publishers of Steam games may donate redeemable codes (a.k.a. “Steam keys”) for their games as prizes.

Please note in your email whether your donation should go into the general prize pool, or whether it’s a special prize with extra conditions attached. (Most prizes go into the pool.) Note also whether you’d need to put any restrictions on who can receive it or where you can ship it. (This usually isn’t the case.)

Donating to the Colossal Fund

To donate to the Colossal Fund, press that lovely blue PayPal button found above the fund's progress bar, up near the top of this page.

Donations to the Colossal Fund go to the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, and are fully tax-deductible where allowed by law.

Since 1998, the Interactive Fiction Competition has every year distributed a variety of prizes to the authors of games that score well in the annual rankings. These prizes come from the IF community, and vary in shape from cash to books to food to professional services.

You can browse a list of the last few years’ prizes and donors here.

Donors hang onto their prizes until the competition ends, at which point they ship them to the authors who claim them. Most prizes each year gather into a pool, which ends up distributed among authors as described below – but donors have the option of creating special prizes with extra conditions attached.

The prize pool

Starting with the author of the first-place game, authors take turns choosing prizes from the pool. After the first-place winner picks a prize, then the second-place winner gets a chance to choose from the remaining list, followed by the third-place winner, and so on.

This continues until all prizes have been claimed. As authors claim prizes, donors receive notification to contact their prizes’ claimants and arrange shipment.

Most years, enough prizes float in the pool to allow more than half of all the comp’s participants to receive at least one prize.

Special prizes

Donors can declare that a prize should not go into the pool, but will instead automatically go to the author of a game that, once the competition is over, meets certain conditions. Examples of this in the past have included physical trophies for the top three games, cash awards for the three highest-ranking games that open-source their code, and a handmade “golden banana of discord” toy for the single game with the hightest standard deviation among its received scores.

Special prizes, when present, are the gravy on top of the normal prize pool. Authors whose work land them one or more special prizes will still get their pick from the pool according to the usual rules.

The Colossal Fund

IFComp launched the Colossal Fund in 2017: a parallel, cash-only side-pool built up from charitable public donations. It's essentially a permanent "special prize" run by the competition itself.

This blog post explains the history and motivation behind the Colossal Fund, and details how it works.