Heather Rose Walters | Iffly Creator

Heather Rose Walters | Iffly Creator

Where did the idea for Iffly come from and what has the development process been like? 

For almost two years I worked as the Head Writer for the video game studio Soma Games in Newberg, Oregon, leading a team of both staff writers and freelance contributors. Before I started, Soma had no formal writing department, so I came on and built up their writing protocols and systems. After a lot of research on game writing software currently available, I ultimately got the Soma team started with Articy:Draft — the norm for indie studios creating the types of games Soma was making (3D adventure games). In the process of researching, it became painfully clear that there really isn’t an accessible option out in the world for amateur game writers — or even professional writers who want to get into game writing. Honestly, it surprised me; I knew a lot of writers would probably love to get into game writing, but didn't know how. 

My next big project at Soma was to build their interactive fiction department. With the rights to the best-selling Redwall book series, I oversaw the production of five different complete interactive fiction games. This process made it abundantly clear that even though Articy:Draft is a powerful engine, it isn’t ideal for writing text-heavy interactive fiction. Writers just can't get into a flow. Our team ended up writing the stories in Google Docs, and then painstakingly transferring them to Articy:Draft so the programming and art teams could work on them from there. It was a laborious process, and I just kept wishing that there was a better tool on the market for the work we were doing. 

I was laid off from Soma, which was incredibly disappointing -- but gave me a chance to actually work through this seed of an idea that was simmering. At that point, I started to design it. I'm not a programmer, of course, so I used “Canva” to design exactly how I wanted the UI/UX to look and feel, with all the details for how the tool would work. How could we have a word processing tool that made branching, interactive narrative easy and intuitive to write? No coding, no programming, no design -- the hope is that writers can really get into a flow as they write, which I had not found in any other tool. No clicking and dragging, no node design, just typing, and a few keyboard commands. The design actually came pretty quickly, as I knew what I wanted as a writer -- what I'd been aching for when we were writing all our app stories! 

From there, I knew I needed to hire developers to build it, so I wrote a business plan and did a round of fundraising from friends and family. With their help and my own savings, we raised enough to hire a firm to build the product. That was several years ago; it took much longer to build than expected because nothing like it has ever been built -- the developers were discovering new things all along the way. In 2022 we finally were ready for some beta testing and brought on a group of incredibly generous and enthusiastic writers who have helped us work through the bugs. I also brought on a technical cofounder, Samantha Wessel, who took over for the developers and helped us finally push the product to a public launch this last October, 2023. Since then she has been invaluable in helping add features and fix bugs; I truly don't know what I would do without her! 



Now, we're constantly working to improve the tool, make it easier to use, and get the word out -- I'm so excited to see what writers do with it for MiniGame March.

LADIES AND GENTLETHEMS, I am so, so, SO excited to announce a brand-new game writing contest: Iffly's MiniGame March! Complete with a CASH PRIZE of $250 to the winning game! Interested? Read on!

The premise is simple: during the month of March, write and publish a complete game on Iffly.co. Our judges will review them, and select a winner! 

Never written a game before? Never fear! For you lovely newbies just now joining us, Iffly is a game-writing platform where you can write and publish a game without ANY code, programming, or design. You don't need to have art. You don't need to know any programming language. ALL you need to be able to do is write -- and you can make a text-based game on Iffly.

Once you publish it, tag it #MiniGameMarch2024, and our panel of judges will review each and every entry. The winner gets $250! And, honorable mentions will have their pick of some exciting prizes (more on that in a moment). 

Entering is FREE, and simple: 

1) Sign up for on Iffly.co and click all the checkboxes. 

  -> I want to be a writer

  -> I am at least 16 years old (sorry kids)

  -> Send me Iffly updates (YES you need to click this so that you can receive emails about the contest and your entry!)

2) WAIT UNTIL MARCH 1ST, and then start a 'New Story' on Iffly. If you start before March, your entry will be disqualified. 

3) Tag it #MiniGameMarch2024 so judges can easily find all entries. 

4) Write a complete game and PUBLISH it before March 31st. 

That's right: you have one month. There's a reason this is "MINI-game March." These will be short games! That's okay! That's the point. Think of it like flash fiction -- but for games. There are plenty of games, especially in the world of text-based games, that are very short -- less than an hour, less than even ten minutes long. It has been said that 'Brevity is the soul of wit' and that applies here -- you've got to exercise your creativity to make that brief game as impactful as possible. 

Then again, you do have a full month. If you want to try and crank out a beast of 50,000 words -- please, be my guest. Either strategy is completely valid!

The Judging Process

Games will be judged in five categories: 

1) Originality -- How are you using your limited run time? Is your premise unique, intriguing, fun, engaging? 

2) Writing quality -- We love your prose. We'll be judging technical prowess (are there many grammar or spelling mistakes?) as well as flow. Does it make sense? Can the reader follow it? 

3) Style -- There's no accounting for it, I know, but we're gonna try. How does the writing hit the reader? Is it lyrical and lush or powerfully staccato? Does your voice stand out as unique and engaging? Does the choices you've made stylistically make sense with the premise of the game? 

4) Gameplay -- These aren't just stories; they're games. This will gauge how the interactivity affects the player's experience; do the choices make sense, do they connect with the premise stylistically, does the player feel like they're affecting the story? Is the gameplay...fun? 

5) Overall OOMPH -- Games are more than the sum of their parts. This category will be where the judges rate their overall experience, whether the game drew them in, how they felt finishing it, and just in general whether they felt it was impactful. 

Our panel of judges will be introduced in an upcoming post, but rest assured they are experienced writers and game devs who have a passion for text-based games and a range of backgrounds. 

The Winners!

After the clock strikes 12:01 on April 1st, entries will be closed and judging will begin. Our goal is to have the winners selected by the end of April, but that will of course depend on how many entries we receive. Each winning game will go through at least two judges. We'll keep you updated! 

First Prize: The writer of the Top Rated Game will receive the grand prize of $250, which comes directly from our incredible sponsor, Epiphany Space! More on them below. Our first prize game will also be listed on the home page of Iffly as a featured game for an entire month! 

Honorary mentions: We have several product prizes donated from some incredible companies; look for a new blog post soon to find out what those are! 

For more details, click here!