Electronic Literature Collection
New Media Writing Prize (open "archive" to see all works)
Itch.io (home page)
Itch.io (Twine Games)
Itch.io (The Bitsy Essay Jam)
National Film Board of Canada Interactive
The New River Journal (open "archive" to see past works)
The interactive fiction competition

Your task is help build our list of works, including hyperlinks, brief summaries, stars, and tags. As our list grows, we can begin to organize the material differently.

Here's an example:

A Vast and Lonely Desert by Gavin G. See
In this Bitsy game, we travel through vast, empty spaces with a friend making our way through the desert toward a campfire and star gazing. The work is about friendship, grief, and poetry with a western vibe. It's sparse and powerfully moving precisely because of its sparseness.
Info:  made in 2020; serious game; authoring tool: Bitsy; on the Electronic Literature Collection, vol 4 and itch.io
tags: spatiality, navigation, orientation, friendship, loss, LGBTQ
[entry posted by k.kelly]
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Six Cats Under by Miles Äijälä, Robin Swift, Tomas Beržinskas, and Alex Martin
    In this Itch game, you play as the poltergeist of an old lady with several cats in her apartment. You must puzzle and problem-solve a way for the door to open using objects and the cats within the apartment. This is a cute and relatively short work.
    Info: made in 2020; released on HTML5, Windows, macOS, Linux, itch.io
    Tags: 2D, Cats, Cute, Ghosts, Narrative, Pixel Art, Short
    [entry posted by k.elo]

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Boat Prom by Brendan Patrick Hennessy
    In this Itch game, you play as Elizabeth who was just dumped by her date at prom and now are stuck watching him and the girl you liked make
    out because your prom is on a boat. Through interactive text you must navigate the rest of your night and interact with your friends, and the
    person who set up your prom date with the girl you like. The game is short and cute.
    Info: made in 2020, released on HTML5, itch.io
    Tags: Coming of Age, Female Protagonist, LGBT, Prom, Romance, Text Based
    [entry posted by k.mil]
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Orunge by Jennifer Reuter and Jessica Moore
    In this Itch game, you follow a young girl tasked with getting oranges from a farmers market and juicing them. Similar to a choose-your-own-adventure story, you have a few options to choose from in the story that relate to the girl’s actions. This is a short and pretty work with colorful pastel artwork.
    Info: made in 2019; released on HTML5, itch.io
    Tags: Child, Cute, girl, Narrative, Singleplayer, Slice Of Life, Storyboard, Twine
    [entry posted by k.elo]
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Who Stole My Bone  by Kryptic Kitty
In this game you talk to a dog named Spudz and look around the house to look for his missing bone. It is a cute and funny game with drwaings that show you different rooms and characters.
Made in 2019; released on HTML5; itch.io
Tags: art, bad-art, cute, dogs, funny, short, text based, twine
[entry posted by r.monge]

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My Dream for the Future by Freckledfemme 
In this Bitsy essay game, we follow a witch in a magical world but the storyline contrastingly tells a personal story of the author in the real world. Freckledfemme opens about the struggles with her queer identity and her new teaching career. This game is unique in that the script was written about the author when she was creating this game, a source of comfort in times of hardship. 
Info: Started in spring 2019 and finished on Fall of 2020; serious game; authoring tool: combination of Bitsy 5.3, Borksy hacks, Asepirte and BitsyMuse; under the collection of the Bitsy Essay Jam (Itch.io) 
Tags: witch, cozy, LGBTQ, coming of age
[entry posted by i.choi]

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Cat Petting Simulator 2014

neongrey by neongrey

    In this Itch game, you get to pet the cat through a text form. First, you name the cat and get to choose which part of the cat you want to pet first. It’s a cute relaxing game perfect for cat lovers especially those who miss their cats.
    Info: made in 2014; released on HTML5, itch.io
    Tags: artgame, Atmospheric, Twine
    [entry posted by k.balamurugan]
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Ignited Entry by JordiBoi

The bitsy game is a first-person horror game about an ex firefighter that is tormented by the memories of a family that he couldn't save. The game starts with the protagonist exploring a dark and abandoned building. The player is guided by cryptic hints to uncover disturbing secrets about the protagonist's past.
Info:  made in 2024; released on Windows; made with Blender, Adobe Photoshop, FL Studio, Adobe After Effects, Audacity, Unreal Engine; itch.io
tags: Atmospheric, Horror, Low-poly, PSX (PlayStation), Psychological Horror, Singleplayer, Story Rich, Unreal Engine, Voice Acting[entry posted by d.mcfarlane]

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Goodbye, doggy by Pircogram
In this Itch.io game the player controls the recently-buried dog of a family and works to make them feel a bit better after the loss. The game deals with the loss of a pet and takes a lighthearted approach to dealing with the grief that can come from such a loss. The graphically simple game delivers its message and can help console those who have lost pets by imagining the perspective of the pet.
Info:  made in 2019 for Global Game Jam; loss; exploration: HTML5; on the itch.io
tags: Dogs, Ghosts, Puzzle
[entry posted by f.delgado]
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my father's long, long legs by ztul
This twine game has players follow an unnamed main character through a psychological horror story about their fathers growing obsession with digging a hole in their basement. Its unsettling gameplay and eerie sound design create a suspenseful atmosphere for players to navigate. The work deals with dark and twisted aspects of how addiction can destroy a person, but also their family. 
Info: Made in 2013, released on HTML5, authoring tool: Twine
Tags: Creepy, Horror, Psychological Horror, Twine
[entry posted by k.mccann]

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The Ice Cream Culprit by Konayachi
In this itch.io game, we play as a character whose girlfriend recently bought Limited Edition ice cream, yet can't find it. As she looks for the ice cream, we come to realize why it disappeared in a series of different endings. The homey design of the game and the playful dialogue engage players to have lighthearted fun playing the game. Although the game captures an insignificant moment in the character's lives, the game brings it to the forefront in a way that makes players treasure similarly small interactions
Info: Made in 2024, released on HTML5, Windows, Linux, and MacO. Visual novel. itchi.io
Tags: 2D, Anime, Cute, First-Person, Meaningful Choices, Multiple Endings
[entry posted by u.barrah]

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I Dreamt of Something Lost by Florence Walker
In this Unity game, you play as Jules, who, while sitting at their desktop computer, unexpectedly receives a new message from their ex-girlfriend—who passed away exactly one year ago. The game is set up as if the player is looking at a desktop console screen, which includes a functional fake desktop interface with instant messaging, a music player, a notepad app, and navigable folders. Overall, "I Dreamt of Something Lost"  is a brief interactive story exploring themes of data, grief, and memory.
Info: Made in 2023; serious game; interactive fiction; HTML5; made with Unity
Tags: 2D, Atmospheric, Casual, LGBT, Short, Singleplayer, Story Rich, Unity
[entry posted by e.spear]

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Cyberliterature by Pedro Barbosa (1977-1993)
This work is a collection of six computer-generated poems originally programmed by Pedro Barbosa in 1976, using Fortran and Basic, and later developed into C++ and Java versions. It represents one of the early examples of generative literature, blending algorithmic text generation with art. Barbosa's project promotes the notion of "semiotic machines." meaning computers that produce multiple, variable, and repetitive readings.
Info: Web-based Game, available in Portuguese and English
Tags: generative poetry, Java, Fortran, combinatorial literature, computer-generated
Link: Cyberliterature (eliterature.org)
[Entry posted by G.Malania]

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C ya laterrrr by Danhett
This game is a twine hypertext game based on the real experience of a guy whose brother was one of the 22 people killed in the Manchester Arena terrorist attack. The game expresses some of the experiences and what-if choices that guy could have made but didn't. There are many choices to make in the game and one of the many possible choices reflects their experience. This game is one of many games that explore work dealing with their personal experience during and in the aftermath of the attack. 
Info: Made in 2017, Twine game, Platform HTML5, Hypertext game, Trigger warning graphic content 
Tags: artgame, dan-hett, hypertext, serious, text-based, twine   
[Entry posted by S. Nava]
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The Walk by Darkus
This is a short horror game where the player navigates a strange and unsettling town. The protagonist is stranded after his car breaks down in a place called Nominal Town. As he walks through the town, he's warned that there's "nothing" at the end of the road by a blind man. The protagonist doesn't listen and continues to walk through the town and meets a lot of creepy characters. There are a few jump scares throughout the game.
Info: made in 2024; released on Windows; made with Unity and Blender; itch.io
Tags: 3D, Creepy, First-Person, Horror, Indie, PSX, [PlayStation], Retro, Singleplayer, Story Rich
[Entry posted by d.mcfarlane]