You’ve reached a crossroads in your life. A fork in the road. A tipping point. What you do today, this hour, this minute, will change you…and the world.

I think we all can remember an epic moment like this, a big decision we made that altered our course and transformed us into someone new. But what most of us fail to realize on a regular basis is that even the seemingly small choices we make add up to something huge over time.

This is why I love interactive fiction. In interactive fiction, we, the readers/players, are main characters, and the choices we make, even ostensibly small ones, tend to have consequences down the road: for our environment, for our societies, for our relationships, for our personal success and happiness. We get to explore how the priorities we set and the means by which we pursue them affect us–and the world.

Does this sound familiar? I hope so. “An unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates said. I appreciate how interactive fiction challenges its writers and readers to think critically and live intentionally as we work to solve the puzzles of our lives.

The Interactive Fiction Competition, an annual event to celebrate and promote interactive fiction, is allowing IF authors from around the world who registered (for free) to submit their entries for the 2019 competition until 11:59 pm Eastern Time tonight. If you’re curious about the world of interactive fiction games, please consider becoming a judge! Anyone, no matter their level of past experience with IF, can create an account to play and rate games during the competition. Judging goes from October 1 to November 15. If you’re interested in judging IFComp entries, please read the rules (https://ifcomp.org/rules#judges), guidelines (https://ifcomp.org/about/judging), and FAQ (https://ifcomp.org/about/faq#judginggames) for judges and make an account on the website here: https://ifcomp.org/user/register. I hope you, like me, will fall in love with these fun and thought-provoking games. And I hope you will consider how whatever you choose to do after you finish reading this blog post will impact the rest of your life.