Inform 7

[Ghost]

It's said that adventures are dead (and they aren't), and it's said that Interactive Fiction ("Text Adventures") are even more dead.
They're not. I just stumbled across this sweet link here:

http://www.inform-fiction.org/I7

Inform 5 was the first "adventure game kit" I ever laid my hands on, back in 199something. By then it was pretty hard to learn if you had no programming experience- you wrote text files, compiled them with Inform and then ran them with an interpreter. All DOS, of course, though they did a Windows interpreter later.
I quit on it because, heck, that time my english wasn't up to much,
and my programming skills and patience were even worse than now (the patience. I have learned some coding.)

But will you look what they did?

I7 in action looks like an open book. They made one smooth little window with a nifty slider doing the job of many.Aand what they did with the programming! It's hard to believe.

In Inform 7 you can actually write a program using nothing more than plain english- natural sentences, not "true code".
You write, for example,

The Graveyard is a room. "The spooky landscape is enshrouded in mist."
East of the Graveyard is The Digger's Hut.
A tombstone is in the Graveyard. "A huge tombstone, covered in moss, casts an ominous shadow on the ground."

And I7 then creates the rooms, the connections between them, and all the objects you just darn mentioned. Compile this, and you can walk from Graveyard to Hut and back (please note that I never wrote "code" for the Hut!), and can even go and examine the tombstone.

It takes some getting used to, I agree, but each time you do something wrong, I7 tells you, in fine detail, what it was and how to do it right. After only a couple of minutes I was walking through a huge graveyard, tipping tombstones and tossing gum at
glow-worms.

You can actually sit down and write a game with as much comfort as you'd write a short story. I mean, that's a programmer's wet dream all right, isn't it?

I think I7 might be for Interactive Fiction what AGS is for graphical adventures- a really cool tool, and I thought I'd just relieve myself by telling you so. If you don't understand my happiness to see an old friend becoming a superman in its own right, who else will?

Ghost out.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

It's been mentioned before, in a relatively unrelated thread. I gave it a shot. And frankly, I was less than thrilled...

For non-programmers it's bound to be frustrating - it soon becomes obvious that the system is not that flexible. It accepts mostly statements of the kind "X is Y", and so forth. I tried writing some stuff that seemed relatively natural, but it's a lot more strict than it sounds - and sometimes the sentences you have to create are nothing remotely like the "narrative english" you are led to believe.

At this point you are thankful to have background experience in coding... but no, because the universal and simple "x=a+b" commands, for instance (which everyone can understand), have been replaced with a new form, much less intuitive, for sake of this new "narrative-based programming".

Also, I've heard say that it does make easy stuff real easy, but more complex stuff has become much harder.

All in all, I still prefer ADRIFT, SUDS and my own gateway-style text engine.

BTW, I don't mean to burst your bubble. It's just methinks. And while we're at it, about AGS for IF... I've always thought that SUDS (http://www.btinternet.com/~sudslore/) was a nice competitor. Arguably, it's interface is more limited than normal IF, but it's extremely flexible, extremely powerful, and by gawd it must be the easiest to program that I've ever seen, bar AGS, and it does offer very nifty choices - LEC-style conversations and a real-time map in which to make your own notes, anyone?

[Ghost]

You're right that there is no "true natural language", I agree, but it still comes pretty close to it. As for the fact that simple x=a+b commands are blurred by the use of narrative language, I think that's, as with most programs, a matter of getting used to. In fact you can, if you know the keywords (there's an index), write clear statements, although I must admit that mathematical equations are close to impossible without setting up a whole table of self-made naming conventions.

The bubble doesn't burst, though.    I didn't want to boast I7 as a rival to AGS, I was just so pleased to see a familiar programm advancing to a new, and in my opinion higher, level. And I think it's a nice way to get a game done the easy way, so that people with little programming skill BUT some patience can get a game done the easy way. That's what made me happy. I mean, I was just as happy when Chris came up with 2.7, because it changed a lot but turned out to make the blue cp even easier to quaff from.
So no offence meant, none taken. I think I'll check on Suds, though. I never got the hang of Agast.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

I think that's, as with most programs, a matter of getting used to. In fact you can, if you know the keywords (there's an index), write clear statements

Ayuh, that's what I meant. Soon enough you stop thinking in terms of narratives - and when you treat "is" like you treat "=", when you treat keywords like you treat variables... well, speaking for myself, I'd be wonderinf why I'd bothered to try it, since it was just another language, with the normal programming syntax and slightly more confusing construction.

[Eggie]

I discivered this software earlier this week and I am TOTALLY in love with it.
It's just so whimsical...

Most programming languages, if they had a voice, would be like nazi drill sergeants. This is like a softly spoken, camp thespian type gently guiding me through the motions while holding my hand and creeping me out a bit.

it's like playing a text adventure about making a text adventure.

Anyway, still 25 days or so before the deadline of the annual If contest...I've gotta go figure out some stuff about variables...

[The Inquisitive Stranger]

You can actually sit down and write a game with as much comfort as you'd write a short story. I mean, that's a programmer's wet dream all right, isn't it?

Nah, more like a designer's wet dream... provided that the designer's background is in writing or something else less logically-oriented than programming.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Most programming languages, if they had a voice, would be like nazi drill sergeants. This is like a softly spoken, camp thespian type gently guiding me through the motions while holding my hand and creeping me out a bit.

Let them know, Eggie. They'd kill for a user quote like that.

[Ghost]

Eggie: Yes, that's a nice touch, isn't it? It's such a BRITISH program, you just cannot vex it. I think I'll stick to it, if only to polish up my english a bit. As for making games, I think I'm not good enough in the tongue to write a whole IF game now. For graphic adventure kits AGS has defenitely spoiled me, and I wouldn't use anything that doesn't have a blue cup on it 

[DoorKnobHandle]

You can actually sit down and write a game with as much comfort as you'd write a short story. I mean, that's a programmer's wet dream all right, isn't it?

Nah, more like a designer's wet dream... provided that the designer's background is in writing or something else less logically-oriented than programming.

Continuing this thought, that feature would actually be the nightmare for every programmer...