#Inform6

[dennisjerz]

I just dusted off a #textadventure project I started in Inform6 around 1999.

I just dusted off a #textadventure project I started in Inform6 around 1999.

I just dusted off a #textadventure project I started in Inform6 around 1999. By around 2007 I had rebuilt about 90% of it in #inform7 and expanded it in fits and starts. But I haven’t touched it in 11 years. It took me about 90 minutes to update all the deprecated code, but it runs!

[textmachines]

Inform is one of the most popular language for interactive fiction, at least assuming interactive fiction equals parser-based interactive fiction, where the player types in commands. There are also other authoring languages. 

Inform actually comes in two different versions, Inform6 and Inform7.

To get a feel for the difference, have a look at these two examples:

Object foyer "Foyer of the Opera House" with description "You are standing in a spacious hall, splendidly decorated in red and gold, with glittering chandeliers overhead. The entrance from the street is to the north, and there are oorways south and west.", s_to bar, w_to cloakroom, n_to "You've only just arrived, and besides, the weather outside seems to be getting worse.", has light;

Inform 7:

Foyer of the Opera House is a room. "You are standing in a spacious hall, splendidly decorated in red and gold, with glittering chandeliers overhead. The entrance from the street is to the north, and there are doorways south and west." Instead of going north in the Foyer, say "You've only just arrived, and besides, the weather outside seems to be getting worse." The Cloakroom is west of the Foyer. The Bar is south of the Foyer.

(These are, by the way, both parts of the source code of Cloak of Darkness, which has become a standard example of doing something in different IF languages. The full Inform6 source code is here and the Inform7 version is here). Other versions are available at the Cloak of Darkness page.

Both of these languages are in use, and you can develop in both of them in the Inform IDE, which you can download from Inform7.com.

Games that are developed in Inform are compiled to run on one of two virtual machines: z-machine or glulx. There are interpreters for these machines on most computers, and even smart phones and the like; and on top of that, Inform games can be played in a browser using Parchment.

[cerator]

Erfahrungen mit Inform6: Wer anderen eine Grube gräbt...

Will man es dem Spieler in einem in Inform6 geschriebenen Interactive Fiction Stück ermöglichen, auch einfach nur an der aktuellen Stelle zu graben, muss man da ein wenig nachhelfen. Die Deform-Bibliothek sieht die Eingabe des Verbs ‘grab’, das zur Aktion Dig führt nur mit einem Noun im Dativ vor, was bei dem Befehl ‘grab’ die Nachfrage: “Worin willst du graben?” erzeugt.

Hannes aus dem IF-Forum hatte hier einen guten Vorschlag:

Man erweitert die Verb-Definition um die Version ohne Noun und leitet dies auf eine eigene Aktion (in seinem Beispiel DigHere).

Man definiert die zur Aktion gehörige Unterfunktion (DigHereSub) und behandelt die Eingabe so, wie man möchte.

Und hier der Beispiel-Code:

Extend ‘grab’ last * -> DigHere;

[ DigHereSub; “Der Untergrund ist hier zu hart.”; ];