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Writing, Games, and Inform 7
11 years ago
I may not really have an audience here, but my attention has been drawn to the idea that a few people who have written stories have perused my profile and maybe looked at my games. So why not put up a journal based on that?
My game, The Capture of Diana, is written in Inform 7. This is a natural language programming language. It's main goal is to let writers create text adventures without needing any extensive programming knowledge. If you know of Flexible Survival, that is also written with Inform 7.
Ripped right frrm the pages of the book I used is this limerick that is a perfectly valid piece of Inform 7 code. Although, you wouldn't be able to do anything in it, it's a fine example:
The Hole Below is a dark room.
The description is "Cavernous gloom."
The lamp is in Seoul.
Before going in Hole.
Instead say "You will meet a grue soon."
It's a strange thing, but clever, and it was pretty motivating to me. An easy way to make a simple game. My writing of The Capture of Diana was prompted by this subjectively wonderful book, Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. It's wonderfully written and walks you through creating the authors own text adventure Sand Dancer. I really enjoyed reading and following along with it. I didn't even finish the book before I started working on my game.
If you're a writer that's wanted to make a game, Inform 7 is more than worth a look and I highly recommended Aaron Reed's book there. Outside of Roleplaying experiences, I had no experience writing a story. I took some basic programming classes over ten years ago, but the language is so simple. If I can write a decent game using this, then anyone should consider giving it a try.
The engine is free. A book isn't that much, and the net has plenty of free resources if that isn't the route for you. Who knows? It shouldn't hurt to try.
My game, The Capture of Diana, is written in Inform 7. This is a natural language programming language. It's main goal is to let writers create text adventures without needing any extensive programming knowledge. If you know of Flexible Survival, that is also written with Inform 7.
Ripped right frrm the pages of the book I used is this limerick that is a perfectly valid piece of Inform 7 code. Although, you wouldn't be able to do anything in it, it's a fine example:
The Hole Below is a dark room.
The description is "Cavernous gloom."
The lamp is in Seoul.
Before going in Hole.
Instead say "You will meet a grue soon."
It's a strange thing, but clever, and it was pretty motivating to me. An easy way to make a simple game. My writing of The Capture of Diana was prompted by this subjectively wonderful book, Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. It's wonderfully written and walks you through creating the authors own text adventure Sand Dancer. I really enjoyed reading and following along with it. I didn't even finish the book before I started working on my game.
If you're a writer that's wanted to make a game, Inform 7 is more than worth a look and I highly recommended Aaron Reed's book there. Outside of Roleplaying experiences, I had no experience writing a story. I took some basic programming classes over ten years ago, but the language is so simple. If I can write a decent game using this, then anyone should consider giving it a try.
The engine is free. A book isn't that much, and the net has plenty of free resources if that isn't the route for you. Who knows? It shouldn't hurt to try.
