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So, who has the time and wherewithal to write up a comparison between Ink and Inform7? I anxiously await your blog post :)

zyxley 11y ago
Well, the biggest difference is that Inform is by default built in a way that describes a world, while Ink is built in a way that describes the flow of a narrative. It's like the difference between Inform and Twine.
sago 11y ago
Not very comparable, except that they both produce some form of text interface. Ink is most similar to ChoiceScript [0], which powers Choice of Games's Games. Twine [1] has the same structure but is a visual editor, not a scripting language. Undum [2] produces the same kind of system, but is Javascript rather than its own syntax. Dendry [3] powered Varytale's games, but the open source version seems abandoned. For completeness, though a webapp not a language, StoryNexus [4] is a hosted platform with a database-like interface (fill in a bunch of forms), it powers Failbetter's Games. Inform7 is very impressive as a natural language syntax. But the kinds of 'parser' based games it is best suited for have always been rather niche, because they require a certain familiarity with the form. [0]: https://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescript-intro/ https://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescri... [1]: https://twinery.org/2/#welcome https://twinery.org/2/#welcome [2]: http://undum.com/ http://undum.com/ [3]: http://dendry.org/ http://dendry.org/ [4]: http://storynexus.com/s http://storynexus.com/s
joethephish 11y ago
Hey, Joe here from inkle! Sago's reply is really good, but broadly for those two specific languages: Ink is designed to be one component in a larger game engine - the runtime has a simple core loop of choice -> text generation -> choice. How you implement the UI is up to you (right now we have a C# runtime designed for usage in Unity). By comparison, Inform7 is designed for building standalone parser-based text adventures in the vein of Zork and its more modern successors.

zyxley 11y ago

Well, the biggest difference is that Inform is by default built in a way that describes a world, while Ink is built in a way that describes the flow of a narrative. It's like the difference between Inform and Twine.

sago 11y ago

Not very comparable, except that they both produce some form of text interface. Ink is most similar to ChoiceScript [0], which powers Choice of Games's Games. Twine [1] has the same structure but is a visual editor, not a scripting language. Undum [2] produces the same kind of system, but is Javascript rather than its own syntax. Dendry [3] powered Varytale's games, but the open source version seems abandoned. For completeness, though a webapp not a language, StoryNexus [4] is a hosted platform with a database-like interface (fill in a bunch of forms), it powers Failbetter's Games. Inform7 is very impressive as a natural language syntax. But the kinds of 'parser' based games it is best suited for have always been rather niche, because they require a certain familiarity with the form. [0]: https://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescript-intro/ https://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescri... [1]: https://twinery.org/2/#welcome https://twinery.org/2/#welcome [2]: http://undum.com/ http://undum.com/ [3]: http://dendry.org/ http://dendry.org/ [4]: http://storynexus.com/s http://storynexus.com/s

joethephish 11y ago

Hey, Joe here from inkle! Sago's reply is really good, but broadly for those two specific languages: Ink is designed to be one component in a larger game engine - the runtime has a simple core loop of choice -> text generation -> choice. How you implement the UI is up to you (right now we have a C# runtime designed for usage in Unity). By comparison, Inform7 is designed for building standalone parser-based text adventures in the vein of Zork and its more modern successors.