4 ms·

Fascinating. How does one go about writing one of these in 2021? Do analogs to Unity/Unreal Engine exist for interactive fiction, or are people rolling their ow

by tjpnz 5y ago

Fascinating. How does one go about writing one of these in 2021? Do analogs to Unity/Unreal Engine exist for interactive fiction, or are people rolling their own?

Jupe 5y ago
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tools-to-create-your-own-text-adventure-games/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tools-to-create-your-own-tex... Writing your own is, of course, an option, but don't underestimate the task. A "simple" POC is usually very easy (my son and I did one in an afternoon). But building an engine with block-able exists, recursive containment, item interaction (eg. "turn bolt with wrench" and the custom functions they need), can be a much larger effort.
- ScottAdams 5y ago
  It can end up being a lifetime of work :)
shmerl 5y ago
You can probably start with simple text console program that doesn't need any graphics. Second step can be ASCII style graphics added to it. Then you can do already something like The Hobbit with 2D graphical backgrounds. I don't think you need Unity or the like for any of it. It would probably be akin to writing a shell interpreter for the input at least.
- anthk 5y ago
  >It would probably be akin to writing a shell interpreter for the input at least. Nah, Inform6 and the library gives you all: the parser, interpreter, prompt, verbos and objects. And it's free as in freedom.
jkmatila 5y ago
Inform7 is a natural language based system for programming interactive fiction. http://inform7.com/ http://inform7.com/
mindcrime 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUMM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUMM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TADS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TADS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glulx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glulx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform
spencerflem 5y ago
For the choose-your-own-adventute type of story Inkle's Ink language & editor is really nice
Zanni 5y ago
There are a lot of options. Inform 6/7 is the most popular of the parser-based languages, with v6 being closer to a traditional programming language and v7 being a fascinating, natural-language based programming language that is powerful but can be difficult for those steeped in traditional programming languages to wrap their head around. Twine is the most popular choice-based system, supporting three languages that range from basically Javascript to no-code. Honorable mention to both 1) Ink which is my personal favorite choice-based IF language and integrates well with Unity but doesn't have a great default presentation and 2) ChoiceScript, which is frustratingly limited (by design) but supports an incredible ecosystem of pro, semi-pro and amateur game writers (at ChoiceOfGames.com).
- Kinrany 5y ago
  Ink is amazing: it's modular and is getting close to modern programming languages in terms of tooling. AFAIK all the others are still distributed as monolithic applications. Ink has an IDE that exports to web, but there are also libraries for C# and JS that can be embedded in other programs, a Unity plugin and a VSCode language server. inkJam 2021 happened recently: https://itch.io/jam/inkjam-2021 https://itch.io/jam/inkjam-2021
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
The makers of the recent Netflix "Bandersnatch" interactive black Mirror used Twine to prototype.
bobbytuck 5y ago
There's also zilf/z-machine -- the language/virtual machine used to write the Infocom games. A relatively recent 'awesome' repo for z-machine is here: https://github.com/cschweda/awesome-z-machine https://github.com/cschweda/awesome-z-machine And the current implementation of zilf is here: https://foss.heptapod.net/zilf/zilf/-/wikis/home https://foss.heptapod.net/zilf/zilf/-/wikis/home

by tjpnz 5y ago

Fascinating. How does one go about writing one of these in 2021? Do analogs to Unity/Unreal Engine exist for interactive fiction, or are people rolling their own?

Jupe 5y ago

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tools-to-create-your-own-text-adventure-games/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tools-to-create-your-own-tex... Writing your own is, of course, an option, but don't underestimate the task. A "simple" POC is usually very easy (my son and I did one in an afternoon). But building an engine with block-able exists, recursive containment, item interaction (eg. "turn bolt with wrench" and the custom functions they need), can be a much larger effort.

ScottAdams 5y ago
It can end up being a lifetime of work :)

shmerl 5y ago

You can probably start with simple text console program that doesn't need any graphics. Second step can be ASCII style graphics added to it. Then you can do already something like The Hobbit with 2D graphical backgrounds. I don't think you need Unity or the like for any of it. It would probably be akin to writing a shell interpreter for the input at least.

anthk 5y ago
>It would probably be akin to writing a shell interpreter for the input at least. Nah, Inform6 and the library gives you all: the parser, interpreter, prompt, verbos and objects. And it's free as in freedom.

jkmatila 5y ago

Inform7 is a natural language based system for programming interactive fiction. http://inform7.com/ http://inform7.com/

mindcrime 5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUMM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUMM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TADS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TADS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glulx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glulx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform

spencerflem 5y ago

For the choose-your-own-adventute type of story Inkle's Ink language & editor is really nice

Zanni 5y ago

There are a lot of options. Inform 6/7 is the most popular of the parser-based languages, with v6 being closer to a traditional programming language and v7 being a fascinating, natural-language based programming language that is powerful but can be difficult for those steeped in traditional programming languages to wrap their head around. Twine is the most popular choice-based system, supporting three languages that range from basically Javascript to no-code. Honorable mention to both 1) Ink which is my personal favorite choice-based IF language and integrates well with Unity but doesn't have a great default presentation and 2) ChoiceScript, which is frustratingly limited (by design) but supports an incredible ecosystem of pro, semi-pro and amateur game writers (at ChoiceOfGames.com).

Kinrany 5y ago
Ink is amazing: it's modular and is getting close to modern programming languages in terms of tooling. AFAIK all the others are still distributed as monolithic applications. Ink has an IDE that exports to web, but there are also libraries for C# and JS that can be embedded in other programs, a Unity plugin and a VSCode language server. inkJam 2021 happened recently: https://itch.io/jam/inkjam-2021 https://itch.io/jam/inkjam-2021

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

The makers of the recent Netflix "Bandersnatch" interactive black Mirror used Twine to prototype.

bobbytuck 5y ago

There's also zilf/z-machine -- the language/virtual machine used to write the Infocom games. A relatively recent 'awesome' repo for z-machine is here: https://github.com/cschweda/awesome-z-machine https://github.com/cschweda/awesome-z-machine And the current implementation of zilf is here: https://foss.heptapod.net/zilf/zilf/-/wikis/home https://foss.heptapod.net/zilf/zilf/-/wikis/home