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Loreline – Tools for writing interactive fiction
- kgwxd 4mo agoI know exactly how I'm going to version my .lor files!
- ncr100 4mo agoLemmie guess - not git.
- totetsu 4mo agoI get this reference
- jeremyfa 4mo agoI'm glad Epic didn't go with .lor extension
- SpyCoder77 4mo agoComments: 10% The post 90% Epic Games' version control system
- queeshonda 4mo ago[dead]
- bschmidt900 4mo ago[dead]
- antran22 4mo agoYou are confusing it with Lore [0], which is currently also on the HN frontpage [1] [0]: https://lore.org https://lore.org [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571081 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48571081
- SpyCoder77 4mo agoComments: 10% The post 90% Epic Games' version control system
- er4hn 4mo agoI wonder how it compares to https://github.com/inkle/ink https://github.com/inkle/ink of Sorcery! and 80 days fame?
- sltkr 4mo agoThere is a comparison here: https://loreline.app/en/docs/comparison/ https://loreline.app/en/docs/comparison/
- nodezsh 4mo agoI'm wondering why Ren'Py is never mentioned here at all. Judging from that comparison it seems to be much more powerful than these alternatives. But maybe I'm misunderstanding what these tools are actually for.
- SpyCoder77 4mo agoFor one, the website actually looks good in Loreline
- xmprt 4mo agoI like how in the example gif, barista.name is set in the "Your name is Alex, right" block, implying that the barista didn't have a name/didn't know their name until after being prompted.
- voidUpdate 4mo agoI believe before the "name" attribute is set, the name in the dialog is "barista", but once it has a "name", it displays as that instead. Technically, no, the barista didn't have a name until that selection was chosen
- riidom 4mo agoWhat I missed in the docs: Is there some out of the box deploy target? Ink has a web export for example, so if that's all you need you don't need to deal with any middleware aspects and simply write your game, export for web and get the interface for free, basically.
- jeremyfa 4mo agoYou can use the Loreline Writer app to export an HTML page right from the editor. It's pretty basic for now but it will get improved over time!
- gcampos 4mo agoI like how readable the script is! Long time ago I build my own interactive story system, but it was more focused on visuals and portability
- jeremyfa 4mo agoPortability is actually a key element of Loreline, you can get more technical info about how it's addressed there: https://loreline.app/en/docs/technical-overview/ https://loreline.app/en/docs/technical-overview/
- jorisd 4mo agoVery interesting to use Haxe for the core interpreter. I compile my own language into a string of tokens that can be interpreted by a simple stack-based VM (which also enables compiling other languages like a sunset of Yarn Spinner), but in my system I need to create an interpreter myself for every language I want to target. Not difficult (the VM is trivial) but a chore. I need to look into how this works with Haxe, thanks for the link?
- inigyou 4mo agoInform 7 will forever be the best language, not because it's a good language, but because of the way programmers react when you present them a page of Inform 7 code. https://github.com/I7-Examples/Bronze/blob/main/Bronze.inform/Source/story.ni https://github.com/I7-Examples/Bronze/blob/main/Bronze.infor...
- ElFitz 4mo agoI am glad to have checked that one out. I don’t know whether to be amazed or horrified.
- photios 4mo agoI wonder if someone's tried IF tools like Inform 7 as the specification language you give an LLM agent. Looks like a good way to describe UI screens.
- ElFitz 4mo agoWould also work very well for "open prompts" interpreted and mapped to one of the available options by a LLM. As some sort of constraints.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4mo agoWhat do you mean, that's just a text file full of prose- Oh. Oh no. (Seriously, that's either very clever and perfectly reasonable, or... Not. Haven't decided which. Guess someone had to follow COBOL's footsteps.) Edit: Thought about it more, and I've decided that for the intended users that's excellent. In the same way I wish formal proof languages would just use alphanumeric reserved words like a normal programming language, meeting writers closer to home is probably a helpful step that need not have any real downsides assuming you document it well.
- another-dave 4mo agoAlways reminds me of Guy Steele's "Growing a Language" talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw6TaiXzHAE&t=48s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw6TaiXzHAE&t=48s Think it's a great fit for IF alright.
- rsalus 4mo agoso cool! how does this compare to ChoiceScript? https://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescript-intro/ https://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your-own-games/choicescri...
- jeremyfa 4mo agoI'd say it shares a lot of similarities given that both languages look indented and have similar keywords. The main differences are going to be the tooling, the portability, and the syntax itself where Loreline tries to avoid the use of symbols, favoring the semantic structure of the script instead and taking advantage of the indentation.
- shantnutiwari 4mo agoChoice script is a terrible proprietary language-- I dont recommend anyone use it. Ink or Twine are much better tools. While Ink is built by a company the actual tool is free and open source
- rsalus 4mo agoeh, they're a publishing business. choicescript is part of their business model - there's nothing inherently wrong with that.
- Pay08 4mo agoNot really related to the post, but does anyone else get a reflexive negative reaction to a .app TLD?
- SpyCoder77 4mo agoNo.
- fbcpck 4mo agoHaving messed with RPG Maker formats recently, I find this fascinating because it's so much more elegant and nicer looking. Though it seems like it's more suited to fully text based scripts. The format I was messing with was full of markers to e.g. change the facial expression of the speaker's portrait, play sound effects, etc. (mid dialogue!) Makes me think about how script/dialogues are written and formatted internally in other mediums. Umamusume in particular stands out in my mind; it has a lot of movement and actions as the dialogue lines are spoken. Sounds silly but they really do make it feel more dynamic and alive.
- jeremyfa 4mo agoLoreline does have tags to address this. When you plug the language to an actual graphics/game engine, you can use them to change how you display things: barista: <concerned> That's a lot of coffee... <- use "concerned" tag in the engine to display a concerned face
- jeremyfa 4mo agoAnd you can also bind custom functions to the language too, to play sounds, animations etc. Here's an example from the docs: sarah: What's this green diamond? Wait, let me touch it... james: Nooo don't touch it! playExplosion() james: Sarah? Sarah!!
- Agustin19 4mo agoReally cool! Congratulations, and great work. I hadn't heard of this kind of tool before and yours looks really nice.
- layer8 4mo agoThe name made me think of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val%C3%A9rian_and_Laureline https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Val%C3%A9rian_and_Laureline.
- jeremyfa 4mo agoYou're not the first one to mention it, but it's instead Lore (worldbuilding) + Line (dialogue) :)
- nathell 4mo agoCeterum censeo, anyone thinking to create an authoring system for IF should first read the Inform DM4 [0], preferably in its entirety but at the very minimum §24 of Chapter 3. It’s really enlightening to learn about how to model the world in a general yet simple way. [0]: https://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/DM4.pdf https://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/DM4.pdf
- jeremyfa 4mo agoLoreline isn't aimed at parser-based interactive fiction like Inform, it's a choice-based narrative scripting language, closer to Ink or Yarn Spinner. DM4 solves a different kind of problem. Edit: that said, you're right this §24 is interesting regardless!
- Kinrany 4mo agoMan, why'd they have to make it whitespace-sensitive.
- jeremyfa 4mo agoBecause if you don't, the language can't rely on indentation to detect the structure, and you need more symbols and delimiters and... then it becomes Ink or Yarn Spinner :)
- nickosh 4mo agoI registered on Hacker News to say: thank you! Really. Your scripting language for fictions looks great, it's MIT license and already a lot useful tools! Special thanks for Godot plugin! I'm developing small games as hobby from time to time. I built my Visual Novel engine on Godot but I'm stuck exactly how to keep text and variables in convinient way. My system initially based on JSON but it's not human readable - I thought to create special editor but I was doubted and project stuck for long time. Loreline looks exactly how I wish it to be. Script is clean, human readable and also support translation on multiple languages. Great, just great! I hope you will continue working on this and will maintain it for the long time. If this project will be helpful in my case, I could consider to become sponsor on GitHub, if you need support. I'm going to play with Defold when I will have some time. I hope Lua implementation which you already have will work there.
- jeremyfa 4mo agoThanks for the really kind feedback! About Loreline's future, yes, I have plans to keep maintaining it and improving it in the long run! The free Loreline Writer app on Itch.io is "name your own price", so that's currently the easiest way to support the project. I may set up a crowdfunding page later. Lua version should work as well as the others, but if you encounter any issue you can file it on Github.
- SpyCoder77 4mo agoDark mode looks sooo good on this