ftp.pasteur.org/FAQ/

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ ftp.pasteur.org/FAQ/ / ftp-pasteur-org-FAQ.zip / FAQ / games / interactive-fiction / authoring / part2 < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 2000-10-19 | 83.9 KB | 1,820 lines

Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!nycmny1-snh1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!newsfeed.mathworks.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!cyclone2.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!cyclone1.usenetserver.com!news-west.usenetserver.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <raif-faq2_971856602@faq.davidglasser.net> From: glasser@iname.com (David Glasser) Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.int-fiction,rec.answers,news.answers Subject: [rec.arts.int-fiction] Interactive Fiction Authorship FAQ (2/3) Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Followup-To: rec.arts.int-fiction Organization: ifMUD: http://ifmud.port4000.com:4001/ Summary: This posting describes the Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.int-fiction, and Interactive Fiction Authorship in general. X-Disclaimer: Approval for postings in *.answers is based on form, not content. Lines: 1799 X-Abuse-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Complaints-To: support@usenetserver.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 04:10:42 EDT Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 08:10:42 GMT Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu rec.arts.int-fiction:71765 rec.games.int-fiction:51797 rec.answers:61905 news.answers:194130 Archive-name: games/interactive-fiction/authoring/part2 Posting-Frequency: monthly URL: http://www.davidglasser.net/raiffaq/ Copyright: (c) 1999 David Glasser [rec.arts.int-fiction] Interactive Fiction Authorship FAQ (2/3) Maintained by David Glasser (glasser@iname.com) This chunk contains part 4 of the raif FAQ. _________________________________________________________________ Part 4: Programming IF _________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ 4.1: How do I become an IF author? Write some interactive fiction. This is done with an authoring system, such as those described below. Most systems comprise of a specialized interactive fiction language with which you write the source code for your game, a compiler which turns your source code into a playable gamefile, and an interpreter which is what is used to play the gamefile produced by the compiler. However, quite a few people write their own system in C or BASIC or another language, either focused solely around a single game or as an expandable language. It is easier to use a pre-made system, and they will offer more portability. It will also stop you from having to remake the wheel. However, if you want to make your own system, nobody's going to stop you (well, they shouldn't, at least). It would probably be a good idea to look at the current systems to get a basic idea of what to do. With the advent of Glk, making your own systems portable is easier. If you are writing in C, take a look at Glk. If you use it for your input and output, it will make your game a lot more portable. It is simple and powerful. However, it can't do everything. See [What is Glk?: 4.5] for details. It is generally agreed upon that much work on a game is done before any source code is written. There are many and varied approaches to this design and planning stage, and it is difficult to recommend any one method (and this is hardly the right place). Several people have written documents on this very subject. These may be found in the IF-Archive, in the directory /if-archive/info/ . Of particular note are Graham Nelson's (graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk) "The Craft of Adventure" and Gerry Kevin Wilson's (whizzard@pobox.com) "Whizzard's Guide to Text Adventure Authorship." The filenames for these are Craft.Of.Adventure.* (where * is one of the various formats that it has been translated into) and authorship-guide.{base, sup1, sup2}. Also, there are many excellent articles on game theory and design in the 'zine "XYZZYnews" [What 'zines exist?: 6.5] . You really ought to betatest your game before releasing it to the general public. Usually, when betatesting a game, the author sends the game out to her betatesters, who work as hard as possible to find bugs, writing flaws, and any other problems with the game and send the author reports. You can find betatesters by posting on the IF newsgroups (but see [What topics are appropriate here?: 2.2] for details on how to post betatester requests), by asking on ifMUD (see [Are there any IF-related chat spaces?: 6.4] ), or by using Lucian Smith and Liza Daly's IF Betatester page. Using their (free, of course) service, the author sends them a game which can be downloaded and tested by any of their registered betatesters (which anybody can sign up to be). More information on this service can be found at <http://www.textfire.com/beta.html>. You can also find betatesters among your friends and other people who have not played IF before; though such a betatester can be useful, it is *very* important that you have at least one or two betatesters from the "IF community" (r*if, ifMUD, TextFire Beta, etc). Only somebody who knows IF well will know where bugs are most likely to crop up. _________________________________________________________________ 4.2: Who's going to appreciate my work; who cares about IF anyway? As it turns out, quite a lot of people. Interactive fiction regularly achieves respectable rankings on the "Internet PC Games Charts" <http://www.worldcharts.com/> and has been as high as #3. Indeed, there were five interactive fiction games in the 1996 Year-end Download Top 40, the highest romping in at #12 (beating Doom), making these games some of the most popular non-commercial computer games in the world. The six winning entries from the 1995 IF competition [What sort of events does the IF community do?: 2.6] were published by Activision on their recent CD-ROM release, "Masterpieces of Infocom" (July 1996), which has sold surprisingly well. Activision also uses the Inform authoring system as a prototyping tool for some of their large graphical games (such as "Zork: Grand Inquisitor"), and used an Inform Zork game (by G. Kevin "Whizzard" Wilson, Marc Blank and Mike Berlyn) as a promotion for Z:GI. Specifically, the readership of the two rec.*.int-fiction newsgroups make up a faithful audience. Popular games such as "Curses" have been played by quite possibly thousands of people worldwide. In this specific case, the game has been downloaded at least 2000 times from two sites (more from other sites, but figures are unavailable), published on at least 4 CDs (probably more without the author's permission) and as a cover disc of two magazines with circulation in the 10000s, and included in commercial packages. Mike and Muffy Berlyn have started a company, Cascade Mountain Publishing, that, among other things, sells IF. It is doing quite well. More information can be found at <http://www.cascadepublishing.com/>. _________________________________________________________________ 4.3: What about copyright; how can I protect my work? I'm not a legal expert, so you might want to look at such websites as the U.S. Copyright Office Home Page <http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/> and the Public Record Office of England and Wales <http://www.pro.gov.uk/>. You should include in your game (perhaps in the response to the HELP command) something saying that you own the copyright on the game, and giving a distribution policy: for example, you may not want to to be distributed for charge, you may not want it distributed at all, or you may not care. On a somewhat related topic, you should ask John Francis (jfrancis@dungeon.engr.sgi.com) to list you in the file /if-archive/info/author-list.txt at the IF-Archive. You can give him your email address and the distributability status of your game or other IF product.) On another somewhat related topic, getting commercially sold games, even if they are no longer available, for free is illegal unless the copyright owner has specifically decided to allow distribution. There is no such thing as "abandonware": just because a game or program is no longer sold does not make it legal for you to distribute it. On the other hand, most people are in favor of getting copyright owners to freely distribute abandoned programs, but that choice is up to the owner. This specifically covers most of the Infocom games, but see [Where can I find Infocom games?: 6.7] for more information on that. _________________________________________________________________ 4.4: What authoring systems are available? Though some people simply write their adventures in C, BASIC, and other general languages, this tends to lead to a lot of remaking of the wheel and problems with parsers. Most IF authors choose to use a specialized IF authoring system. Descriptions of them are below. Tier (i) contains the most popular systems; posts about them are common on raif, and even the least-used one has at least a game or two each year. It contains Hugo, Inform, TADS, and ALAN. These are all good systems, with Inform and TADS the most popular and ported. Tier (ii) contains systems that are either waning in popularity, or have not started waxing yet, though they are being supported by authors. It contains AGT, Quest, and SUDS. Tier (iii) mostly consists of old systems that never really caught on. _________________________________________________________________ Tier (i) The most popular and/or powerful, these are currently used by a large number of people; many posts to rec.arts.int-fiction concern these systems and their use; games produced with these systems are guaranteed a relatively large audience. Hugo /if-archive/programming/hugo/ Version/Release 2.5.02a lib 2.5.02.1, with a 3.0 beta. Author Kent Tessman (general@generalcoffee.com). Platforms Acorn RISC OS, Amiga, BeOS, MS-DOS, Unix (i.e., Linux, SunOS, etc., with pre-built executables for Linux), OS/2, Win95/NT, and any Glk-supporting platform [What is Glk?: 4.5] including the Macintosh. Support The author intends to continue supporting Hugo indefinitely, and is developing further releases of the compiler/engine package. He will take e-mail and respond to posts. In his own words, he will contribute "anything I can offer" to the product. Messages specific to Hugo are posted to rec.arts.int-fiction from time to time. Programming Knowledge Owes its origins to Inform, C, and BASIC. It is thus object-oriented, has a straight-forward syntax, and an effort has been made to keep programming as free of punctuation and confusing formatting as much as possible. Much low-level (assembly) programming is done within the system itself (so the user needn't worry about it). Features/Limitations As of v2.4 Hugo supports graphics (in JPEG format) and multiple tiled windows. It also has music in MOD, S3M, MP3, MIDI, and XM format and sound in WAV format. The standard sound package (which the DOS and Windows ports use) allows 32 channels. Full multimedia support is available in the Windows/DOS, BeOS, and X Windows ports. As of v3.0, Hugo even supports movies in MPEG or AVI format. The compiler allows precompiled headers. Features include global events, object-linked events, object/character scripts, hierarchical inheritance and the ability to use objects as classes, dynamic run-time dictionary creation, multiple-turn undo, and (practically) unlimited game file size due to indexed addressing. Hugo allows the programmer to fully manipulate the interpretation of the input line prior to engine parsing. Documentation and Game Sources The "Hugo Programming Manual" covers many of Hugo's features and there is an extensively annotated tutorial game, "Vault of Hugo." Currently available game source code include ports of "Adventure" and "Pirate Adventure", and the author's own full-length games, "Spur", "Guilty Bastards", and "Down", and a shell-game to build on. Online Documentation N/A Web Pages Hugo - An Interactive Fiction Authoring System <http://www.generalcoffee.com/> Jerry's Hugo Site <http://cub.kcnet.org/~jnichols/hugo/ifpage.html> Debugging Features The Hugo Debugger, HD, is a full-featured source(ish)-level debugger, which allows code search, watch expressions, breakpoints, and so on. The HugoFix library is a suite of debugging routines allowing the user to monitor, set, and check almost every aspect of a game at run-time. Source C. License Freeware, so long as it is distributed in an unmodified manner. Games produced by a user are the property of that author, and may be freely distributed. Only if the game (including any included libraries from Hugo) or the Hugo engine is intended for distribution in any commercial manner (shareware or otherwise) must Kent Tessman be contacted for permission. Quick Pros and Cons As it is slightly newer than Inform and TADS, less people are using it and the Glk-based port to Macintosh doesn't have all the graphics and sounds perks (yet). On the bright side, it is quite powerful and offers advanced sound and graphics capabilities. Mac users are very very grateful for the Glk port, which is quite nice in the non-multimedia areas. _________________________________________________________________ Inform /if-archive/infocom/compilers/inform6/ Version/Release 6.21. Library 6/10. (Also, 6.21(G0.32) for glulx is in beta.) Author Graham Nelson (graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk). Glulx features by Andrew Plotkin (erkyrath@eblong.com). Platforms Acorn RISC OS, BeOS, Macintosh, Atari ST (latest release 5.4, may be unsupported), Amiga, IBM PC (on pre-386, release 5.5 only), Linux, OS/2, UNIX, VMS (for DEC VAX or Alpha), and EPOC (the Psion 5/Revo/7 handhelds). The ZMachine interpreters needed to play Inform games compiled for the ZMachine (that is, those that don't use glulx) are available for these platforms and many more. Support The author fixes library bugs whenever they are reported, and issues updates about every three months. The compiler is updated approximately twice a year, and the documentation is now in its 3rd edition (with an update May 1997). Feedback from users is welcomed. There are a large number of relevant posts to rec.arts.int-fiction. Programming Knowledge Compiles a largely object oriented language, reminiscent of C. A quite sophisticated parser is supplied, which can be entirely invisible to the designer but is highly programmable if need be. The library is itself written in Inform and is relatively easy to modify. Features/Limitations Produces files in the `Z-machine' format, as used by Infocom. Thus Inform games can be played on any of the many publicly available `Z-machine' interpreters. A standard library is supplied; it is possible to replace library routines. The run-time format does now permit dynamic object creation. Low-level programming is provided for, including a full assembler. The parser can be supplied with a language definition file allowing Inform games to be played in non-English languages. Translations of Inform have been made into German, Spanish, Italian and Renaissance English, with several others in development. These translations are linked from Graham Nelson's website (see below). A system called "Blorb", for convenient attachment of sound effects and modern-quality graphics, has now been fully implemented by Kevin Bracey's "Zip2000" interpreter. An alternate version can compile to the "Glulx" format, which allows advanced I/O capalities and removes many of the ZMachine's arbirtrary size restrictions. Documentation and Game Sources The main manual is the "Designer's Manual"; the "Technical Manual" documents very dry internals; the "Specification of the Z-Machine" defines the run-time format and the standard for interpreters (an alternative to this last document is "The Z-machine, and How To Emulate It"). A handful of game sources are available. The Inform Translator's Manual documents language definition files. The Designer's Manual should shortly be available as a printed book, thanks to Cascade Mountain Publishing; see <http://www.cascadepublishing.com/>. Online Documentation The Z-Machine Standards Document 1.0 <http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/zspec/index.html> The Inform Designer's Manual (3rd edition, updated) <http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/dman/index.html> Web Pages Inform 6: A Compiler For Interactive Fiction <http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/inform.html> The Inform Library Patch Site <http://adamcadre.ac/inform.html> Inform Page (somewhat old) <http://www.duke.edu/~srg3/IFprogramming/inform.html> Inform Programming (old, outdated) <http://www.doggysoft.co.uk/inform/> The Informary - a quick reference summary <http://homepages.tesco.net/~roger.firth/informary/> Inform for New Writers, David Cornelson <http://www.placet.com/int-fiction/> Inform for Beginners, Jeff Johnson <http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Heights/8200/contents.h tm> Glulx: A 32-Bit Virtual Machine for IF <http://www.eblong.com/zarf/glulx/> Debugging Features Can print tracing information for calls to routines and a suite of debugging verbs is included in the library: these monitor timers, daemons, actions, the object tree, messages between objects, the parser's internal workings and the like, and give the tester supernatural powers to travel and move things around. The library can also record and play back scripts of commands. Tools such as TXD (a disassembler) and Infodump (an inspector of objects, dictionary and grammar) are publicly available. As of Inform 6.21, you can compile your games with "Infix" debugging mode. This allows the author to use a variety of debugging verbs to examine and change the game's state in a way similar to the programming of Inform itself. You can trace references to a routine or object. Inform can also produce a file of information useful to any debugging tool, with, for example, Z-machine PC positions assigned to every statement of source code. There are some help-tools to configure various text editors to Inform, too; the Technical Manual provides an algorithm for syntax-colouring Inform code which is used in several of these. Source ANSI C. License Freeware. The author retains copyright of the compiler in order to prevent commercial exploitation, but (subject only to mild restrictions) is prepared to let people sell games produced by Inform. Quick Pros and Cons It is the most highly ported authoring system, and is quite popular. It is very powerful; some of the very advanced techniques are difficult to understand, though. Though it has a few more ports than TADS, HTML-TADS' graphics and sound support are both more powerful and more usable (at the current time) than Inform's. Also, the ZMachine suffers from the fact that extraordinarily large (and I mean really really big) games do not fit in it. However, for a normal-sized, text-only game that doesn't do extraordinarily complicated hacks (most games fit this description), Inform's problems do not hurt at all, and the glulx virtual machine fixes some of these problems. _________________________________________________________________ TADS (Text Adventure Development System) /if-archive/programming/tads/ Version/Release Version 2.5.2. Author Michael Roberts (mjr_ at hotmail dot com). Platforms Acorn RISC OS (interpreter only), AmigaDOS, Atari ST/TT/Falcon, DECStation, Linux, Macintosh, MS-DOS (also GO32 DOS extender version for 386+), NeXT, OS/2, SGI Iris/Indigo, SunOS & Sun 3. Support Posts to rec.arts.int-fiction dealing with all manner of TADS queries are not uncommon, and there are many third-party programming examples and utilities, including WorldClass and Pianosa, complete replacement libraries. Programming Knowledge Uses a high-level, largely object-oriented language very reminiscent of Pascal or C. Features/Limitations Provides virtual memory support, permitting games much larger than your computer's physical memory. Full multiple inheritance is supported, and incremental changes can be made to library files so one can include the standard library and override bits of it piece by piece. Objects may be created at run-time (dynamic object creation). TADS also provides multiple UNDO, routines for general-purpose file I/O, and "user exits" that let one link in code compiled with other languages (such as C). TADS allows you to write your game using HTML TADS, which allows you to add styled text, still graphics, sound, and MIDI music to your TADS games. Rather than relying on some proprietary markup language, HTML TADS uses standard HTML, the language used to mark up Web pages, for which documentation is readily available. (However, HTML TADS doesn't need a web browser or the Internet: it uses HTML but isn't a Web-based system.) HTML TADS also supports ISO Latin-1 character sets, so accented letters are easily added. At the time of writing, HTML TADS interpreters are only available for Windows 95/98/NT and Macintosh. However, a game written in HTML TADS is still fully playable (minus graphics and sound, of course) with character-based TADS runtimes that have been updated to at least version 2.2.6. The Windows port of TADS 2.5 and up comes with "Visual Workbench", an integrated development environment including the compiler, debugger, runtime, and an editor. It can even create self-enclosed executable installater programs for Windows for your TADS games. Documentation and Game Sources TADS' comprehensive manual is available in TeX, PDF and HTML formats, although the HTML version is the most current. At the moment, TADS documentation is a little scattered between the TADS manual (<http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/tads-manual/>), the TADS Parser Manual in /if-archive/programming/tads/manuals/tads_pm.zip , and the HTML TADS Revision Notes, available with HTML TADS. Neil K. Guy is working on updating the main TADS manual to include the information from the Parser Manual. Lastly, you might want to look at the slightly outdated but still useful TADS Tip Sheet at <http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/tads-manual/tads-tip-sheet.html>. In addition to the manual the full source for a medium-sized game, Ditch Day Drifter, is available from the usual sources. The source code for many other games, from small and simple to huge and complex, is also readily available. Mark Engelberg has written a tutorial for TADS. It can be found on the IF-Archive as /if-archive/programming/tads/manuals/TADSTutorial.zip . Online Documentation TADS Author's Manual <http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/tads-manual/> TADS Manuals directory on the IF-Archive /if-archive/programming/tads/manuals/ Web Pages The TADS Page <http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/tads/> The TADS Programming Page <http://www.df.lth.se/~mol/progtads.html> WorldClass Programming Page <http://www.df.lth.se/~mol/progtadsworldclass.html> Debugging Features TDB is a full-featured source-level debugger. It allows single-stepping through your source, the setting of breakpoints at specific lines, and the examination and alteration of variables in your program. Source C. License Freeware. Quick Pros and Cons It is very popular and powerful powerful. It has better graphics support than Inform/ZMachine, and HTML TADS is available on the Mac (which is not the case for graphical Hugo). Its library is very object-oriented, which may be a good or bad thing, depending on who you are. It has slightly less ports than Inform/ZMachine, especially to ancient computers like the C64 and small computers like the PalmPilot. On the other hand, the reason is can't run on the PalmPilot is that it allows games of any size whatsoever, which is good if your game needs to be huge. _________________________________________________________________ ALAN (Adventure LANguage system) /if-archive/programming/alan/ Version/Release 2.8, with various correction levels for different platforms. Authors Thomas Nilsson (thomas.nilsson@progindus.se) and G÷ran Forslund (gorfo@ida.liu.se). Platforms Amiga, Macintosh, MS-DOS (currently only 386+), sun4 (Solaris1, SunOS 4.1), sun4 (Solaris2, SunOS 5.x). A HP-UX version of 2.8 is upcoming, though a 2.7 version exists. There is also a Glk [What is Glk?: 4.5] version, but because ALAN's source is not freely available, it is a little harder to compile your own Glk versions than you would with the other IF systems. Support As a non-profit project author support may vary, although the authors will endeavor to act on bug reports sent by e-mail. Most ALAN questions on raif will be answered by other ALAN users. Programming Knowledge Uses a very high-level language. With an easy-to-learn syntax and semantics, ALAN takes a descriptive view of the concepts of adventure authoring. There are no variables, subroutines or other traditional programming constructs. A general statement which describes the ALAN philosophy is that a game's author should not need to program, only describe, what the player will see. Features/Limitations Actors may be scripted and rules are evaluated between each actors turn which can trigger actions. Events can be triggered by objects, actors or locations. Expansion of the parser syntax is simple. ALAN lacks actor interaction and inheritance (although a prototype of v3.0 supports this). General verbs can be overridden both for locations and objects on which they are invoked. There is support for multinational character input. Documentation and Game Sources The manual, available separately in PostScript, HTML, and ASCII formats, contains a lot of detail on all aspects of IF authorship from a beginner's level upwards. A few examples of ALAN source are available, including the source to the games "Saviour" and "Skipping Breakfast". Online Documentation ALAN Adventure Language Manual <http://welcome.to/alan-if/> Web Page The Alan Home Pages <http://welcome.to/alan-if/> Debugging Features The debugger currently supports viewing (but not altering) of most data, tracing of significant parts of the execution and single-stepping though compiled code. Source The source is only available to porters, through the authors. License Freeware. The interpreter may be freely distributed with compiled games for commercial purposes (i.e., no fee or royalties are required if you start to sell games). Quick Pros and Cons It isn't as powerful as the other Tier (i) systems. However, it is apparently easier to learn. Its ports to some systems, such as MacOS, are not wonderful or completely up-to-date, but work is being done on them. _________________________________________________________________ Tier (ii) Intermediate popularity and new systems, these do not appeal to quite as large an audience as those in tier (i) or are less powerful; there are infrequent posts to rec.arts.int-fiction dealing with these systems and their use; occasionally games are produced using these systems. _________________________________________________________________ AGT (Adventure Game Toolkit) /if-archive/programming/agt/ Version/Release Version 1.7 (may vary between platforms). But if you want to use AGT, use MAGX and AGiliTy instead of the original. Please. Authors David Malmberg (73435.1277@compuserve.com) and Mark Welch (markwelch@ca-probate.com). Platforms Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, MS-DOS, Windows. There seem to be many different versions for different platforms. Support No technical support from the authors (i.e., no new versions). Posts to rec.arts.int-fiction are not uncommon. Programming Knowledge Uses a meta-language similar to English. Standard Level games can be created with no prior programming knowledge. Features/Limitations Creates Standard Level games ("require no programming experience (honestly!), only a fertile imagination") or Professional Level games. There are limitations on the number of locations (200) and animate/inanimate objects (100 each) in a game. As AGT is no longer supported by the authors there will be no future upgrades/bug-fixes. It is not nearly as powerful as the Tier (i) systems, and many games are unportable from DOS. There is also now two programs, MAGX and AGiliTy, which are more portable and less buggy than the original AGT programs. However, they do not improve the language itself much. Documentation and Game Sources The documentation available on the Internet is out-of-date in regard to author support (which no longer applies) and licensing details (AGT is now freeware). Included is the source for a small game, Crusade. Other source for some two dozen games is publicly available. Mark Welch has 50-100 copies of the final "Master's Edition" printed manual and would invite suggestions from AGT users on how he might disseminate them at no charge. He *does not* have the "Master's Edition" source code though. Online Documentation N/A Web Page AGT Home Page <http://www.markwelch.com/agt.htm> MAGX webpage <http://www.ltlink.com/~jgoemmer/magx.html> AGT-authors mailing list page <http://www.ltlink.com/~jgoemmer/agt.html> Debugging Features A few basic debugging commands (such as MOVEPLAYER and LISTROOMS) to be used at run-time. Source Turbo Pascal 4.0/5.0/5.5/6.0. Magx and AGiliTy are written in ANSI C. License Freeware. Games produced with AGT are freely distributable in whatever manner you choose. Quick Pros and Cons I really wish I could put more pros here. When AGT was first released, ages ago, it was an improvement over what little IF creation software existed at the time. However, there really is nothing it can do that Inform or TADS can't easily do, and unlike the tier (i) systems, it is not expandable. That is a key point: in Inform, Hugo, and TADS, you can basically get it to do what you want, at least in terms of the internal world (if not multimedia output). This is not the case for AGT. It is poorly ported. And, though some claim it to be easy to learn, others find AGT source incomprehensible. You can write a good game in AGT. It's much easier if you just use a different system. _________________________________________________________________ Quest /if-archive/programming/quest/ Version/Release 2.14. Author Alex Warren (alex@axesoftware.co.uk). Platforms Windows 95/98/NT4. Support All technical questions can be emailed to support@axesoftware.co.uk. Bug reports can be emailed to bugreport@axesoftware.co.uk. Other enquiries can be directed to enquiries@axesoftware.co.uk. The author will try his best to give an answer to any questions you may have. Programming Knowledge None required. Quest comes with full documentation on the "ASL" programming language used. This is an easy-to-use language without much in the way of confusing syntax, designed with ease-of-use in mind. Features/Limitations Pretty much unlimited in any way; memory is allocated dynamically, so in theory games of any size could be created. Easy-to-use interface; built-in multimedia support for WAV and various image file formats (including BMP, GIF, and JPEG); save/load facility; text formatting; built-in support for items, characters, objects, selections, string and numeric variables, conditional statements, and user-defined commands; error checking. Its built-in library isn't as advanced as some of the Tier (i) systems in terms of IF capability, but it allows more graphical Win32 power than them. Users can use QDK, the Quest Development Kit, to create Quest games without any programming. Documentation and Game Sources ASL programming language reference and small sample game included in Quest download. Online Documentation Included in the Quest download. Web Page Quest <http://www.axesoftware.co.uk/quest/> Debugging Features String variables can be viewed at run-time; various warning messages outputted to a log file when errors are encountered. Source Not available. Licence "Free shareware". You can use the Quest runtime free of charge, but you are encouraged to register for 10 UK pounds (US$20) via cheque or credit card. For this, you get the compiler, which allows you to make your own games without distributing the source code to them. The free version of Quest is capable of running games from both uncompiled ASL source code and CAS compiled game code. _________________________________________________________________ SUDS <http://www.sudsystem.freeserve.co.uk/> Version/Release SUDS Player: 1.0.6.0. SUDS Constructor: 1.0.6.7. Author Andy Elliot (suds@kagi.com). Platforms Windows 95/98/NT. Support The author will continue to improve and develop SUDS for the foreseeable future in the light of feedback and functionality requests, both of which are welcome. SUDSystems endeavours to respond to all queries and suggestions within a maximum of five business days. Programming Knowledge Aimed at writers rather than coders, SUDS requires little or no programming knowledge, although it does demand the ability to think logically. SUDS enables users to build sophisticated event-driven procedures via a simple Cut and Paste mouse-driven interface. Syntax and construction of commands is handled automatically by the program. Design environment is modelled on object-oriented development packages such as Visual Basic. Features/Limitations Games are designed in the SUDS Constructor, which outputs the game as a single file. Games can be installed and run in the SUDS Player without compilation. Games are wholly text, although a "welcome" graphic can be specified. However, keyboard entry is replaced with a simple cursor-driven mouse interface: there is no parser and games consist of putting together words on the screen, like in the LucasArts graphical adventure games. A graphical map is automatically maintained during play, and players can add their own notes to each location. Event-driven procedures are triggered by player actions or between-turns housekeeping. There is a dedicated conversation interface with a drag-and-drop tree editor. The map editor is wholly graphical. You can have up to 32767 of each of Objects, Scenery, People, and Rooms. The map size is unlimited. Unfortunately, because code is not edited as textual source, you cannot export code to share with others. Documentation and Game Sources In addition to the documentation packaged with the applications, FAQs and information on upgrades are available on the SUDS website. Online Documentation Included in the SUDS download. Web Page SUDS <http://www.sudsystem.freeserve.co.uk/> Debugging Features The SUDS Player contains fully integrated debugging features which can be enabled from the Constructor for a game. These include the ability to report on the attributes of every game item and all system variables, to move the player to any location, and to take or drop any item. An in-game procedure monitor gives the ability to view procedures, step through code, skip over individual code lines or procedures, evaluate conditions, and pre-decide the result of decision points. Source Borland Delphi (Object Pascal) using a Paradox 7 database. Licence The SUDS Player is freeware: there is no fee for installation or use. However, the SUDS Constructor is shareware: if you intend to continue using it to create a text adventure you must register. The main benefits of registering are that you receive notification of (free) software updates and game releases (if you wish) and your support issues take precedence over those who have not paid. Registration also deactivates the nagging messages in the Constructor and enables your projects to run in the SUDS Player without terminating in after 50 turns. SUDS-format games must be released as freeware and cannot be distributed for profit. Quick Pros and Cons If you want a Windows-only program with a good IDE and dialog-box-based programming instead of text-based programming, and you do not mind that SUDS does not even have the pretense of a parser and players simply point and click, SUDS is probably the system for you: it shows every sign of being written with care for that purpose. However, it isn't portable outside Windows and doesn't have a parser like most IF, and to create games using it costs a small fee, which is more than the major IF systems. _________________________________________________________________ Tier (iii) Little current popularity, these are not generally popular; they often cater to only a small number of platforms (usually only MS-DOS) and may be less advanced or more specialized (such as handling graphics- or multimedia-based games) than systems in the other tiers; games are rarely produced with these systems. _________________________________________________________________ ADL (Adventure Definition Language) /if-archive/programming/adl/ Advent /if-archive/programming/advent/ Adventura /if-archive/programming/adventura/ AdvSys (Adventure System) /if-archive/programming/advsys/ AGIFG /if-archive/programming/agifg/ Archetype /if-archive/programming/archetype/ A highly object-oriented, bare-bones system. Aventuro /if-archive/programming/aventuro/ A system in Esperanto. DROOL (Dave's Reworked Object Oriented Language) /if-archive/programming/drool/ Figment /if-archive/programming/figment/ GAGS (Generic Adventure Game System) /if-archive/programming/gags/ The precursor to AGT. GameScape /if-archive/programming/gamescape/ GINAS (Generic Interactive Narrative Authoring System) /if-archive/programming/ginas/ An experimental, lisp-like system. GTAC (Graphic Text Adventure Creator) /if-archive/programming/gtac/ Creates a complete playable adventure game without losing the friendliness of the Acorn Desktop. LADS (Levi's Adventure Development System) /if-archive/programming/lads/ Produces games with a distinct "Scott Adams" look and feel. The state of the art of IF authoring systems is today well beyond this, yet LADS is still a workable, if primitive, system in its own right. NMP (NM Parser) /if-archive/programming/nmp/ A Spanish-language system. OASYS /if-archive/programming/oasys/ Questmaker /if-archive/programming/questmaker/ SINTAC (Sistema Integrado de Creacion de Aventuras Conversacionales) /if-archive/programming/sintac/ A Spanish-language system. _________________________________________________________________ Unprocessed These systems are either new, or are experimental or beta-release systems and as such may not have the popular and immediate appeal of systems in other tiers. (In reality, it means that they have been sitting in tier with this description since before I (David) started maintaining the FAQ, and I do not really know what to do with them.) Adventure Builder /if-archive/programming/advbuilder/ Version/Release 2.0. Author Alan Conroy (alan@accessone.com). Platforms PC-DOS (v2.0 or later), MS-DOS (v2.0 or later), Windows (3.1 or later). Support Minimal, but it does exist. Support is entirely through e-mail at this time. Bug reports and suggestions are solicited, and response for issues with known work-arounds are timely. Issues requiring updates/upgrades of the software are not. Programming Knowledge No programming is required to create a game. However, some programming is necessary if the game is to be customized (which is nearly always the case). The programming language is a non-conforming subset of Sirius, which is similar to Pascal and BASIC. No knowledge of advanced programming techniques is required in any case. Features/Limitations Provides a source language compiler and linker for writing routines, and a database compiler. Features include: up to 8191 nodes and 4096 items per game; memory caching of disk accesses; on-line help; easy-to-use database definition language and source language for writing routines; support for time, season, weather, day, and earthquakes; ability to log game/debug sessions; Linker and Librarian for large software projects. Documentation and Game Sources Documentation consists of a Programmer's Reference manual, Database Compiler Reference Manual, Primer, and Master Index. Source code for the default handling of basic actions is provided. Complete source code for the demonstration game is included. Online Documentation None, though electronic docs do exist that are not HTML. Web Page ADVENTURE BUILDER <http://www.accessone.com/~conroy/ab.html> Debugging Features Debugging tool built into the run-time system provides insight into the internal workings of the run-time system. A full-functioned source debugger is available for user-written (Sirius) code. The debugger allows setting breakpoints, watchpoints (breakpoints on changed data), examination of source code and variables, searching of source code, single-step, on-line help, and other minor features. Source Source to Adventure Builder is available only under license and in specific cases at this time. License Shareware. You may use it for personal enjoyment at no charge. If you sell, for profit, any byproduct of this software, you are REQUIRED to pay a $25.00 (US) one-time fee. Once this fee is paid, any number of games may be produced and sold royalty-free. Also you will be notified of any updates, you are eligible for discounts on updates, and your support issues will take precedence over those who have not paid. Adventure Builder is freely distributable to anyone and everyone so long as it is distributed in UNMODIFIED FORM and no fees, other than reasonable for the distribution media, are charged. _________________________________________________________________ Rexx-Adventure /if-archive/programming/rexx-adventure/ Version/Release 1.0. Author Mike DeSanto (desantom@io.com). Platform OS/2 (2.1 or better, ReXX installed). Support Send e-mail to the author. At least two people other than the author are currently working on adventures, and an AGT to Rexx-Adventure converter is being researched by a third party. Programming Knowledge Minimal programming knowledge required. Features/Limitations Features object based adventure creation with a GUI interface. Object variables are totally user-definable and all ambiguity about what objects can be manipulated, and how they can be manipulated has been removed. There is currently no indirect object support and objects inside other objects can not be seen (i.e., water in a bottle), although these are respectively planned and already implemented for version 2. While movable windows are also implemented for version 2, they are not present currently (i.e., fixed screen layout). Documentation and Game Sources Documentation will soon be available in OS/2 .INF format. Online Documentation N/A Web Page Rexx-Adventure <http://www.io.com/~desantom/rad.html> Debugging Features Very Few. Source Watcom VX-REXX, available to porters from the author. License Freeware. Mike DeSanto retains the copyright and it may be distributed only in its original form. Authors may charge for their adventures on the condition that it is made very clear that the fee is for the adventure, and not for Rexx-Adventure. _________________________________________________________________ A NOTE ON AUTHOR SUPPORT: While most authors are happy to accept email concerning their system please remember that reading and responding to email does take time. While bug reports, requests/suggestions for new features, etc. should be sent to the author directly, questions on how to implement a particular feature or operate a particular function should go to rec.arts.int-fiction, where time is not an issue. Bug reports for the authoring systems should probably be both emailed to the author, who can fix them, and posted to raif, so that other readers can realize that the bug exists. (Bug reports for games other than the Infocom ones should not be posted to rec.games.int-fiction, but rather emailed to the author. A bug in an authoring system can create bugs in other people's games; a bug in a game can't do that.) You should also realize that, especially if you are not paying for the system, the system authors have no "responsibility" to the community to update their program. There was once a nasty stir on raif in which a poster ordered Graham Nelson, who had been unable to read the newsgroup for a while for various reasons, to update Inform. Graham and the other authors have put a lot of hard work into their systems, and probably will continue to do so. But if they wanted to stop, they could. (After many messages asserting that point were posted, the thread died down. This was shortly followed by a new version of Inform.) A NOTE ON LICENSING: Games written with some authoring systems, notably Hugo, may not be distributed for money (shareware or commercial) without the system author's express consent. You should always read and abide by any and all licensing details relating to the system which you choose. If you do not like the licensing arrangements, use a different system. Of course, system authors are (usually) good human beings, and will probably say yes. _________________________________________________________________ 4.5: What is Glk? It is a standard for text-based I/O, designed by Andrew "zarf" Plotkin. Complete information can be found at <http://www.eblong.com/zarf/glk/>. Here is a brief description of it, plagiarized from LucFrench and Zarf's descriptions on raif: GLK is a spec for porting Input/Output code across platforms. In order to understand why it's necessary, one must understand a bit about I/O. A Unix machine has a different way of printing to the screen than a Mac, since one is primarily text based, and the other is a graphical windowing enviroment. As such, they have two *very* different ways of outputting data, particularly for some of the special effects that many high level IF systems need (e.g., a status line, picture, color, etc.). So, porting the I/O can be difficult. What Glk attempts to do is specify a set of calls to the Glk system that allows for easy porting across multiple platforms. The Glk calls are intended to be not only portable, but to be *easily* portable: abstracted in such a way that they give the interpreter maximum flexibility. This allows interpreters on different platforms to take advantage of particular UI features. A port of Dungeon, a scripting language, interpreters for the major IF languages, and a few demos have been ported to Glk. If you are writing an IF interpreter or similar program, consider using Glk. It'll make everyone happy. _________________________________________________________________ 4.6: What are VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL, and how should I avoid them in Inform? It is illegal on the ZMachine that Inform compiles to to do any of the following when x == 0 (nothing): child(x), parent(x), sibling(x), etc if (x has attribute) if (x.property == ...) give x attribute x.property = ... move x to y move y to x remove x ... or pretty much anything else which assumes x is a legitimate object. Some interpreters will ignore this, and either end up not messing up, or crash. In the former case, this means that you will falsely believe there is nothing wrong with your game. In the latter case, it, well, crashes. MaxZip, and some other Zip interpreters, will check and warn at these illegal statements. There is a bug in the Inform library (version 6/7) that will cause this in the HasLightSource function. You should patch this immediately if for some reason your are still using library 6/7. In the library file parserm, find the function HasLightSource. Near the top, there are the lines: if (i has enterable || IsSeeThrough(i)==1) { objectloop (i in i) if (HasLightSource(i)==1) rtrue; } This should be if (i has enterable || IsSeeThrough(i)==1) { objectloop (j in i) if (HasLightSource(j)==1) rtrue; } In other words, change two i's to j's. Library 6/8 and later fixes this and a few other uncommon V0EsFH. Much more information on the subject of VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL can be found at <http://www.eblong.com/zarf/vileerror.html>, thanks to Andrew Plotkin, who made everyone aware of this problem and helped with this article. As of Inform 6.20, VILE 0 ERRORS FROM HELL and other common Inform problems are caught at run-time by compiled-in checking routines. There is much rejoicing! Unfortunately, if this "strict" mode is turned off, Inform 6.20 (though not the newer 6.21 which should be used instead of 6.20) creates buggy code; and Library 6/8 in strict mode is too large to fit in a module, meaning that you can't create strict library modules. Inform 6.20 should *not* be used due to its bugs in non-strict mode: either stick with a lower version or upgrade to 6.21. Inform 6.20 and up also classifies objectloop errors as V0EsFH and catches them. These are another common cause of problems in Inform. As most Inform programmers know, objectloop (x) { ... } will run ... once for each object in the game, setting 'x' to that object. Here's the problem: objectloop (foo in someobject) { move foo to somewhereelse; } You'd think this moves every object in someobject to somewhereelse. But it doesn't. This is becase objectloop(a in b) {...} is optimized. Instead of being equivalent to objectloop(a) { if (a in b) { ... } } it is the same as for (a = child(b); a ~= 0; a = sibling(a)) { ... } In other words, it simply strolls along the object tree. If a is moved out of b, it will make the next a be equal to the sibling of the current a, which will not be what you want. The solution is, for the simple case of "move all children of foo to bar": while (children(foo) ~= 0) move child(foo) to bar; For anything more complicated than that, use: objectloop(a) { if (a in b) { ... } } The same problem can occur in the little-used 'x from object' and 'x near object' versions, though not in any other ones (such as 'x ofclass c'). Inform 6.20 and up will catch these at run-time. _________________________________________________________________ 4.7: How do I find bug fixes for Inform? Recent versions of Inform's library and compiler have introduced some annoying bugs and weird ways of parsing. Though Graham Nelson fixes these in new versions of the Inform library, between releases you can look at the official Inform Patch Site at <http://adamcadre.ac/inform.html>, maintained by Adam Cadre. _________________________________________________________________ 4.8: What editors can I use to write IF? There are many text editors that are useful for writing IF. The following list describes some of them. If you have any corrections or suggestions, feel free to email them to me. Most of the following descriptions were written by others; I'd like to thank everyone who helped me. However, I edited them, so any incorrect statements are probably my fault. * DOS/Windows (Win32-only (Windows 95, 98, and NT) unless specified) * Inform * Informer * Author: William J. Schlaer * /if-archive/programming/editors/InEdit10.zip * Informer is a text editor that can generate Inform code for objects, locations, routine, etc. It includes Inform syntax highlighting; it can run the Inform compiler from within the editor and captures error messages for viewing; can view code as graphical object tree or location map. Inform IDE * Author: Andrew Bault * <http://www.tiac.net/users/ajb/software.html> * Availability: free * With Inform IDE, instead of creating your program in a text editor as usual, you write code in a "browser" which shows the relationship of pieces of code to one another. You can import and export code with the normal text version of Inform source code. You can browse and modify objects and functions within hierarchical or alphabetical trees. IMForm * Author: Tim Middleton * /if-archive/programming/editors/imfb01.zip * IMForm is an ambitious and pretty IDE for Inform. However, it is unfinished. It is not recommended for use in writing Inform games, but is interesting to look at for anyone thinking about writing an IF IDE. It has been uploaded with source code for anybody who wants to to complete the project. TADS * TADS File Editor * Author: Satan's Mutt * /if-archive/programming/editors/tfe.zip * TFE is a conventional text editor with TADS syntax highlighting. It can run the TADS compiler and capture the compiler output to an editor window. General * Ultraedit * Author: Ian David Mead * <http://www.ultraedit.com/> * Platforms: Win32 and Windows 3.1 * Availability: $30 shareware * Ultraedit is a programmer's text editor with configurable syntax highlighting that can be set up for any IF language. You can run a compiler from within editor and capture its output to a window for viewing. It has macros. You can create your own syntax highlighting config files. Giovanni Riccardi has created an Inform config file, available at /if-archive/programming/editors/ueditinf12.txt . Gunther Schmidl has created a Hugo config file, available at <http://x39.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=503974273&fmt=text>. Theodore Hwa's TADS config file is available at /if-archive/programming/editors/ueditTADSwordfile.txt . Programmer's File Editor (PFE) * Author: A. Phillips * /if-archive/programming/editors/pfe101i.zip (Win32) * /if-archive/programming/editors/pfe101.zip (Windows 3.1) * Availability: freeware * PFE is a programmer's text editor. It can run a compiler and capture output from it. It has macros. It is highly configurable. It matches paired characters. It remembers your cursor position in previous documents. It has no syntax highlighting, however. It interacts well with other programs, and can execute them, passing them the current file. * Note: the author of PFE decided to stop developing PFE in October 1999; copies of PFE for both 32-bit and 16-bit Windows can now be found at the IF-Archive. TextPad * Author: ? * <http://www.textpad.com/> * Availability: $27 shareware * Platforms: Win32 and Windows 3.1 * TextPad is a highly configurable text editor focused on programming. Some of its features include automatic indentation; a changeable tab size (4 or 8? The tab size Holy War continues...); word-wrap; macros (very handy sometimes); a "clip library" for saving related macros (many user-created clip libraries are available for download from the TextPad website); the ability to compare two files (like Unix diff); a user-extensible Tools menu where you can enter custom commands, such as calling a compiler or syntax-checker; the ability to sort lines in a file according to various user-definable criteria; line-break reformatting (a feature that is immensely useful when using cross-platform text files); and block highlighting and copying. FED * Author: Shawn Hargreaves * <http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/fed/> * Availability: Free (open source) * Platforms: MS-DOS, Linux * FED is an open-source folding text editor. It has an intuitive user interface, syntax highlighting, the ability to fold blocks of text out of sight, multi-level undo and redo, flexible wordwrap, binary and hex editing modes, macro recordings, and more. Plus, it has a built-in tetris game and screensaver: what more do you want? * Configuration files for TADS and ALAN by Stephen Griffiths are on the IF-Archive at /if-archive/programming/editors/alan.fed and /if-archive/programming/editors/tads.fed . Multi-Edit * Author: American Cybernetics * <http://www.amcyber.com/> * Availability: $199 commercial * Multi-Edit is a powerful text editor designed for use in multiple languages. It is able to determine which of its customized tools to use based on the language of your file. It integrates well with other programming tools including version control. It has a powerful extension language with the ability to call any DLL function including the Win32 API. It also contains many more powerful text-editing features. The $199 price includes a printed manual; you can also just download the executables from $129. Douglas Harter's Hugo template can be found on the IF-Archive at /if-archive/programming/editors/hugo.tpt . UED * Author: ? * <http://www.onlinebible.simplenet.com/> (see below) * Platforms: MS-DOS * Availability: freeware, probably * UED (not to be confused with UltraEdit) is a simple yet powerful text editor for DOS. It is distributed with Online Bible (which is freeware and available from the above URL). Since OB is freely redistributable, the author of this article assumes that UED is also; anyone who wants a copy can get it by emailing jonadab@bright.net, the author of this article, if they do not wish to download Online Bible. It is small: under 35K when compressed by ZIP. It has no IF-specific features, but its nice features include the ability to word-wrap; configure the margin; its speed (loads in no time flat even on an 8088); fairly smart paragraph reformatting (treats the first line of paragraph differently) that can be invoked on the current paragraph; the ability to cut/copy/paste groups of lines, standard ranges, or even rectangular blocks (very useful); loads up to nine files at once and can switch between them easily; can put two files on screen at once if desired. Its main limitation is that it can only handle about sixty-thousand lines of text at any one time. It does not come with any documentation, but (in the opinion of the author of this article), it does not need any, as it has a two minute learning curve and has no complicated commands. Microsoft Visual C++ * Author: Microsoft * <http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/> * Availability: expensive * Microsoft Visual C++ is an expensive Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for C++. It contains, among many other things, an excellent programmer's text editor. However, I would never recommend purchasing it solely for the text editor, as it is far too expensive; if you already own a copy, however, you should give it a try as an IF editor. CodeWright * Author: Microsoft * <http://www.premia.com/products/codewright/> * Availability: $299 commercial * CodeWright is a commercial Windows text editor with many features. Though designed for editing text, it includes many powerful automation features such as autocompletion and template languages. Its features are mostly customizable. ScopeEdit * Author: Loginov Software * <http://www.loginov.com/> * Availability: $79 commercial * ScopeEdit is a unique text editor: it lets you structure your code into descriptive folding trees. In addition, it has syntax highlighting and a powerful macro language. Windows Notepad and DOS Edit * Author: Microsoft * Availability: comes with DOS/Windows * Windows Notepad and DOS Edit should be preinstalled on your DOS/Windows computer. They're usable, but a true programmer's editor is much better. Macintosh * ALAN * Starter for ALAN * Author: Tony Houlbrooke * /if-archive/programming/alan/Starter.hqx * Starter for ALAN is a Hypercard application that can help lay out your location map and objects and then generate Alan source code from it. It is not a real editor, though, and you need to edit the code with an editor after creating a skeleton with this. TADS * TADS Template * Author: Jared L. Reisinger * /if-archive/programming/tads/utils/tads-template-0.9.sit.hqx * TADS Template is a Hypercard application that can help lay out your location map and objects and then generate TADS source code from it. It is not a real editor, though, and you need to edit the code with an editor after creating a skeleton with this. General * MPW (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop) * Author: Apple Computer * <http://developer.apple.com/tools/mpw-tools/> * MPW has syntax-coloring support for Inform. It's a rather nice editor in its own right, and because it's also a Unix-like shell environment, it's (almost) totally customizable. Alpha * Author: Pete Keleher * <http://alpha.olm.net/> * Availability: $30 shareware * The Alpha editor is a very powerful Mac editor that uses the Tcl language for customization. It has an emacs-like feel, but it is not an emacs port and uses Tcl instead of LISP. An Inform "mode" can be found at <http://www.fastlane.net./~russellm/informmode.html>. BBEdit and BBEdit Lite * Author: Bare Bones Software * <http://www.barebones.com/> * Availability: $117 commercial (with some other deals); Lite version free * BBEdit is a powerful, easy to use Mac text editor. It has many features that make it easy to edit text, especially for programming and writing HTML. The full version is commercial; a fully functional "Lite" version is available for free and is an excellent text editor in its own right (this article is being written in BBEdit Lite). BBEdit Lite does not have as many advanced features as the full BBEdit, though. (Do not confuse BBEdit Lite, which can be found on Bare Bones' "Free Stuff" page, with the BBEdit Demo, which is a crippled version of the full BBEdit and should only be used to try out the full BBEdit's features for free.) Unix * General (see also FED under Windows) * emacs (GNU emacs and XEmacs) * <http://www.emacs.org/> * Platforms: Unix, Windows; others (such as Mac) in old versions * Availability: GPL * emacs shares with vi the dubious distinction of being the most (in)famous UNIX text editor around. This reviewer doesn't know the differences between GNU Emacs (the "official" Emacs, if such a title can be claimed) and XEmacs off-hand, but XEmacs has most of the features of GNU Emacs with possibly a few more. Some of the features that make the various emacsen useful for writing IF are color syntax highlighting; the fact that it is completely user-configureable using the programming language Lisp; the available emacs editing "modes" for TADS and Inform, which can be found in the programming/editors directory of the IF Archive; and many more features related to general text editing and programming such as the ability to open multiple files and auto-indent, but listing all of emacs' features would make this review far too long. Suffice it to say that if you want it, emacs can probably do it. And if you have a need that hasn't already been thought of, you can take care of it yourself by writing some Lisp code. Though Lisp's detractors (this reviewer among them) claim that Lisp stands for "Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses" and find it hard to read at best, some people (who must have masochistic tendencies) like Lisp. If you happen to be one of them, great, and please don't flame your humble reviewer too hard... :-) Seriously, though, you don't have to know a thing about Lisp to *use* emacs, just to expand its capabilities. You will probably find that emacs has all the features you need. emacs works fine in text mode (aka console mode); you can also use XEmacs in X Windows. emacs comes with complete documentation. Rupert Lane's emacs mode for Inform can be found at /if-archive/programming/editors/inform-mode.el ; Stephen Granade's emacs mode for TADS is at /if-archive/programming/editors/tads-mode.el . vi and offspring * <http://www.vim.org/> for vim * <http://www.fh-wedel.de/elvis/> for elvis * Platforms: many * Availability: varies * vi is the original visual editor for Unix. There are many clones and extensions of it, such as elvis and vim. It will do Inform syntax hilighting. Amir Karger's syntax file for TADS is available from <http://www.hec.utah.edu/~karger/vim/syntax/tads.vim>. Acorn RiscOS * General * !Zap * Availability: Open Source * <http://www.zap.uk.eu.org/> * !Zap is the text editor of choice of Graham Nelson, the author of Inform. It is highly configurable and editable. Graham has written a syntax coloring file for Inform for it. Amiga * General * GoldED * Author: Dietmar Eilert * <http://members.tripod.com/golded/golded.htm> * The GoldED Studio editor core offers all the functions you can expect from a modern editor. You get unlimited configurable undo and redo, configurable syntax highlighting, templates, folding, automatic backup creation, macro recording and support for a script language (Rexx). Block functions include support for columnar blocks. Advanced layout fuctions provide constant reformatting and word wrap while you are typing. Drag and Drop is supported, so text can be moved with the mouse. Scrolling is exceptionally fast even on slow Amigas. Optional input aids include IntelliSense (context-sensitive completion of words) and AutoCase (automatic case correction). At the end of a day, you can use the session management functions to save the current state of your work. _________________________________________________________________ 4.9: What tools and utilities are available? Scott2Zip /if-archive/scott-adams/ Description Bjorn Gustavsson (ermbgus@at.ericsson.se) has written this Perl script which converts the old Scott Adams games to Inform source (you compile this with the Inform compiler and then play the resulting gamefile on any `Z-machine' interpreter). _________________________________________________________________ UnQuill /if-archive/solutions/tools/ Description John Elliott's (jce@seasip.demon.co.uk) utility will "disassemble" Spectrum snapshots (.SNA) of games written with The Quill. Available as C source and executables for DOS and CP/M. _________________________________________________________________ Ztools /if-archive/infocom/tools/ztools/ Description This package, maintained by Matthew T. Russotto (russotto@wanda.vf.pond.com), comprises several tools, including a disassembler, for manipulating games in the `Z-machine' format as used by Infocom and produced by Inform. They are quite useful. There are ports to many platforms. _________________________________________________________________ Disinformation <http://www2.prestel.co.uk/lwtcdi/uninform/instruct.htm> Description Jeremy A. Smith's program takes output data from TXD and INFODUMP (two components of Ztools; see above), mangles it up, and outputs it in an Inform-like way. It makes disassembly of Z-machine code a *lot* more readable. It doesn't (yet) create completely compilable code, and is by no means the same as what was written, but is higher level than ZMachine assembly. _________________________________________________________________ 4.10: Wouldn't a visual system be great for writing IF in? This has been discussed a lot. The general consensus seemed to be that they would be helpful, but only if they allowed the writer to get at the bare Inform or TADS code underneath and not use only high-level editing. Also, it was realized that such tools currently don't exist because the people with the skills to write them generally don't need them. There is an Inform IDE (Integrated Development Environment) or three in the works, and TADS comes with Visual Workbench, but IDEs are not what is usually meant by "visual". However, if you want to write a visual IF editing tool, great. Show us the results. Just don't wander in and ask somebody else to write one for you. The Quest system [System:Quest] includes QDK, a visual development tool. However, Quest isn't quite as advanced as Inform or TADS, requiring you to code just about everything from scratch. SUDS [System:SUDS] is quite visual; however, the games it creates do not have a parser and are more like a point-and-click game. _________________________________________________________________ 4.11: What support does Inform offer for graphics and sounds? The ZMachine's V6 format supports graphics, and Inform can compile to it quite well. Jason Penney has written a library called V6Lib, available at the IF-Archive, that allows you to use a high-level window system (instead of having to do the ZMachine opcodes by hand). However (and this is a big however), almost all current V6 ZMachine interpreters (and not all ZMachine interpreters will do V6) only supports display of horrible graphics format used by Infocom in some of their later games. It is horrible because it is proprietary (no tools exist to write to it) and has many technical problems, such as the fact that you can only use a *very* limited amount of colors (14, I think). The Blorb format is a new way of getting images (in PNG or JPEG format) and other 'resources' to interface with ZMachine interpreters. Now, when I say "new", I mean it was proposed a few years ago. Barely any interpreters support it yet. Because of this, no games have been written that use Blorb. Because of this, barely any interpreters support Blorb. Because of this... And so on goes the vicious circle. A similar situation exists for sounds: there are ZMachine opcodes for sound playing, but Blorb is required to make it work well. Inform Glk [What is Glk?: 4.5] support would be useful; there exists at least two ZMachine interpreters that uses Glk (Evin Robertson's Nitfol and GlkZip), but there is no way to access the Glk functions from Inform: the Glk support of these interpreters allows the *interpreters* to be easily ported, but not access to Glk from within the game. glulx solves all these problems and more. glulx is a virtual machine designed by Andrew "Zarf" Plotkin that is like the ZMachine, but without its limits. An alternate version of Inform can compile to it. Once Glulx Inform (currently at version 6.21(G0.30)) is fully tested, it will become part of the main Inform distribution. Glulx uses Glk as its native interface, so all of Glk's IO abilities will be usable from it. For now, look at <http://www.eblong.com/zarf/glulx/>. _________________________________________________________________ 4.12: What support does TADS offer for graphics and sounds? Early in 1998, a new version of TADS called HTML-TADS was released by Mike Roberts, the author of TADS. It is the same as TADS, except that it allows formatted output. The format can control text and background color, images, sounds, and other cool things. The format is controlled by use of a limited form of HTML (the language used on the web). HTML-TADS has nothing to do with the Internet or the Web or Java; it simply uses tags like <IMG> and <B> and <A HREF>. The only platforms that (as of April 1999) the HTML-TADS runtime has been ported to are Windows 95/98/NT and Macintosh. The compiler, though, is the same as a normal TADS compiler. Neil K. Guy's TADS site has more information about HTML-TADS: <http://www.tela.bc.ca/tela/tads/>. Several games have been created that take advantage of HTML-TADS, including Neil K. Guy's "The Golden Skull" and "The Landing"; Stephen Granade's "The Arrival"; and Mike Roberts' "The Plant". As of late 1999, HTML-TADS is probably the best way to do a relatively portable graphical game. _________________________________________________________________ 4.13: What support does Hugo offer for graphics and sounds? Hugo provides support for a bunch of different graphics and sound formats. Graphics and sounds only are on the Windows 95/98/NT, DOS, BeOS, and X Windows ports, though, but that includes most computers except Macs. The picture placement commands do not allow too much precision, unless you mess around with tricky window creation commands. Simple stuff works well, but more complicated stuff is harder, though possible. More information on this subject can be found at <http://interactfiction.about.com/library/weekly/aa061598.htm>. This article by Stephen Granade also contains links to articles about graphics and sound in Inform and TADS. _________________________________________________________________ 4.14: Which IF system should I use? This is probably the most frequently asked question on rec.arts.int-fiction. Every answer has been different. The truth of the matter is that there isn't much that TADS can do but Inform can't or vice versa, and Hugo is just about as good as the top two; it is just that some things require a bit more work than others on some systems. ALAN is also not a bad choice; it is not as powerful as the other three but some have found it easier to use. It has been commented that the most difficult thing to learn in any IF language is not the syntax of the language but its world model. Knowing the peculiarities of the language is easy compared to understanding the interactions between the objects of your game world. If you can write IF at all, then you can certainly master any of the major languages. Many have. If you are still concerned about the syntax of the various languages, you can check out Roger Firth's "Cloak of Darkness" at <http://homepages.tesco.net/~roger.firth/cloak/>. This project has the source code for a simple game in many of the main IF languages, complete with comments on how it works. You can look at it to see a sample of how each language works. _________________________________________________________________ 4.15: How do I create a standalone executable program out of an IF game? Often, authors want to create an executable version of their game for a particular platform so that players do not need to download a separate interpreter program. While this is not a bad idea, one does need to remember that the whole reason that most IF systems need interpreters is so that the game files can be played on just about every type of computer without the author needing to compile a Windows version, a Mac version, a Unix version, an Amiga version, etc of every single game. Also, because interpreters are not bundled with every single TADS, ZMachine, or whatever game on the IF-Archive, the game files are much smaller. A Windows executable (for example) is completely useless to a Mac user, and doubly so when at heart the executable contains a file that could be run on the Mac if available separately. So an author really should make sure that the platform-independent game file is available even if she makes a standalone version. That said, there are several ways to make standalone executables. On Windows, ZMachine (that is, Inform) games can be made executable with jzexe, a tool packaged with jzip, and the TADS Workbench comes with a tool that not only puts TADS games into executable files but even gives them customizable installers. You can also use maketrx, which is included with TADS, on DOS for games that don't require Windows, but the full TADS workbench is probably preferable for recent computers. On Macs, MaxZip (for Inform ZMachine), MaxTADS, and MacGlk Hugo all allow easy creation of standalone games. Andrew Plotkin, author of the Max interpreters, has offered to create a Mac executable of any TADS, Inform, or Hugo game for authors who don't have access to a Mac; he will even upload it to a popular Mac ftp site and make it a pretty icon. (The default TADS runtime also can be binded to a game, but it's better to use MaxTADS.) On some versions of Unix, jzexe has been reported to work. However, if you're on Unix, you're probably smart enough to read a README and download the proper interpreter.