Inform Reviews and details

Social recommendations and mentions

• Share a niche programming language you have tinkered with before

  Inform 7 is a domain-specific language for creating parser-based works of interactive fiction (i.e. old-school "text adventure games"). It does the heavy lifting of parsing and maintaining the consistency of the world model for the programmer. Source: over 1 year ago

• How does programming language syntax affect screen readers?

  Inform 7 takes this to the extreme, allowing code such as "A distance is a kind of value. 5 miles specifies a distance.". Source: over 1 year ago

• Does anyone have examples of "dead" game genres?

  Pure parser-based games have become niche, but they are still out there and, like others mentioned, have continued to evolve (see Inform 7). You no longer have to "guess the verb". Source: almost 2 years ago

• Ask HN: How to keep my daughter busy while tickling her curiosity

  How will you earn its trust? http://inform7.com. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago

• Gaiman: Programming language for text-based games in browser

  Neat. Have you ever seen Inform? http://inform7.com/ Might offer some inspiration on future features. It's a pretty cool language that's been around for a long time and has the same use case. Source: almost 2 years ago

• Programmers who will code themselves out of a job sounds soo juvenile.

  Like literate programming works great for something like text adventures, but for anything else its not clear if it will ever succeed. Source: about 2 years ago

• Ken and Roberta Williams Working on Colossal Cave Adventure Remake for VR and PC

  I discovered ADVENT because it was bundled in with DSLinux [0], the Linux distribution for the Nintendo DS. There was a long period in grade school where I was kinda obsessed with it and it's derivatives, especially Mike Arnautov's 770-point expansion [1]. I remember pulling apart his A-code sources (a custom DSL for implementing his versions of the game) to make my own additions to the game. From there I... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago

• Requesting help with making a text adventure game.

  You're in luck. Inform, the best (IMO) tool is also pretty easy to use, and uses an English-like programming language: http://inform7.com. Source: about 2 years ago

• Anyone know to make it so the player can type something and if they type a certain thing then something will happen?

  You might want to check out Inform 7 if you are interested in making a game more along the lines of the old Adventure or Zork style games, where you type in commands and get responses. It's an excellent game design system! Source: about 2 years ago

• What is the highest level programming language?

  Inform would be an example, though it’s something of a DSL in the sense that it’s made for writing interactive fiction (IF). Source: over 2 years ago

• Text adventure game.

  If you're looking to make classic parser-based interactive fiction, Inform (http://inform7.com/) is the industry standard. It may be tougher for you since the syntax is formatted as English grammar, but it is the standard used by most people writing text adventures. Source: over 2 years ago

• cowboy bebop game?

  I’d definitely play! Inform is a great text based game authoring tool. It’s very organized and well documented. http://inform7.com. Source: over 2 years ago

• Ways to Create Interactive Fiction?

  I'm just starting out here but I'm really enjoying Inform 7. This would be a good choice if you want to create a lot of different paths, but it's a significant investment of effort. On the plus side, the programming is fairly easy due to its powerful English-like language; on the minus side, consumers of your story will need to type to play your story. Source: over 2 years ago

• Chatbots: Still Dumb After All These Years

  For a while I was frustrated at how slow people have been to realize that GPT-3 sucks but lately I am more amused. There a few reasons structurally why it can't do what people want it to do, two of them are: (i) it can't detect that it did the wrong thing at one level when interpreting it at a higher level, (ii) most creative tasks have an element of constraint satisfaction. The 1st one interests me because I... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago

• Bladecoder: Point and Click Adventure Editor/Engine

  For Zork style (i.e. text) adventures it's well worth checking out http://inform7.com - yes, http, as unfortunately their cert is broken. In summary you use a declarative English-like language, saying things like "The Library is a room" and "Inside the Library is a book". Inform's compiler takes those rules and builds a runnable text adventure using an engine based on the Inform original one that... - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago

• Ask HN: Would prog. language look like if that was designed by no-programmer

  Perhaps like Inform: http://inform7.com/ Although I suppose in the age of GPT-3 that will probably take over. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago

• What interactive fiction platform ya'll use (if you guys are IF content makers)?

  I released my game The Exigent Seasons several months ago, and the system I used to make it was Inform 7, which is one of the more powerful and popular tools for creating interactive fiction. It's great for making IF in the style of Infocom and the other old text adventures. It does have a learning curve to make anything complex, but there's a built-in manual which made it easy to teach myself the techniques I... Source: over 2 years ago

• What's the highest level programming language in existence?

  I wouldn't say it's the "highest-level programming language in existence", but the language you're describing is Inform 7. Have a look at some of the example programs on its Wikipedia page. Source: over 2 years ago

• The Interactive Fiction Archive

  Inform7 is a natural language based system for programming interactive fiction. http://inform7.com/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago

• Best story format for text input

  That said, if you want a parser/zork-style, you may want to look into other formats. Twine definitely has the pro of being a portable web page, but regardless of format (to my knowledge), it has very little built-in that will help make a parser and you'll have to build it from the ground up. Inform7, on the other hand, is built for these kinds of games and will give you far fewer barriers. Source: over 2 years ago

• Daughter wants to get into game dev. Looking for advise?

  For instance, check this http://inform7.com/ a game-engine of sorts for interactive fiction. Source: over 2 years ago