I agree–there may be too much emphasis on creating an automapper if someone wants to do something clever–and one problem I see is that we may have 2 rooms that go non-opposite directions back to each other. This may seem like an edge case, but I’d guess that someone might have a creative moment based on, say, a passage leading east then back northwest–it’d give a different map shape.
Now it’s possible to create a map of this sort of thing by hand without Mark Tilford’s extension, but it’s grossly inelegant.
This might be more work than the author needs, or it might distract from the general creativity. I have part of an example here. Am I nitpicking too much?
Maps in ADRIFT 5 are preconceived rather than being auto-generated. But it’s a moot point anyway unless I can get them working in a browser by the competition. And given that I’m expecting a baby in a couple of months, I’d say the chance of that is pretty slim…
From what I’ve seen, the Adrift mapper is a cool tool–but I place them in the same category as autogenerated maps, because what I’m really talking about wrestling free of the box-and-whiskers paradigm. Anyway, though, congratulations on the offspring!
I think the map should show ten distinct locations…so if someone wants to bend the rule and have a “location” have one or two internal proximity locations, that would seem to meet the criteria of ten locations. You’d just have one location with extra spacing features…but the map should show this…
My Zifmia system assumes images are already posted to the website. References are in the game code. I plan to implement this down the road as being able to upload a blorb file, images contained, and unpacking everything and placing the images in the image directory and the game in my OO database.
I would assume that anyone using a javascript interpreter will need to learn to do something similar.
There’s no doubt that contest entrants will need to know or learn some rudimentary html and javascript. That’s really part of the point of this competition.
When you say “You must provide a graphical map”, do you mean in-game (i.e. only games that can be played in a browser and support graphics are valid options), or do you just mean there must be an image of the map?
Maybe you could assemble a list of some standard IF tools and whether or not they support the requirements?
I’m guessing these should all be ok
Inform7
TADS3.1 (but not TADS 3)
ADRIFT 5.0
Undum
At least if you’re not going overboard on this Ajax business (which seems pretty random). I think maybe you should specify what that means really, are you setting up a REST backend or what?
I think all of those tools will suffice. The system I’m building uses Inform 7 and a customer I/O extension and yes, I use extensive AJAX for my games. This is not necessary for everyone else. The basic Z web interpreter and “release as web page” should work for most cases in Inform 7. I am familiar with the other systems only in so much as I read blogs, so I can’t help with those.
The map should be a part of the game. If the deployment requires copying files, this should include the map. The game should play with the map either on screen or available on screen at any time.
Is the focus here on pushing the boundaries of interaction between a game and a (possibly dynamic?) map, or just promoting the idea of a game limited in geographic scope that has a map a few clicks away?
With talk if Inform 7’s publishing system falling within the rules when you include an interpreter and a map file, it sounds like the latter, but I want to make sure: should participants focus on innovating how someone can interact with the work in the context of a modern web browser, or should they focus on creating a quality work bundled alongside a quality map?
Although honestly, I don’t really care that much, to me this comp is just an opportunity to write something that hopefully will be interesting.
I’ve been thinking of writing something about a house, a bit inspired by George Perec’s La Vie: Mode d’Emploi. Of course, Perec has other types of constraints. And admittedly, what I’m doing now is not really that, it’s a much smaller thing and really something different. But I’m starting it off with one fixed boundary: that there are only ten rooms. That’s about it for me. If this is not what the comp organizer (David) was aiming for… well, boo hoo.
On the tech side though (for Inform 7), I am trying to to a dynamic little map on the side that displays where you are, and anybody else who wants to do this should be able to do something similar. My plan is to do it with just some javascript / html / css on the side that intercepts the status line to see where the player is.
I would prefer a more traditional IF game using Inform 7, TADS 3.1, or Adrift’s web capabilities. Also, the intent is for a small game that fits on a single browser page.
I’m less interested in a dynamic map and more interested in simply having a holistic experience on a single browser page, but that doesn’t preclude someone from making the map interactive.
I have a lot of ideas for this comp myself and the main theme in all of them is to develop a “target” for people who may want to create small IF games, playable in a browser, that would be perfect for casual play. The map is one thing we can do to shorten that gap between starting an IF game and continuing to finish it. If we make the map interesting, people will have an innate interest in seeing all locations and discovering all of the secrets within…
Here is a puzzle…all of the hints are right here…can you solve it!?
Thank you for your response, David. I think I begin to see what you’re driving at: This contest aims to generate the IF equivalent of the light “filler” games a group of board game players might play for a round or two in between rounds of much lengthier board games. So we shouldn’t just restrict the geographic scope (10 rooms), but the overall length of the game.
I would hope that inherently, with only ten rooms and an obvious map, the scope of the game would be limited. But the idea is to strike a balance. To find the sweet spot where someone knows they can solve the game in a short period of time, and yet there are interesting challenges to make it compelling.
I had in mind a very traditional sort of game. On the other hand, I really should be focusing on refining my PHPIF system right now anyway. Maybe next time, after you’ve had a chance to see what PHPIF looks like.
If you missed it, I just made a new Parchment branch the other day that allows the Z-Machine to run code and to get a response back. Check out the example code to see how to use it.