I recently created a new tutorial for Adventuron based on a small “game” I created a while ago. The tutorial takes between 30 minutes and 60 minutes. Add on another 10 minutes if you want to export your game to ZX Spectrum Next.
Adventuron is an adventure authoring system. If you follow the tutorial, you will be able to see that.
Adventuron is a full-blown language. The editor runs in your browser and allows you to develop a game and test (or play) it at the click of a button. The editor includes syntax colouring, code hints, auto-completion and so on, just like any modern integrated development environment (IDE). When you’ve finished developing your game, you compile it to a single HTML file. The compiled file includes the Adventuron interpreter and your game data. Anybody can then play your game on any device that has a browser, including mobile phones, although games with graphics don’t leave much room (if any) for the text once the phone’s virtual keyboard takes up half the screen real estate.
There are lots of Adventuron resources out there if you care to look. This tutorial is one of several that Chris has prepared. If you follow the tutorial, you can see what Adventuron is and how to use it.
At the time of writing, at least 85 games have been published using Adventuron. There have been four game jams on itch.io. The most recent one had 7 entries and is currently going through the judging phase. There are 6 days left for judging. Most of the games are very good. When you consider that some of the games are written by first-time authors, that is very high praise indeed for Adventuron.
Most definitely. Natively, it supports English and Spanish, but providing the grammar is similar to English, I don’t see why other languages can’t be supported. In the themes section, you can override all the predefined system messages. Some verbs like GET, DROP, INVENTORY, SAVE and LOAD are hard-coded, but these can be supplemented by your own. Languages like French, German, Italian, Portuguese and so on should be easy to do.
It’s not so easy and obvious, especially for the French. There is, to my knowledge, no simple way to translate the directions of the compass: north, south, east etc… But this is a detail, because there are other problems related to syntax and grammar which are difficult to solve, for predefined system messages, if you are a bit demanding with that.
I think Garry was right that most system messages are easy to redefine, but language support (currently) has to be supported at system level (as Spanish is).
A French translation is on the way, and I’ll aim to have it in place in the few weeks.
I disagree with you and Garry. All messages with ‘${entity}’ are problematic because of the definite, indefinite and quantifying articles in the French language.
Translation with a language like Inform 6 is complex and not always satisfactory. Just because it says it can be, doesn’t mean it is. Yet this language offers many more possibilities than Adventuron.
I don’t necessarily think that ${entity} is destined for bad article representation in French. There will be bespoke code for French to ensure this is correct, because each supported language is not just a lookup table of messages but a whole host of parser settings and textual presentation decorations.
indefinite/quantifying and definite articles in French, and their uses:
"" "" # 0 Julia
"une " "la " # 1 pomme / apple
"un " "le " # 2 dé / dice
"des " "les " # 3 pommes / apples
"de la " "la " # 4 confiture / jam
"du " "le " # 5 sucre / sugar
"une " "l'" # 6 orange
"un " "l'" # 7 oeuf / egg
"de l'" "l'" # 8 eau / water
For each supported language, objects that are defined with articles have a formula applied to transform from indefinite to definite articles plus adventuron lets them be set manually.
I’ll let you know once the first French version is available. For sure it will need refinement.
Adventuron tells me that foreign-language support is more complicated than I realised. It sounds like he’s working on French support, then possibly Italian. Auraes would be a good one to test the French version.
If you yell loud enough, I’m sure you can get German support thrown in too.
As for me, I’m hanging out for the Australian version.
I’m not so sure about that. I have experience translating the Inform 6 library into French, and I am aware of the many problems that will fall like a hailstorm. I’m not sure I want to, or have time for this.
I have faith in you, my friend. I believe French is your native language, you are a good tester and you’ve written games in Adventuron. That’s a good combination for testing the French version when it becomes available.
objects {
mouse : object "* A tiny mouse" at = "loc9" ;
key : object "* A silver key" ;
axe : object "* An axe" at = "loc5" ;
mother_1 : scenery "* Mother is here" at = "loc3" ;
children : object "* The Children, Peter and Mary, are here." at = "loc12" ;
giant : scenery "* The --- G I A N T ---" at = "loc11" ;
egg : object "* The GOLDEN EGG" at = "loc11" ;
bean_1 : object "* A bean" at = "loc3" ;
bean_2 : object "* A giant beanstalk" ;
door_1 : scenery "* An open door" ;
door_2 : scenery "* A broken door" ;
mother_2 : scenery "* Mother is here holding the GOLDEN EGG." ;
mother_3 : scenery "* Mother is here with THE CHILDREN." ;
}
) of translations?