As people that saw my other post in the Getting Started section, I have recently got back into IF in a big way. So much so infact that only only do I want to start playing it again but I’m also thinking about writing my own too.
Therefore, I have been dabbling and attempting to learn Inform 7. Inform 7 seems to be the most widely used and most popular of the authoring programs out there. So I went with that. However, a few days ago, I found out about ADRIFT. I haven’t tried it but it looks good and seems very easy to use. Having said that, it doesn’t seem very popular at all. Can anyone tell me the reason for this?
The burning question is, when I come to start writing my own IF game, should I stick with Inform 7 or go with ADRIFT or even something?
Well, you didn’t say a thing about what you expect from an IF system; for example whether you like traditional programming and whether it’s important to you that the games can be played on platforms other than Windows, and/or on the internet.
You can get a good overview of the different systems here:
Sorry, I should have been more detailed in my question. I want the games to have the widest audience they can, so I would like them to be played on other platforms and on the internet if possible. I do like traditional programming but not when it gets in the way of the actual core design of the game. I have been fine with Inform 7s “plain english” approach so far. Although, I’ve only scratched the surface with it.
This is the sort of question that tends to lead to flames, so tread lightly.
Broadly, systems like I7, TADS 3 and Hugo take a bit more time to learn and require a moderate amount of programming aptitude; systems like ADRIFT and Quest are easier to use for non-programmers, but sacrifice power and flexibility.
All those platforms (except Hugo, I think) can run in web-based environments; ADRIFT and Quest are only supported on Windows, however. (There are interpreters that will run ADRIFT on other OSs, but they’re unsupported and unreliable.)
ADRIFT requires you to write the game on Windows, but you can use it to build games that are available on the web. Quest allows you to write and play games on the web.
