Some of you love competitions. Here’s a novel one - The Eamon Micro-Adventure Contest: (note - I have no involvement with the organisation of this contest. I just saw it on planet IF):
eamon-guild.blogspot.com.au/2013 … ntest.html
A few observations from me: To write 10 or fewer rooms of Eamon using only the stock system is a different (and mostly easier) task than writing 10 rooms of regular IF off your own back, mostly because you don’t have to define any commands. In fact in this comp, you’re not allowed to define any new commands. So all the commands and types of things are already programmed. You just have to enter the data for your locations, the objects and NPCs. Having only 238 characters to describe each thing (at least on the Apple II) is an interesting discipline, though. Also, you’re writing the rooms to be part of a bigger unseen adventure, so you don’t need overaching puzzles or plot or purpose, etc. Just to create a small area.
There’s no source code to deal with. You run a Dungeon Designer program and choose commands from a menu, then fill in the details. EG ‘Add room’ - ‘enter short name’ - ‘enter description’. Though to know what some of the stats and things are, you may need to play an Eamon first to see how it works, and/or look at the designer docs. But there’s no programming language to learn.
- Wade