Help needed

[Grueslayer]

Dear all,

sorry for the generic topic, but I hope to find help soon, and the thread can sink into oblivion then.

I am able to whip up simple code in Inform 6 and 7, but could someone please direct me to URLs for further reading on -

1. how to include pictures into a game
2. how to use a multiple choice system for dialogues, ideally supporting some sort of dialogue tree?

Thanks and kind regards,
G.

[mirality (Gavin Lambert)]

Chapter 23 is your first port of call for the first. If you’re targeting standard interpreters like Gargoyle and Git then that’ll just work. If you’re wanting to target web-based interpreters like Quixe then there’s a couple of extra conversion steps that the release process doesn’t yet do automatically.

The second question is trickier. There isn’t any multi-choice conversation system built into Inform, so you’ll need to find an extension that suits your needs.

I don’t personally use conversations much in the stories I’ve written, so I don’t have any personal recommendations. Having said that, a quick scan through the repository suggests that one of the following might be worth looking at closer:

• Threaded Conversation by Chris Conley
• Conversation Framework by Eric Eve (note this has some additional extensions with extra features as well)
• Threaded Conversation by Daniel Stelzer (this merges some aspects of both of the above)

Neither of these is a pure choice-menu-based conversation system, though, although they can provide suggestions for supported topics that could be sufficient. Perhaps someone else might have some other suggestions?

[HanonO (Hanon Ondricek)]

Another popular extension for choice menus in I7 is Hybrid Choices by AW Freyr. You can see it in action in many of Steph Cherrywell’s games like Zozzled and Brain Guzzlers.

Updated version linked in this thread:

Hybrid Choices version 7 not on-line?

I can’t seem to find it online either. It wasn’t in the IDE Public Library, but was downloadable from the online I7 website extensions page before they took it down when the site was updated. Here’s v7 if anyone else needs it. Hybrid Choices.i7x (65.9 KB)

[mirality (Gavin Lambert)]

Oh, also, regarding the actual display of graphics, you’ll probably want to start with an extension to help with that too (although it can be done purely as shown in Writing With Inform too, and you should read about the basics there first):

• Simple Graphical Window by Emily Short
• Location Images by Emily Short

You can get quite fancy with customising window layouts and placement, either separately from or building on top of these. It really just depends on what kind of images you’re wanting to use.

[rabbit]

Yet another option for dialogue trees is Michael Martin’s quip extensions. Reactable Quips lets you put a list of choices in the middle of a standard ask/tell system; Quip-Based Conversation lets you completely replace ask/tell with dialogue trees. Here are the most up-to-date versions of both:

Michael Martin's Quip Based Conversations

Here are the versions that I got working for use with Inform 6M62. Hope this helps. Quip-Based Conversation.i7x (15.9 KB) Reactable Quips.i7x (19.2 KB)

[Grueslayer]

Plenty reading material. Thanks a lot, folks!