If you guys don’t mind terribly… (Or even if you do!) I seem to be having some kind of search dysfunction as of late. Searching for the appropriate tags turns up bupkiss, which means I’m either doing it wrong or there’s no combination of these tags available. (Or both.)
ifdb.tads.org/search?searchfor=t … arch+Games is what you want. The search field was:
tag:I7 source available tag:conversationProtip: don’t use commas in the search box.
If you’re interested in multiple choice conversations, you could also check my Fate.
No commas. But I saw an example somewhere on the site that implied I should use:
tag:I7 source available +tag:conversationWhich didn’t work. So I removed the + and it worked, which brought up the four games listed on your link. But I figure there’s gotta be more than that.
It’s just that the conversation tag is underapplied. I’d look through games with the source code available, most will involve conversation of some form or another. What kind of conversation system were you interested in implementing? Or were you just surveying the state of what has come before?
Well, I kinda want my overly ambitious WIP to be heavy on dynamic conversation. While the examples for conversation extensions are great, they’re somewhat limited in scope, as examples tend to be by necessity. So I’m looking to see what’s come before, what the result was and how it was done. I haven’t really settled on a style or a system, though I like the idea of a keyword-highlighted, node-based approach.
Been a while since I played it, but Alabaster definitely struck me a particularly strong way of writing conversation. The player can chat about whatever they like and conversation responses lead on to new and relevant suggestions about the direction of the conversation. Seems to combine the best of all worlds, and there’s scope there for tracking the mood of NPCs and varying responses accordingly if you want to do that sort of thing. Hitherto, I’ve only used traditional menu-based conversation. It’s relatively simple to code and the player doesn’t have to read the author’s mind to discover what topics are relevant. It’s also easy to create branching tree-like structures of conversation. But, you never get the joy of the player thinking up for themselves the correct thing to ask.
So very this. So much tagging to be done … (I tag often, but so many games …)
Well, this is not what you asked for, but it seems I have a need for beta testers of my Speech Motivations extension.
I would really love to hear your feedback.
eyeballsun.org/i/Speech%20Motivations.i7x
As JoeyJones pointed out, it requires Scope Caching:
I have this one on the list. I’ve been reading through the source code.
I will most assuredly have a look, sir, and provide whatever feedback I’m able from a novice’s point of view.
Is there way to find out what tags people are searching for, or using often, or interested in? I’m going back through games I’ve played and giving the “conversation” tag to ones that need it.
And then I saw Infidel. What’s the opposite of “conversation?” I gave it a “no NPCs” tag but I don’t know if there are similar tags used elsewhere.
There ought to be a “memorable npc” tag - She’s Got a Thing for a Spring and The One That Got Away both have great NPCs, but they’re not sidekicks. Is there anything like that?
Some other tags I created:
active NPC (inspired by Emily Short’s list)
complex NPC
hostile NPC
puzzlefest (there’s already a “puzzles” tag, but I’m not sure how it’s being used)
changing environment
You know what would be handy on ifdb? Some way to choose a particular tag and apply it to multiple games. Maybe polls should automatically show up as tags too?
The first one … not that I’m aware of (except perhaps to the site’s admin).
The middle one, yes. When tagging, there’s an option to show the most commonly-used tags (and a further option to show all of them).
The third one: right here, probably 
When you view the tag cloud, the tags are different sizes. This is a common and annoying convention for displaying tag clouds. The word “conversation” is rather large. Since it’s only actually appied to four games, I suspect that this is due to search traffic. Really only speculation, though.
Interesting. I wonder if it appears differently on different users’ pages?
From here, it’s of moderate/medium size, and is attached to a number games comparable to other moderate-sized tags.
Maybe it makes it bigger if it’s used very recently?
No, there are 27 games tagged with “conversation.” It’s just that only 4 of them are also tagged with “source.”
You’re right, of course.
It’s probably safe to say, then, that the size of the font is, in this case, indicative of the frequency of application.
I4L,
my game The Z-Machine Matter is still very much a work in progress (with lots of improvement needed). I implement a basic “ASK about / TELL about” conversation system using code from Jim Aikin’s Inform 7 Handbook and the Implied Conversers extension. (Though I don’t have that working 100%.) I also use Aaron Reed’s Player Experience Upgrade extension along with Exit Lister, Keyword Interface, Menus by Emily Short and a couple of other random extensions.
Although I have not published the source code, if it’s helpful to you I would be willing to share it in its current state. If you’re interested shoot me email to ZUrlocker at hot mail etc
–Zack
Alright, so here’s the basic rundown of what I’m looking to do:
- Have multiple conversation topics per NPC.
- Not drag the player forcefully down any conversational path, but not drop them in blind, either.
- Have different topics available at certain points in the conversation.
- Not have the NPC just repeat the same things for the same topics no matter what you’re talking about.
- Have the NPC refuse to engage in conversation unless certain criteria are met.
- Have the NPC refuse to acknowledge a certain topic unless certain criteria are met.
You know… things like that. I know that all of these points aren’t handled by a single extension (or in some cases by any extension at all). But I’m trying to avoid at all costs having the conversation look scripted or robotic.
Heck, you can do all of that with just plain old Ask/Tell and a well-stocked set of response tables (including some conditional stuff packed into the response strings).
Of my own WIPs, only one of them (one of the larger commercial ones) is “conversation-heavy,” and I’m doing this oddball thing with convo verbs, but I’m also supporting Ask/Tell and … I really don’t know why people are (often) so down on it. Ask/Tell has strong shoulders.
Well, now… see, that’s why I’m looking for examples and source code. To see how different people approach it and what would be the best approach for me.
Plus tables still confuse me.