Inform 7 Compatible with "The thing" I've been working on?

Authoring Inform 7
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Hello, I am a newcomer here intending to migrate 1/3 of an IF I’ve being working on since last month on a chinese website to Inform 7, because the old website was gonna be taken down.
I have read some documentations and tutorials of I7 but did not find my answer, and I don’t really want to take hours and hours in learning a new thing just to find out it simply won’t work.
I’m not sure if my questions posted below have been answered by some other posts, sorry if it seemed redundant, but here they are.

The biggest question:
I know at this point I7 does not interpret Unicode/Mandarin characters, but will they recognize, say,
“房子” is a room, and simply treat “房子” as one variable? And when the game is played it can be displayed all in Mandarin? Are those features currently being working on and so I should simply wait for the next update?

For context, the IF maker I used previously primarily uses JS language, I’m new to coding, but the functions provided are simple enough to implement things like:

  • Show multiple lines of texts, each assigned several seconds to read before proceeding to the next.
  • Display game in a list/conversation manner so the context does not disappear after entering a new scene. (I’m guessing this one depends on where I release or upload the game? )
  • Save point and restore saved files.
  • Character and enemy profile as well as dice-based combat
  • Hiding or revealing certain options after some condition is fulfilled, new secrets revealed by revisiting same places for multiple times
  • Roll message across the screen

Also some interesting codes that allows one to have the text printed by characters/built-in progress bar/flashy texts

The game I was working on was something inspired by liminal space and House of Leaves…that I intended to finish and just have it played among my friends. I blued the phrase “house” in my scripts too it’s quite fun.
Most importantly, since Inform got the built in feature of room and spaces, along with quite some degrees of freedom within it, I feel like I should start with I7 instead of Twine or other IF languages.

But as I said, will I be able to implement most of the features I have described above to I7 with solvable difficulties, or might you guys point out to me some other development system that would be a better fit?

P.S. Would you guys recommend some HoL inspired games, that’s just exploration of unsettling and constantly shifting environment… using I7 or other languages, that I might get a look on what I will be available to do?

Thanks in advance.

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The last time I heard, Inform 7 will add the functionality you need in the next update or two (the creator accepted a pull request to allow this). TADS 3 already allows it.

For the games like House of Leaves, I’d include the game Map: Map - Details

It’s about a house that gets bigger every day and includes memories of the past.

There is also Shrapnel: Shrapnel - Details

It starts with a house like Zork but then it lays with time and space.

Your work sounds fun!

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Yeah, being able to handle non-Latin scripts is something that’s been wanted for a long time and was very recently accepted (like within the last week or two), so it should be in the next release.

Unfortunately we don’t know when that release will be. But soon, hopefully!

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This is not in the current release, but it will be in the next release.

(You wouldn’t use quotes around a room name, but just 房子 is a room. will work.)

Show multiple lines of texts, each assigned several seconds to read before proceeding to the next.
Roll message across the screen
Also some interesting codes that allows one to have the text printed by characters/built-in progress bar/flashy texts

Inform doesn’t support this sort of thing natively. It has a pretty abstract notion of “the output”, because games have to run on so many platforms.

There’s a plugin called Vorple which lets you apply Javascript/CSS effect to Inform game output. Then you can do any of those tricks. Vorple games are limited to running on a web page, though – exactly because they uses JS/CSS.

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I’m gonna check them out, they looked very well-made, thank you!

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I’ll look into it, thank you! At this point might just write the scripts on Word and wait till I7 got that update rolled out…

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