Inform7 and looping background music in an executable?

Authoring Inform 7
1

Hello all.

New to IF development other than an adventuregame I build on the c64 in my teens around 1987 or so.

I am in the process of writing a testgame using Inform7. I would like to have some looping background music, and I have tried using Vorple to do so, for some reason it does not play in the inform7 IDE (perhaps I need another interpreter to play with music?).

Also, is it possible to build a standalone game executable using inform7, with looping music?

Best,
Martin

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You are correct that the Inform IDE won’t run all the features of Vorple.

Have you included this in your code?

Release along with the "Vorple" interpreter.

That will produce a website interpreter to run your program, but it’s a little more complicated than just opening the site because Vorple programs need to be online to work.

For final release you can just upload the game somewhere like itch.io, but for testing Vorple-only features you will need to set up a local server. There are instructions to do that here: Setting up a local server for Vorple · Vorple.

(I really don’t know what I’m doing, but these instructions are complete enough to get me through the whole process!)

I don’t know the answer to your second question, about the standalone executable.

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I made some time ago a boilerplate to package a Vorple game into a stand-alone executable (with Electron). It’s not too difficult to use but not trivial either if you’re not used to the JavaScript ecosystem.

However, it hasn’t been updated in a long time, so it’s not usable right now. I plan to update it this year, if you can wait.

(If your story is ready to be published now, tell me so that I put updating the boilerplate higher in my priorities.)

I don’t think there are other ways than using Vorple to publish a story with sounds into an executable.

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Thanks! I did download the nginx server, but had not gotten to the point of setting it up alone figuring out why I needed this. I am gradually starting to connect the dots. I will setup the server on localhost and test it with Inform7 & Vorple.

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Sounds absolutely great. Don’t worry too much about it being right now, I still have a long way to go with my game, at least a couple of months. It’s just a small world at the moment with 25 rooms and a couple of objects. I still need to research on how to make puzzles, use items and doors. I am basically trying to figure out if Inform7 is the way to go before I commit to a full fledged, polished game. The language is very intriguing, but strange even for an old programmer… I am starting to get used to it though and it’s great fun learning.

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