I’ve been messing around with writing interactive fiction for a number of years now, mostly in I7, but also with some Twine, a little bit of Quest (although the website was too slow for me to stick around), and Java (from scratch… only once). I want to learn TADS as well, if I can manage to find a copy of its source code that builds.
I’m currently working on my first “serious” project (one that I hope to release properly once I’m done – maybe enter it into ifcomp in a year or two). I’m much more confident on the programming side of things than on the game design side, so it might take me awhile to make my project into a convincing story, but I’ve been taking notes. : )
Player-wise, the first game I ever played was Colossal Cave Adventure; the most recent was Curses. I haven’t beaten either yet, but I’ve finished lots of others in the meantime. I enjoyed Dr. Ludwig and the Devil when I played it more recently.
Good luck finding your way through Curses. I’ve tried once or twice but I put it aside for when I find the time and dedication to push through.
Great to see you learning or just dipping your big toe in so many development systems. There’s a lot of combined experience on the forum, so if you have any questions about any of them, youy’ll probably find an answer here.
I’ve been here a couple of weeks but never actually introduced myself. I grew up with text adventures in the 80s on various 8-bit computers and eventually created a few of my own in BASIC. Recently I have entered the 2024 Spring Thing with Voyage of the Marigold, a game I had been kicking around in my head for a couple of years before it escaped.
I occasionally blog at https://sheep.horse/ because dot horse domains are too stupid not to be used.
I did look into FrobTADS, but the version on the website didn’t build properly and I hadn’t gotten around to trying to one on Github yet. But I just downloaded it and the installation seems to have worked correctly, aside from a few (ignorable?) error outputs during the installation process! Thanks for giving me the kick to actually get it working. Now to learn TADS…
Welcome Andrew. I just enjoyed and aced your Planet from Doctor Who or Hair Care Product Quiz. For my success I can thank my classic Who knowledge being good, and also, my ability to identify the garbagey spelling stratagems used by those who work in advertising being good.
This one ain’t for me I’ve only very occasionally watched any TV drama that commenced after the year 2000. I would always go and watch or rewatch a feature film instead. EDIT - Tried, got 8/20. Not bad considering some were just based on my knowledge of the subject matter of a show (e.g. Quantum Leap) and not on ever having watched it.
Hello all. Quite late to the party. Grew up playing Zork and Hitchhiker’s Guide. Lived some life.
Recently watched Get Lamp and wondered how far text adventures must have changed over the last few decades. So many games to play. So. Many. Games.
One of Plotkin’s quotes got to me. Basically he says, the first thing you’re going to type when you sit down to play is something the computer won’t understand. And your thought is: the author spent all their time on this. But really the author has a freight-train’s worth of assumptions about what you should already know and what the parser can do. And they’ve worked exceptionally hard to use it for particular effect for their particular story.
He ends with this:
It’s a total failure for newcomers.
I wish I had a fantastic story to tell you about how I’ve solved this problem. I do not.
Natural language is tremendously complicated and complex. Acknowledging that, why does it seem that parsers are still problematic for newcomers? (I’m probably just uninformed. Fill me in.)
Reading lots of pins and getting familiar with resources. If you have the-one-thing-I-wish-I-had-known-about-when-I-joined-the-forum and care to share it, I’d love to hear from you.
We talk about this All. The. Time. ALL the time. New opinions and ideas would be welcome.
I wish I’d known how genuinely nice and helpful everyone is. When I first got here I spent months worrying about the stupidity of my questions and squinting suspiciously at folks, waiting for the trap of meanness and ugliness of the internet to bite me. After a couple of years, I have to say that either this place is really as cool as it seems, or there’s a very long game being played.
ALERT: Forum member AmandaB is still displaying a positive attitude towards us.
The 7-year timer to trigger the 7-year hate cycle appears to be malfunctioning.
Corrective action imminent.
Most likely the latter. Just take the above sentence with a Matterhorn-sized mountain of salt. This forum is generally nice, helpful and encouraging, given how (relatively) supportive most people were when I reviewed their stuff for IF Comp, Seedcomp, etc. And how I playtested their stuff- they were kind and patient enough.
However, there can be cases where you can accidentally- given your good intentions- rub people the wrong way and things can turn out to be very nasty. I won’t give details but it did happen to me once. I wish that people could have been clearer with me about how they think and feel, perhaps. That is what I wished I had known about.
Edit: some stuff just should be under wraps for now. Anyway, this is the place to ask for reviews, playtesters and event organising volunteers.
As for why parsers are still problematic, sigh. Sometimes we have no idea what to do. Or what item to use, where to go, who to talk to…
I didn’t realize how small and tight-knit this community is, for what it’s worth. I’ve put my foot in my mouth on more than one occasion, but ultimately we’re all here because we share the same passion. You’ll never find a more supportive and enthusiastic group than with these fine folks here.
Bugs are purely evil. Ask for testers, ask for more testers, and check every nook and cranny of your game millions of times over. It’s hilarious how much you won’t find no matter how much you look.
Also, it’s recommended to check out ifdb.org for games that might interest you, browse polls or make your own, and have a lot of fun playing games! Also, lots of games I thought weren’t very fun at first, and then I tried them and they were some of my favourite games. Examples include Counterfeit Monkey (Emily Short), Fairest (@AmandaB), and most of all, Eat Me (Chandler Groover). Beginnings are the hardest to do well. Oh, and middles. And the ends of games.
Also, like most of the others said, we’re really all here to enjoy a close hobby that only a fair few love. Almost all of the time, this is the only hobby I’ve seen where people don’t let things such as “I don’t really like romance in general, so I’m giving this a 1” happen. The frequent reviewers (Brian, Mike, Rovarrson, and many many others) almost always I agree with their reviews.
Oh, and write what you like and don’t let the dislikers get in the way of it, as long as you’re well-intended in your meaning!
Hey everyone, I just wanted to express my excitement about joining here. Pretty new but I’m so loving this community already.
(I keep running out of likes, so I’m desperately logging on everyday trying to get Member!)
I’m Tracey.
FINALLY like-minded people! (There’s no hand-on-heart emoji so these will have to do: )
I love this too and will also take your word for it…
Bio
Just browsing this community, it’s like combining the best of game design and writing/storytelling, and I love it so much.
I have 7-8 hobbies that I like to switch my time between, with the first three being most frequent so far: computing, politics, writing, music, language learning (currently Russian), cooking, drawing, game design.
I’ve worked professionally as an iOS programmer and video content creator. I’ve written articles for and still do proofreading as a volunteer for a small dissident-revolutionary newspaper.
I briefly studied game design for 6 months or so but didn’t finish the course.
Project
I’m going to make a new topic for this and then link it here, because it got rather long.
I’ve only very occasionally watched any TV drama that commenced after the year 2000. I would always go and watch or rewatch a feature film instead. EDIT - Tried, got 8/20. Not bad considering some were just based on my knowledge of the subject matter of a show (e.g. 
)