Quest 5.3 released

Quest 5.3 has now been released. You can download the Windows version or run it in your web browser.

Some new features in this version:

  • automatic map generation
  • web fonts
  • cover art
  • text effects
  • background images
  • changeable player “point of view” object
  • light and dark rooms and objects
  • automatic display verbs
  • new UI for Windows player (identical to the web-based version)
  • Windows player UI is now powered by Chromium

For full details on all of these, see the beta announcement which goes into more depth.

Many thanks to Phillip Zolla, Pertex, James Gregory, Aleksandar Hummel and Jay Nabonne for code and contributions towards this release.

Don’t forget, Quest is completely free and open-source software. If you want to get involved, please take a look at the CodePlex site where you can find all the source code and the issue tracker.

I’m working full-time on Quest again for at least the next few months, so hopefully you can look forward to some exciting new features and more announcements!

I was sad to see this. I personally think it’s uglier. I don’t suppose we can toggle back to the old look?..

One thing I really don’t like about it (apart from the proeminence of the buttons) is how my background colour doesn’t actually colour everything in the background (try it and you’ll see what I mean).

Apart from that - well done!

It may become prettier for v5.4 or v5.5 (I’m not a particular fan of the current look either, really). But now that the web and Windows UIs are unified, making one look nicer makes the other look nicer. Remember that the web version is used a lot more than the Windows version, so it made sense to make the web interface the one and only UI - this will also make it much easier for authors to customise the panes etc.

I think the panes in v5.2 were always the standard Windows colours anyway - but others have requested that the background colour setting affect more than just the text output background, so this one is already on the list for v5.4.

True, good thinking.

Truer, better thinking.

Here is a link to a quick test game (two rooms) to show what you can do with the new interface. You can type in certain colours to change the colour scheme on the fly.

play.textadventures.co.uk/v5/Play.aspx?id=986

Pixie: The yellow color scheme makes the input text invisible.