I’m just getting into Inform 7 and just wanted to share how excited I am about it!
I’m an experienced software developer who’s working on making a Discord alternative, and I’ve written my own game engine, while my bros are working on making their first games with it. Stories are one of me and my bros favorite things, too.
I tried Inkle years ago and thought it was quite fun to play around with, but got a little more annoying once I needed a larger state space and while I had the start to a funny game / theme, I never continued with it.
A week ago, though, I had an interesting dream, and unlike most dreams which I wake up thinking it could make a cool story, this one was actually good, and my brothers confirmed.
That morning I started looking for interactive fiction tools before finding Inform 7. I had no idea how different it coud be from the simpler multiple-choice style I had played with in Inkle.
The way that you you could just type, like, anything that made sense in the game was so cool! And the way that Inform let you just describe this kind of simulated world was insane.
Me and my bros started playing Bronze which is fun, and we’re realizing that lots of our story ideas might be great as an IF, if not for a final version, as a kind of intermediate form before doing a more complete video game later.
Not sure how far we’ll go with this, but super excited about the possibilities.
I will say, though, that Inform 7 is far from the only parser-based IF system. It looks like natural language, but it too has a syntax you need to learn. While I love Inform 7, it’s not for everyone, and programmers especially tend to like more code-looking systems.
I’d recommend also checking out Inform 6 (different language, not just a different version), TADS, Adventuron, and Dialog. All of these have the same interaction style you’re looking for, but they approach creating and manipulating the world in different ways.
But if you’re happy with Inform 7, by all means, keep creating!
Hehe, yeah, there definitely is a bit of a learning curve, but I’m having fun with how “normal” it is to read, even when you don’t know how to write it.
I’ve got a lot of programming work lately, so I’m actually happy for the change of pace.
Thanks for the recommendations for other ones to try, too! Will very likely check those out.
Hehe, yeah. The game idea I had in mind has you and many NPCs tranforming into different animals, so it kind of jumped right into some of the more interesting stuff.
I’m very impressed with the way that Inform 7 has managed to pull of it’s particular form of simulation. It’s quite unique compared to anything else I’ve seen before.
I will second that. I’ve been a programmer for decades. Inform 7 is powerful, both object-oriented and rule-based. It is not intuitive though, despite the natural language facade. It gets trickier quickly as you get into the deeper stuff.
