Having wanted to design text adventures for many years, I’ve finally begun to learn Inform 6.31 (based on the manual – Nelson’s 4th edition). I’ve already started designing a game that’s been mapped out for quite some time, so I’m hoping to submit it (somewhere) for the enjoyment of others, etc. I have no idea where I would offer a .z5 file upon its completion.
This is a terrific forum; are there any others I should sign up with as well? If you were me, are there any online coalitions or communities you’d become part of?
Thanks!
(And why not put a terribly egocentric plug in the signature while I’m at it…floggings will commence after midnight.)
The bulk of the community is at the Interactive Fiction “authoring” and “playing” newsgroups (rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction, respectively). You should be able to plug those into your newsreader, or if necessary, use Google Groups. Most of the people who post here also post there (plus many others who just aren’t keen on web forums).
The IFWiki is nice source of info: ifwiki.org/
You can start by browsing current events and community postings.
There are web forums set up elsewhere for the Hugo community and the Adrift community, as well as (I think) Spanish and Italian IF. You’re sure to find the links on the IFWiki or elsewhere though. This is the only active board I’m aware of for discussing all aspects of IF and all development platforms, except – of course – the newsgroups.
Most people complete their game, have it beta tested by a small number of players, and then upload the final version to the IF Archive: ifarchive.org/
Following that is usually a “new game” announcement to rec.games.int-fiction. Announcements are welcome here, too!
Right now, the annual IF Competition is in progress, so many of us are knee-deep in playing, judging, and sometimes reviewing the 29 entries. Quite a few people are already done, I guess.
Inform 7 is the successor to Inform 6, switching “coding” syntax for a sort of “natural language” syntax. It’s pretty popular (more information at the Inform official site – urhm… check IFWiki for the link). I just mention it in case you didn’t know. Many still use Inform 6. Many others have moved to 7.
Thanks very much for the response. Those links are endlessly helpful. I doubt my first story will qualify for the IFComp (assuming it’s supposed to take less than two hours to figure out all the puzzles; it’s about, say, a Zork III-sized game), but I’m excited about asking experienced IF people to play-test my initial effort, once it’s done. I’ve never joined a news group before, so I’ll just hope that this forum gets a bit busier over time.
I figured that it would be a good idea to learn all I can in Inform 6 first, and then perhaps “graduate” to 7 once I have a reference point whence to even discern the differences between the two, not to mention the advantages of the latter over the former. Thanks again for the assistance!
