What are you up to these days in regards to your current project? I am still working on my first Inform 7 game (not first interactive fiction, as I’ve used Twine before) and I am about to continue working on the cover art.
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I’m taking a break from coding for a few weeks to help beta test an IF work.
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Progress has been glacial, due to external stressors, but I’m remaking the entire build system for IF-Octane [1] and porting everything to Typescript.
The most recent change was moving the asset bundling system to RAM, to avoid having it on disk. It was only using the harddisk earlier because the build system used to be run from a bash script, which was just a proof-of-concept file, written before I knew about RAM disks.
IF-Octane is my web-based, work-in-progress, text+audio, IF engine ↩︎
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Awaiting beta-tester feedback! And working on various little quality-of-life improvements, with lots and lots of regression testing to make sure I don’t break anything.
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I just “finished” some substantial revisions to a key part of my IFComp entry. I need to have my ultimate beta tester (my wife) run through that section again, but then I think I am “done”. If that’s true then within the next 24 hours I’ll make the final build and upload it to the competition site!
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Not even close. Everything is broken, so I’m just trying to see how well everything works in my game. I have zero progression that means anything.
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I’ve sort of retreated into a writing project- mostly by hand when the going’s good, and when things taper off a bit in terms of the writing muse, taking that time to transcribe it into a Scrivener file. I know that roughly a page in the size and spacing of my handwriting is about 250 words in the journal, (of which I have several, plenty of pens, and oodles of ink to plough through), so it helps with eyeballing progress.
I’ve recently figured out an accountability system that works better for me, and have been enjoying it paying off so far. It’s mostly composed of adding elements that I actively enjoy and look forward to, and focusing more so on positive re-inforcement than negative. I’ve been quite ill over the last while, so taking things generally easy. Still pleased with the progress I have made.
It’s really something special to see it all sort of cohere together. Writing by hand is both more productive for me, but also more of a delight to be able to hold your draft in your hands immediately, and seeing the pages stack up and the words scrawl on. Helps to remove a lot of the paralysis by way of the daunting empty page.
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I changed from IF to my other programming projects for now, and have uni things to work on. I don’t know if it would still qualify as IF, but most of my ideas are a better fit for text-based RPGs.
One of the big ideas definitely requires me to move away from JS/TS though, it’s essentially a parser RPG where an entire small kingdom worth of people are simulated, and you can interact with everyone. Kind of like Dwarf Fortress adventure mode, but in text and with more features.
And to that end, I’m working on a 2D drawing and UI library in Rust now, because Rust is fast and overall a nice language, but with absolutely atrocious existing UI libraries. The only few good ones focus exclusively on web. And I’ll use that to build my RPG engine. So expect a working prototype in about 5 years lol.
Oh, and I may or may not make my own scripting language for it, so add another 1 or 2 years in that case…
I have a similar experience with my general programming projects: When I just write code and have nothing to run/nothing that changes, I lose my motivation more quickly. But as soon as I have proof that it “does something” (be it a text output, graphics, or just one colored pixel), my motivation is back. Now I try to get to a MVP ASAP in my new projects, because I really like all the ideas I have and would like to do them eventually, not doing another short try every few months with no real progress.
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Getting back into working in Inform 7 after taking a break to work on a game for a comp using Inform 6/PumyInform. Honestly the time spent reading the DM4 manual has made Inform 7 make a lot more sense.
2/3 on the Choice entry, roughly on-timetable, much behind with the parser-based one, perhaps the latter will be retired 
Afterward, I think that my judging will be limited, because of my timetable for Isekai 
but an effort for at least a dozen or score of votes will be done.
Zoe: you can elaborate on how the DM4 gives to you lot more sense on Inform 7 ?
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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ACK! Major problems with redone section. Frantic coding today.
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Most creative thing I’ve done lately was building on some old C++ code to create my Avatar and the programmatically generated images I shared in the Mathematician’s thread, and haven’t really touched that since my last post there.
Need to metaphorically get off my arse and dedicate at least an hour or two daily to creative things instead of spending all day, every day mostly surfing the web and playing around with an offline LLM.
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Solved my problems and waiting to conduct user testing on the fixes.
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Today I have finally reached a status in my IF that can be properly tested.
Unfortunately, I didn’t make life very easy for myself, because I support different modes in the game: German + English, text input, multiple choice, voice input. There are also various display options for text. As a result, I have to do a lot of testing myself before I release a version to the public. And I miss something highly embarrassing every time. 
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I did a thing.
It uses the Classic Console Neue font to draw pseudographics. I will be using it in the interpreter as well (embedded in the web one) meaning I will have graphics without having to do graphics.
Still need to make saving/loading to/from text file so I can work on it during multiple sessions, but it works and generates proper Inform code. Requires one to use Classic Console Neue font in the interpreter though.
//edit: It’s done. May upload it if anyone is interested. If you wish me to upload it, please say so.
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Wow. Playing through again and found two bugs (so far) that don’t affect play, but generate some seriously wrong text.
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cooling down after the editing work on my IFComp entry; looking back to many messing/learning testbeds (testing & xperimenting ideas & coding don’t require decent enough english…) for a pair of days, then back to Isekai work. (coding around a WIP in parallel with IFComp judging… perhaps some 'Comp entrants will get their due CREDITS for nifty ideas ? 
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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Uploaded my final version to the IFComp site, plus a walkthrough.
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Trying to distract myself from IFComp by working on my next game, probably aiming at a competition next year. I’ve been brainstorming on the computer, in Ulysses on my Mac, and iPad. But I also like handwriting ideas, with fountain pen in hand. I have bought a nice new notepad just for this game! Haha.
Luckily for me I started my IFComp game early, and finished it ahead of the deadline. So I’m not having to worry about coding up to the last minute. But it’s hard not to think about it. I slightly freaked out at the latest comp organiser email a few hours ago. Totally unnecessarily, but I’m clearly on edge!
But yes, trying to distract myself with writing a new game. Which has an autumnal theme, so it’s maybe the best time of year now for me to be starting working on it … So far I’ve got some initial notes and structural ideas. But I’m a way off getting going on any coding. For now it’s brainstorming and pondering.
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