So I know of TADS, but once it was downloaded, Microsoft gave me a warning it is not from their store or recognized and does not recommend me opening the file. Adrift was straight up denied from being downloaded on Microsoft Edge at all. The only one I can confidently use is Quest.
Is TADS and Adrift safe to use? Any others I could look into? Not interested too much into bare bones CYOA type games. Looking to make an IF like a MUD would play, (Anchorhead is a good example of the complexity I want) without the obvious being online part. I want the players to type the instructions into the system (although having onscreen prompts you can click, is not out of the question).
I know there are help sections directing you where you can find these things, but since I am having issues and specific requests, I hope it was alright to make a separate post.
Also while I am here, are there any IF game making programs that can be downloaded to the phone to create games? Quest allows you to use their website, but the online browser tool is not as robust as their actual downloaded tool. And the downloaded portion is only for the PC. Thank you.
Fabularium om Android according to its description “includes a simple integrated development environment (IDE) for creating your own Glulx, Tads 3 and Zcode games.” I have never tried that.
I have done some small experiments writing stories with Dialog and ScottKit on my phone, in Termux (app that gives you basically a full Linux terminal window). That works pretty well. Probably many other tools can run in Termux as well.
I can not find Fabularium on Android. Another post said it’s on F-Droid or something. Not sure why it is no longer an official app to download from the Play Store.
I also do not know. Just noticed. It was last updated 10 days ago, but looks like a new developer? Not sure what the status is. Have not used it in a while.
F-Droid is the recommended way to install Termux and I also use it to install some other apps, but not heavily into installing apps in general.
Fabularium on F-Droid is the updated version of Fabularium. The non-F-Droid version is older, and older programs do eventually fall off the mobile stores for security reasons (given that there are limits as to how much a user can upgrade security on a mobile phone in the standard setting, non-F-Droid Fabularium was doing pretty well to still be on there over 6 years after its last update).
Thank you to David A Roberts for doing the necessary update to keep Fabularium as a program that exists for people, and thank you Tim Cadogan-Cowper for giving us Fabularium in the first place.
For the record, getting a message about a piece of software not being “recognized” by Windows or MacOS just means that the developer hasn’t jumped through the gatekeeping hoops to identify themself to Microsoft/Apple (or, rather, a certificate authority that the OS trusts, idk the details), which is quite common for open source projects. It doesn’t necessarily mean the software is not “competent” or “safe,” just that you have to judge for yourself whether you trust the software, rather than relying on Microsoft to decide for you.
And it’s not like Apple, Microsoft, or Google putting their seal of approval on something is any guarantee of quality, especially since I would expect such certifications to have more to do with paying the fees the big tech companies wish they could force upon all devs wishing to target their platforms more so than any attempt at actual curation of quality software.
In dealing with the automated messages I received for the hiding of my former post, I lost an important post (I was hunting for refs when the automated message arrives) in another debate…
I was able to find old copies of Adrift and TADS3 on my PC, so I just reinstalled them, since they were safe the last time I had done so. I tried to find them several times in the past on my PC, but the search would go on for like half an hour or so, until I just ended the search. For what ever reason, I was able to locate them last night.
I looked into TADS3 and it looks like a bit more on the coding side of things. Adrift seems a bit more intuitive and of course Quest is pretty user friendly. Although each will need a tutorial to get to the meat of the creation tools.
I am still open to suggestions of other IF game creators if you have any more or any other pearls of wisdom. I will also take MUD creator tools as well. I only know of The Builder’s Academy TbaMUD.
I’d just re-up Inform 7, which Dannii mentioned above - if you’re interested in making a parser game, especially with robust systems along the lines of a MUD, you’re probably better off with one of the fuller-featured, better-supported languages, which would generally be Inform or TADS. And if TADS is feeling more code-y than you prefer, Inform’s natural language approach might be a better fit.
ADRIFT and Quest do see some games most years, but the communities and thus support tend to be smaller. Not to dissuade you if it turns out one of them is best for your needs, but it’s definitely worth adding Inform to your list to check out since in many ways it’s the path of least resistance.
Inform and TADS also have very full-featured IDEs, which are great if you’re coming at this from the perspective of a writer rather than a professional programmer. Adventuron also has its own IDE, and doesn’t require installing anything, but it’s deliberately less powerful as a language than Inform and TADS. (I think ADRIFT does too but I’ve never used it.)
[ADRIFT and Quest do see some games most years, but the communities and thus support tend to be smaller. Not to dissuade you if it turns out one of them is best for your needs, but it’s definitely worth adding Inform to your list to check out since in many ways it’s the path of least resistance.]
I also heard that because they are more user friendly, their games tend to be of lesser quality. But I wonder if it is just because it is easier to use, so more people try it out and publish “something”. While most veterans of the genre are using the older systems, even if the newer ones are more user friendly and just as powerful.
Quest you can code in it as well, if you know what you are doing. Which I do not. I had roaming guards in one and the following game would have had weather effects and time changes, thanks to the in-game options or the helpful community coders.
But I will look into Inform as well, presumably it’s free (◠‿◕)
That it is! The vast majority of IF development systems are now free, just because the prospective audience for them is so much smaller than a few decades ago—so there’s no real money to be made there any more. In fact, almost all of them are now specifically open-source; there are only a couple holdouts on that front now.
Reminds me of MUDs, only one or two are still holding out with money to be able to play their games. The rest are free, although some may have perks for support.
I was finally able to get F-Droid, although downloading that and any apps was like pulling teeth with my phone. It kept giving me multiple warnings. I found Fabularium and it seems to start the download process, but keeps giving me an unknown error at the end and never fully materializes on my phone screen or search bar. Or no warning and the sign to download is still available. I have been able to download other apps from F-Droid and use them, so F-Droid is working, but not Fabularium, unfortunately.