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Good IF is largely a matter of taste - as in, what suits yours? That and good writing, since words are pretty much all you have to go on. Personally, I've got very little patience for the old Infocom games. I don't like games where I can accidentally put myself into an unwinnable position and not realise it until hours later (Christminster, I'm looking at you). Since I play games for the storylines I prefer the more forgiving trend in modern IF, where the question isn't so much 'can you reach the ending?' as 'you're going to get an ending; but which one?' Although there's a healthy share of crap in that category too. When I was getting back into IF a few years ago someone recommended that I play Shade (apparently some sort of modern classic) and the experience was like pulling teeth. Getting to the end of Shade isn't hard; it's just tedious and not even remotely worth it. If I hadn't also been playing Galatea and Savoir Faire I would probably have binned the whole idea in disgust. (Play Galatea and Savoir Faire.) But forget that negativity: here are some of my favourites.
If you're new to IF I'd recommend 9:05, Violet, and Gun Mute -- they're all short enough to polish off in your lunch break, and well-crafted too. Blue Lacuna and Counterfeit Monkey are the longest, and Lost Pig and WTWLA in between. Violet and Lost Pig are straight-up comedy, Counterfeit Monkey and 9:05 have an undercurrent of humour, and the others are all pretty serious. And I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention something about Sub-Q Magazine -- they publish IF on a regular basis, although it's less PUT BREAD IN TOASTER and more like short stories with a non-linear reading map. One of these days I'll write something I can submit to them, but they've got a max word count of 3500 (more or less) and that's really short. Or maybe I'm really prolix. Either way.
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Feb 4, 2016 00:04
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MinibarMatchman posted:Semi-related to the subject at hand: have been messing around with Twine 2.0 for a month or so, not sure if Twine is the route most of these authors have taken but I was wondering if there were better alternatives? The documentation, wiki, and bug reports for Twine are insanely unkempt. As a program with technical documentation, it's just awful trying to figure out how and why a thing is broken or if it will ever get fixed. A little late to this, but if you need help with Twine 2 I might be able to lend a hand. You're right that it's nowhere near as documented and supported as Twine 1, but you can do a lot with it if you're willing to deal with its built-in predelictions.
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Feb 5, 2016 20:52
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gandhichan posted:I went on a choicescript binge last summer and found the platform pretty fun and accessible. They're multiple choice and the language allows for some pretty insane branching, so it's always surprising to dig into a game's code after you've beaten it to see all the content you missed. Choice of the Deathless is amazing. There are also novels set in the same world, and a sequel! Highblood posted:Are there any games that fit more into the RPG genre? I'm thinking like a MUD except singleplayer. I've always liked MUDs but they are all severely lacking in story, usually depending on player interaction for actual fun. So any text adventures with stats and equipment and what not? I don't know of any, no... *adds to the list of things to make*
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Feb 5, 2016 22:11
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The Inform 7 documentation these days is incredibly detailed. I think the natural language angle actually hurts it a bit, as the more you know about programming the harder it becomes to find out how to duplicate things that you could normally do in your sleep, but none of the problems I've had with it have been with the documentation.
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Mar 2, 2016 16:41
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Megazver posted:The Ice-Bound Concordance is interactive fiction with a difference. The RPS review: I am filled with desire. Sadly, I am not also filled with money. It'll have to wait until payday.
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Mar 2, 2016 23:05
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I haven't listened to the podcast but I've read the documentation on the language - it looks a lot like a beefed up Choicescript, which is no bad thing, but I'm not clear on how you turn your conversation engine into an actual game. Do you have to code your own front end in Unity? E: I Tweeted them and asked. Yes, you have to code your own Unity front-end. The question I face now is "Do I want to learn Unity as well in order to use this language, or shall I try to crowbar this new idea into Twine?" potatocubed fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Mar 12, 2016 |
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Mar 12, 2016 00:28
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potatocubed posted:I am filled with desire. It turned out my piggy bank was filled with money, so I bought a copy of the Ice-Bound Compendium. It arrived today, I started playing Ice-Bound Concordance about two hours ago, and I love it. I don't think I'll have a proper grasp of it until I try another playthrough (or maybe three or four) because my inner author is forcing me to keep to a limited set of themes rather than branching out wildly into whatever seems interesting, but it's extremely polished, technically brilliant, and utterly compelling. I care a lot less about the 'AI realising it's a real boy' plot than I do about just telling the stories, but that's going to be enough to keep me hooked for a good long while. I got my copy of the book through Amazon US, which was both cheaper and faster to the UK than I'd imagined it would be. Maybe worth a look for Australian IF fans?
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Mar 16, 2016 22:37
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Megazver posted:I like Python as well. I just wouldn't write IF in it, unless if it was for the sake of learning Python. I was going to say, it looks like the main advantage of Tale is that it lets you learn Python while you tool around on your IF project. Speaking only for myself, I find it a lot easier to learn a new skill when I have a concrete end goal in mind. (I got my first Python experience trying to code a roguelike many years ago.) Megazver posted:Incidentally, I decided to get off my rear end and write something myself. Wrote a small piece in Twine. It turns out to be very easy to write in. I'll post it when I finish editing. Twine is currently my favourite IF development tool because it's so easy. It's not ideal for everything -- puzzly parser-based IF is better written in Inform or TADS, I think -- but if you're trying to do something CYOA-like it's an excellent starting point. My current project is kind of sprawling and huge, but I'm aiming to have it complete enough to enter into the IFComp this year. E: And yes, I swear the CSS on Dragonslayer took longer than writing the whole rest of the game. But that's because I didn't know anything about CSS when I got started.
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Mar 17, 2016 09:42
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Accurate simulation of fatherhood 10/10.
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Mar 17, 2016 09:46
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Yeah, I started a project for last year's Adventure Jam (Cat Carter And The Really Awful Hotel) but I realised pretty fast I was never going to get it done in two weeks. Hell, in two days I only managed to code 1) a bucket and 2) how to make sure that the player is always wearing one shirt, but never more than one shirt, while still allowing them to change shirts. But maybe I could knock out something smaller? It's tempting... potatocubed fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Mar 17, 2016 |
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Mar 17, 2016 10:45
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Megazver posted:I haven't checked it out yet, but I heard Ink is very similar. If you're someone who can use Unity, it's probably a better option. Yeah, if you read the user guide for Ink it looks like it works a lot like Choicescript. You just have to write your own front-end and sell it yourself.
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Mar 17, 2016 15:21
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Megazver posted:They have their own house style. They use the Branch and Bottleneck structure instead of an Open World one like Fabled Lands does. That's not really good or bad. That said, I am getting a little tired of it, yes. That link led me to this Twine game which I really enjoyed.
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Mar 17, 2016 16:33
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Megazver posted:Looking at that list, Chandler Groover's game at the very least is probably worth trying, he's been doing great work. Well... that was a twist I wasn't expecting. E: Although it's done the usual thing that playing good IF has done and killed my motivation to work on my thing stone dead. Why even try to compete?
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Apr 7, 2016 10:17
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John F Bennett posted:Well, if you enjoy creating IF and you can deliver something that's finished, why not compete? Eh, it's all just the way I process things. In the end: 
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Apr 7, 2016 12:56
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Meanwhile, I'm really missing the ability to iterate through unordered arrays (datamaps) in Twine. I'd be tempted to jump to that Python-based system mentioned up-thread but I'm 8000 words in so like hell I'm changing systems now.
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Apr 8, 2016 10:22
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I'm pretty certain I've defended Inform's documentation here before, but now I've gone back to actually using it I've changed my mind.  For example, here's my current situation and the solution I've come up with: I want the player to be able to stand in the bathroom and fill a bucket with water from the taps. The command is 'FILL BUCKET WITH WATER'. The bucket's all set up. Standard container, works just fine. 'Filling with' is also set up as a new verb. Again, works just fine. But you can't fill the bucket with water, because nothing called 'water' exists anywhere in the world, so when you type the command Inform just rejects it out of hand. This is important, because it does so before it checks the filling with rules so I can't even intercept it and create my desired end result. You can check this by running your story in Inform and typing RULES ON as a special command. Trying to interact with things that aren't present doesn't trigger any rules at all -- it just straight fails. So I make an item called 'some water' and stash it Nowhere. Turns out that Inform also rejects noun-oriented commands out of hand if the object isn't in the same location. So I put the water in the bathroom. Now you can fill the bucket with it, but you can also see it in room item listings. So I make it scenery. Which means you can still interact with it - 'X WATER' in the bathroom lets you look at the water - but at least it's not listed so people might not think to do that. Except now it can't move to the bucket because you can't put scenery in a container. You also can't have two objects with the same name, so I can't have water-the-object and water-the-scenery, which would otherwise solve this problem (in conjunction with some instead rules). I could work around this with the printed name instruction, but that produces its own oddities. So I spend an hour last night loving around with rulebooks, trying to create an item which exists only as a placeholder name so the god drat interaction rules will fire. No joy. Then today, I hit upon the answer! While the player is in the bathroom, Inform treats any reference to the word "water" as "taps".  The taps are scenery already, and trying to fill the bucket with them triggers the filling with rules -- so I can intercept that call and move the water object into the bucket. This also means that FILL BUCKET WITH TAPS will also fill the bucket with water, which is a very minor side benefit of this arcane setup.I'm sure there's a better way of doing this, probably using rulebooks somehow, but hosed if I know what it is.
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Apr 15, 2016 13:35
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SimonChris posted:You can't have two objects with the same object name, but you can have several objects that can be referred to by the same word. Like this: Aha! I knew there had to be a way of doing it I wasn't aware of, thank you.
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Apr 17, 2016 21:59
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In case people other than me were waiting for this, Inkle have written a something that lets you plug ink right into Unity, and a sample game that shows you how it all goes together. I'd have given it all a test drive, but I'm at work and IT would frown on me trying to install Unity on my PC. http://www.inklestudios.com/ink/
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Apr 26, 2016 11:02
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I'm interested. My take is that a puzzle in CYOA is more along the lines of 'can you interpret the clues in the text and pick the right answer from the ones supplied?' whereas a puzzle in parser-based IF is more 'can you put these things and those things together in a way that makes sense?' I suppose both reward close reading of the text in their own ways. I've got a sort of half-started experiment in Twine where I'm trying to replicate the discovery of 'secret areas' by having some css formatting on certain links that makes them look just like regular text. I have no idea if this is a good idea or not.
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Jun 3, 2016 08:17
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I have declared my intent to enter IFComp this year. ...now to finish my game. (Any other goons entering? Thinking of entering? You've got until the 28th of September to actually finish something!)
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Jul 1, 2016 08:48
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Doing it in Twine, since it's a branching narrative rather than a puzzly puzzler. I have a couple of puzzly game ideas half-constructed in Inform too, but now is not the time for second thoughts.
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Jul 1, 2016 10:42
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Lost Pig was an excellent choice. If you like short and comedic, I'm also a fan of Violet. Although the comedy's a different style to Lost Pig, so.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:55
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I played and rated a random selection so I feel my duty is done. I liked To The Wolves and the one about tripping balls at Burning Man, despite feeling nothing for disdain for Burning Man as a concept. Which other ones are people enjoying?
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Oct 6, 2016 11:30
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rumble in the bunghole posted:What's a good app for doing text adventures on an Android phone? Everyone talks about FROTZ but it's not on the store or anything. I'm using something called 'Text Fiction'. It's not spectacular, but it works.
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Oct 7, 2016 08:27
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I was going to enter, but my project was waaaaaay too ambitious for the time I had. My plan is to have something ready for the Spring Thing instead.
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Oct 12, 2016 23:18
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Lichtenstein posted:I've been on a bit of an Inkle binge and am craving good CYOA recommendations! I'm a huge fan of Choice of the Deathless. And the Kindle books it's based on. (Max Gladstone, if you're interested.) In a more traditional IF vein, I also love Counterfeit Monkey.
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Nov 15, 2016 11:27
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Go for it. The IFComp sees some amazing stuff and some absolute garbage so if you can place somewhere in the middle you'll be doing fine. I was going to enter last year but my project spiralled out of my grasp and there was no way I was going to be able to get it done in time. I've got something smaller in scope in mind (and 50% completed) for the Spring Thing though.
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Feb 1, 2017 10:21
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In less exciting news, I finally finished brevity quest and stuck it in the Spring Thing this year. So far it's got a glowing two-and-a-half stars on IFDB, which seems about right.
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Apr 25, 2017 15:57
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