The Interactive Fiction Archive (2019) | Hacker News Reader

The Interactive Fiction Archive (2019)

ifarchive.org

101 pointsrolph24 comments

(Meta: I wonder if the (2019) suffix really makes much sense here? On one hand, the site says "since 1992"; then, in theory, the front page has a "last modified (...) 2019", but this is really only about the front page's content itself; and it's a front to an archive/database that is actively updated IIUC - would it make sense to link to wikipedia.org adding a suffix of when its front page was last modified? @dang?)

when i post suffix i use square brackets, i didnt use a suffix here as it is an archive thus covering historic material, or composed of factual information that is not expected to change or be revised. there is probably some tool for pulling a pages last update time, but where to put it in the mechanics of article submission?

wikipedia.org doesnt seem to have an entry for IFarchive.org but has a number of backlinks to IFarchive.org resources

The annual IFComp short interactive fiction competition just released the awards for this year's competition: https://ifcomp.org/comp/2021 I haven't played anything from this year yet, but from years past they are always a fantastic set of IF to explore.

This website would benefit from having an embedded dos box emulator so we can just run those files in the browser!

They link to playable versions on ifdb.org

yes, this is my vastly greater preference, running the original version.

i have bias against browser basing every thing, when we already have perfectly good desktops. the code for most "IF" is small and suitable for the functions a browser is capable of performing, but i just dont trust browsers as a consumption device. im older than dirt so i work with files locally, isolated from internet environment.

Fascinating. How does one go about writing one of these in 2021? Do analogs to Unity/Unreal Engine exist for interactive fiction, or are people rolling their own?

You can probably start with simple text console program that doesn't need any graphics.

Second step can be ASCII style graphics added to it.

Then you can do already something like The Hobbit with 2D graphical backgrounds.

I don't think you need Unity or the like for any of it.

It would probably be akin to writing a shell interpreter for the input at least.

>It would probably be akin to writing a shell interpreter for the input at least.

Nah, Inform6 and the library gives you all: the parser, interpreter, prompt, verbos and objects. And it's free as in freedom.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-tools-to-create-your-own-tex...

Writing your own is, of course, an option, but don't underestimate the task. A "simple" POC is usually very easy (my son and I did one in an afternoon). But building an engine with block-able exists, recursive containment, item interaction (eg. "turn bolt with wrench" and the custom functions they need), can be a much larger effort.

It can end up being a lifetime of work :)

Inform7 is a natural language based system for programming interactive fiction. http://inform7.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCUMM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TADS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glulx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform

For the choose-your-own-adventute type of story Inkle's Ink language & editor is really nice

There are a lot of options.

Inform 6/7 is the most popular of the parser-based languages, with v6 being closer to a traditional programming language and v7 being a fascinating, natural-language based programming language that is powerful but can be difficult for those steeped in traditional programming languages to wrap their head around. Twine is the most popular choice-based system, supporting three languages that range from basically Javascript to no-code.

Honorable mention to both 1) Ink which is my personal favorite choice-based IF language and integrates well with Unity but doesn't have a great default presentation and 2) ChoiceScript, which is frustratingly limited (by design) but supports an incredible ecosystem of pro, semi-pro and amateur game writers (at ChoiceOfGames.com).

Ink is amazing: it's modular and is getting close to modern programming languages in terms of tooling. AFAIK all the others are still distributed as monolithic applications.

Ink has an IDE that exports to web, but there are also libraries for C# and JS that can be embedded in other programs, a Unity plugin and a VSCode language server.

inkJam 2021 happened recently: https://itch.io/jam/inkjam-2021

The makers of the recent Netflix "Bandersnatch" interactive black Mirror used Twine to prototype.

There's also zilf/z-machine -- the language/virtual machine used to write the Infocom games.

A relatively recent 'awesome' repo for z-machine is here:

https://github.com/cschweda/awesome-z-machine

And the current implementation of zilf is here:

https://foss.heptapod.net/zilf/zilf/-/wikis/home

My first "public" software creation is on the IF Archive. A game I've created with a friend in, on an old 286 PC. It got some pretty bad reviews but it was niche and we were young...

Back in the day I was really fond of Legend Entertainment [1] and Magnetic Scrolls [2] games that offered a mix of text adventures + graphics. Are there any modern games that follow a similar format?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_Entertainment

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_Scrolls

I played a few of these recently (some on a phone which works better than you might think, but not great, even when you learn all the shortcuts of the specific app).

There's various lists of good ones to try if you're new to the art form. Lost Pig I think was a good intro.

I was already familiar with the general concept and so the "word magic" of "Counterfeit Monkey" was an excellent new mechanic that really tickled the puzzly part of my brain.

Seconding Lost Pig. It wasn't my first IF, but it seems a good choice for that role: funny and not too hard.

https://ifdb.org/ is a much more usable collection of IF. Most of the games can be launched in browser, and there are user curated lists of games.

The IFcomp winners are a great place to start, most of these can be finished in a few hours: https://ifdb.org/viewlist?id=7w21plyc6kl74r7l

I remember years back I was into interactive fiction. I remember converting a random haiku generator in JavaScript to Inform 6. Good times.

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