IF only I knew where to start...
December 19, 2013 11:33 PM Subscribe
Please recommend some interactive fiction with published source code (Inform 7) that is good for showing a beginner IF author best practice.
I'm especially interested in seeing very good games that are easy for a beginner to emulate. To my mind this would involve limited creation of new rules/actions etc and utilise built in verbs reasonably comprehensively.
Of course, maybe great IF relies on new rules and actions to introduce fresh concepts, and I'm happy to pick those skills up as I progress, but for now I'd like to stick to my definition of beginner material.
My primary goal at this stage is to see what built in features there are without pouring through the manual and recipe book, and to see how good authors structure their code.
Titles of IF that meet the above criteria would be greatly appreciated.
I'm especially interested in seeing very good games that are easy for a beginner to emulate. To my mind this would involve limited creation of new rules/actions etc and utilise built in verbs reasonably comprehensively.
Of course, maybe great IF relies on new rules and actions to introduce fresh concepts, and I'm happy to pick those skills up as I progress, but for now I'd like to stick to my definition of beginner material.
My primary goal at this stage is to see what built in features there are without pouring through the manual and recipe book, and to see how good authors structure their code.
Titles of IF that meet the above criteria would be greatly appreciated.
Best answer: You've seen the Inform 7 complete examples page, right? There are several games by Emily Short there and a link to an IFDB search for Inform 7 games with source included.
You might also be interested in Aaron Reed's Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. The book's structure takes you through the implementation of a game from beginning to end—at first covering simple concepts but getting more sophisticated as it progresses. You can play the sample game from the book here, and its source code can be found here.
posted by aparrish at 7:11 AM on December 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
You might also be interested in Aaron Reed's Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7. The book's structure takes you through the implementation of a game from beginning to end—at first covering simple concepts but getting more sophisticated as it progresses. You can play the sample game from the book here, and its source code can be found here.
posted by aparrish at 7:11 AM on December 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
Jason McIntosh (I don't know if he has an account here) just posted a great guide to Inform 7 games for which source is available, partially in response to this question.
posted by dfan at 1:12 PM on December 25, 2013
posted by dfan at 1:12 PM on December 25, 2013
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Degeneracy is a lot more complex and due to the central puzzle of the game there is some complicated code. I won't say more so you can play it first without spoilers! After you play it along with the source code there are detailed notes from the developer.
Full disclosure: I had a small part in helping out with these games but I would have enjoyed them even if I didn't.
posted by mikepop at 5:48 AM on December 20, 2013