Inform is a programming language for creating interactive fiction • Hacker News Board

Re: Inform is a programming language for creating interactive fiction

#31

Post by anthk » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:03 PM UTC

morelisp wrote: post #27

anthk wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CYOA is boring, it's just hypertext before the hypertext. Even the easiest if6/ZMachine adventure such as 9:05 has more choices and interactivity.

"More choices is better" is bullshit.

Sure? Go play Anchorhead, I-0 or, under the roguelike domain, compare the now combat-linearized DCSS against Nethack/Slashem.

Text adventures are not CYOA games, a lot of emergent gaming can arise. For instance, All Thing Devours has several methods to win by exploiting the time travelling puzzles.

Re: Inform is a programming language for creating interactive fiction

#32

Post by anthk » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

tkb wrote: post #28

anthk wrote: post #25

Inform7 it's cool but the generated adventures are 'huge' and the might run slow on m68k based machines. If you like oop (much easier than Python, even a kid from Elementary could understand the basic syntax) and supporting legacy machines, inform6 is still maintained. IBG.pdf for an introduction to if6 and DM4 for mid-high complex stuff such as writting libraries and setting up non-standard objects with twisted gram…

For some data on the game size (based on my implementation and analysis of a BBC BASIC four-room game "MINI" which I referenced in another comment and won't self-promotionally spam again...) The source code for MINI weighs in at 4.6 K, saved in the tokenised form used by BBC BASIC. In comparison, the Inform 7 source is around 3.3K in size. But that isn’t executable - it can be run in Inform 7, or it can be compiled i…

For 8 bit computers I'd use Puny Inform. Much easier to develop and the resulting ZMachine V3 file will run everywere. Even on Game Boys and PostScript interpreters.

Re: Inform is a programming language for creating interactive fiction

#33

Post by anodyne_one » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:19 PM UTC

lastdong wrote: post #29

eggy wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Inform years ago, and finding Rosetta Code solutions in Inform 6 and 7 intrigued me. The '99 Bottles of Beer' solution was the first I looked at then[1]. This was even after I had played with NLP in the 90s. It seemed right and strange at the same time. This has been blown away by ChatGPT now! [1] https://rosettacode.org/wiki/99_bottles_of_beer#Inform_7

Does inform generate the story (like ChatGPT)? Explored the Inform website. Not sure what am I looking at.

I don't think it generates the story for you, no. I think it handles parsing inputs as natural language, though.