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Loreline – Tools for writing interactive fiction

loreline.app

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Re: Loreline – Tools for writing interactive fiction

#41

Post by nathell »

Ceterum censeo, anyone thinking to create an authoring system for IF should first read the Inform DM4 [0], preferably in its entirety but at the very minimum §24 of Chapter 3. It’s really enlightening to learn about how to model the world in a general yet simple way.

[0]: https://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/DM4.pdf

Re: Loreline – Tools for writing interactive fiction

#44

Post by jeremyfa »

nathell wrote: post #41

Ceterum censeo, anyone thinking to create an authoring system for IF should first read the Inform DM4 [0], preferably in its entirety but at the very minimum §24 of Chapter 3. It’s really enlightening to learn about how to model the world in a general yet simple way. [0]: https://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/DM4.pdf

Loreline isn't aimed at parser-based interactive fiction like Inform, it's a choice-based narrative scripting language, closer to Ink or Yarn Spinner. DM4 solves a different kind of problem.

Edit: that said, you're right this §24 is interesting regardless!

Re: Loreline – Tools for writing interactive fiction

#45

Post by nickosh »

I registered on Hacker News to say: thank you! Really. Your scripting language for fictions looks great, it's MIT license and already a lot useful tools! Special thanks for Godot plugin!

I'm developing small games as hobby from time to time. I built my Visual Novel engine on Godot but I'm stuck exactly how to keep text and variables in convinient way. My system initially based on JSON but it's not human readable - I thought to create special editor but I was doubted and project stuck for long time. Loreline looks exactly how I wish it to be. Script is clean, human readable and also support translation on multiple languages. Great, just great!

I hope you will continue working on this and will maintain it for the long time. If this project will be helpful in my case, I could consider to become sponsor on GitHub, if you need support.

I'm going to play with Defold when I will have some time. I hope Lua implementation which you already have will work there.

Re: Loreline – Tools for writing interactive fiction

#46

Post by jeremyfa »

nickosh wrote: post #45

I registered on Hacker News to say: thank you! Really. Your scripting language for fictions looks great, it's MIT license and already a lot useful tools! Special thanks for Godot plugin! I'm developing small games as hobby from time to time. I built my Visual Novel engine on Godot but I'm stuck exactly how to keep text and variables in convinient way. My system initially based on JSON but it's not human readable - I…

Thanks for the really kind feedback!

About Loreline's future, yes, I have plans to keep maintaining it and improving it in the long run!

The free Loreline Writer app on Itch.io is "name your own price", so that's currently the easiest way to support the project. I may set up a crowdfunding page later.

Lua version should work as well as the others, but if you encounter any issue you can file it on Github.

Re: Loreline – Tools for writing interactive fiction

#47

Post by noufalibrahim »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #32
noufalibrahim wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a few games using Inform 7 and ran a couple of workshops for it too. It's not just the technical idiosyncrasies of the language. I've noticed that if you use it for the few hours and get into "the zone", you start to inhabit the world that you're creating and "see" it. The overall attitude is that of a world creator rather than a programmer fixing technical issues. Breaking the flow is trying to figure out ho…

This, more than anything else I'd ever read about Inform, really makes me want to give it a try.

Thanks. You should. I remember something I read about a teacher who asked kids to write little interactive fiction pieces using Inform 7 set in different parts of the school and then he stitched them all together into a large story and they could all play it. Everyone's imagination comes to life. You wander into the parking lot and some kid has created a portal there into a mirror universe. I don't know if I'm misremembering or the work involved but it's definitely feasible and not something you can do with a regular programming language easily in such an open ended way.

I've always loved interactive fiction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Lamp is a great watch. "Before the first person shooter, we had the second person thinker." :)

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