How to get going with interactive fiction?

[g***@cyberdude.com]

Hi,
I'm new to this world, played some adventure games when I was a kid, enjoyed them a lot, and would like to learn more about how they were made. What software should I start with? (has to be free, and available either on browser OR Linux, cause I'm not sure I wanna spend money just, dipping my toe in the water, ya know...?) What I'm curious about, is what kind of *computer science* I'd need to learn before I try making any int-fiction - any good books you guys'd care to recommend on the subject (which may not necessarily be Comp Sci textbooks)....? Any good web guides or pages on the subject, for that matter?


Thanks a lot, hope to be hanging here often :)

[j***@gmail.com]

The best place for IF discussion these days is: https:intfiction.org/forum

Good luck!

[Pabst Blue Ribbon]

Post by j***@gmail.com
The best place for IF discussion these days is: https:intfiction.org/forum

True, but if I were them I would seriously consider mirroring
rec.arts.int-fiction and rec.games.int-fiction. Some forum engines allow
that out of the box, the rest, unfortunately, will require custom written
code, but it's doable.

Post by j***@gmail.com
Good luck!

[Andy Leighton]

On Tue, 30 Oct 2018 04:44:41 -0700 (PDT),

Post by g***@cyberdude.com
Hi,
I'm new to this world, played some adventure games when I was a
kid, enjoyed them a lot, and would like to learn more about how
they were made. What software should I start with? (has to be free,
and available either on browser OR Linux, cause I'm not sure I wanna
spend money just, dipping my toe in the water, ya know...?) What I'm
curious about, is what kind of *computer science* I'd need to learn
before I try making any int-fiction - any good books you guys'd care
to recommend on the subject (which may not necessarily be Comp Sci
textbooks)....? Any good web guides or pages on the subject, for
that matter?
Thanks a lot, hope to be hanging here often :)

As I am sure others will tell you a lot of the discussion about
IF has moved away from here on to webforums - see www.intfiction.org

However generally you are well set.

There are a number of types of games - those with a parser, and
CYOA types (which often play in a browser). You should first
familiarise yourself with a few games - a sort of survey of the
field if you like.

Then you should be set for writing your own. Skill set differs
a bit depending on what type of game, and what tools you use.

One good thing is that most IF runs on Linux with free
interpreters. The majority of dev systems also run on Linux.

[josemanuel]

Post by g***@cyberdude.com
I'm new to this world, played some adventure games when I was a kid,
enjoyed them a lot, and would like to learn more about how they were
made. What software should I start with? (has to be free, and available
either on browser OR Linux, cause I'm not sure I wanna spend money just,
dipping my toe in the water, ya know...?) What I'm curious about, is
what kind of *computer science* I'd need to learn before I try making
any int-fiction - any good books you guys'd care to recommend on the
subject (which may not necessarily be Comp Sci textbooks)....? Any good
web guides or pages on the subject, for that matter?

My favorite learning resource (for Inform only, though) is Inform's
Beginner's Manual (a.k.a. IBG), available from

http://www.firthworks.com/roger/IBG.html.

As for what kind of computer science you need, well, that depends. I've
seen the source code for several fine games and some looked like they
were written by a schizophrenic monkey. Then again, the games themselves
were fine.

I would recommend downloading at the very least Frotz and Glulxe (as
interpreters) and Inform (I prefer version 6, but I'm an old-timer. You
might like 7 better) as compiler and library.

Post by g***@cyberdude.com
Thanks a lot, hope to be hanging here often :)

Welcome. I hope you do, too.

[David Griffith]

Post by g***@cyberdude.com
Hi,
I'm new to this world, played some adventure games when I was a kid,
enjoyed them a lot, and would like to learn more about how they were
made. What software should I start with? (has to be free, and
available either on browser OR Linux, cause I'm not sure I wanna spend
money just, dipping my toe in the water, ya know...?) What I'm curious
about, is what kind of *computer science* I'd need to learn before I
try making any int-fiction - any good books you guys'd care to
recommend on the subject (which may not necessarily be Comp Sci
textbooks)....? Any good web guides or pages on the subject, for that
matter?
Thanks a lot, hope to be hanging here often :)

How well up are you on computer science? Inform6 is generally similar
to the C, C++, and Perl languages. I maintain both the Inform6 package
for Unix machines and Frotz for Unix. Both are packaged up for pretty
much every Linux and BSD distribution. Usually it's more desirable to
install them from source. They're at
https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/inform6unix and
https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/frotz