intfiction.org

One other weird thing about the ADRIFT parser: commands not matching any override will match verbs / nouns in any order; if the player types "dress the drop" while holding a dress, it will be interpreted as an attempt to drop that dress; don't even think about creating a "lemon drop" object. The jAsea standard parser was noticably more strict on this point, as was SCARE when last I checked.

No idea when it's out yet, but I gathered the features that have been mentioned on the foum in the last issue of the newsletter: http://www.insideadrift.org.uk/e107/download.php?view.45



It can handle sound and graphics, although most games don't use either. I know "The PK Girl" had multimedia, though I found the sound distracting and turned it off about a minute into the game.

Some adult IF works written with ADRIFT are able to play background sounds, with the pictures showing up on a separate window (something like an ADRIFT picture viewer).

Not sure though if ADRIFT can show pictures within the same window like Hugo or HTML TADS does. It's probably safe to say I haven't seen anything that serves as a good example.

I guess it wasn't clear from Campbell's announcement, but will part of the ADRIFT parser itself be included in that standard library?

The changes he's planning certainly sounds ADRIFT will become more customizable than it currently is. This is probably better for experienced ADRIFT users in the long run.

ADRIFT can display images in a number of ways, which the player is allowed to decide. If you go to the Options menu and select Display & Media then you can change how ADRIFT handles the screen display. Picking the Media and Layout tabs allows you to choose where images and the map show up. I normally use inline display of images.

I guess "The PK Girl" is probably the best example of an ADRIFT game with multimedia:

Well, looking at the ADRIFT 5 page, it looks like the current estimate for release is in Q4 of this year.

Yes, ADRIFT 5 will come with a standard library that should mimic the functionality of ADRIFT 4. The parser itself will be defined by the tasks, therefore there will be no conflict between the in-built "system tasks" and the user defined tasks. In some ways, this actually makes the parser more flexible than, say, Inform, as it doesn't necessarily have to start with a verb (ok, I'm simplifying), but can still be nailed down as tightly as required.

If you want to handle commands that don't start with a verb in Inform, you can use the "LanguageToInformese" or "UnknownVerb" entry point routines.

Umm, yes about that....

Anyway, ADRIFT 5 should be available in an open beta very soon.

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ADRIFT Developer developer.