What sort of things are people on here writing? Or thinking of writing?
Are “go north” “get ye flaske” type things still in vogue? Is everybody headed towards seriously clever stuff where you talk to other characters about your feelings?
How much do people like the mechanics of systems like Inform7, and how much does working out how to do something reward or obstruct writing?
I’ve been doodling a game for a couple of years, but got bogged down in buying fish in the marketplace (well, writing a currency/purchasing system) and wandered off. At first sight Twine looks quite annoying and boring. But a bit of thought showed it might be an easy way to do what I want - give multiple paths through a story, that branch and could re-merge, given what the player wants to do. The lack of, well, detail or having much player choice, is putting me off. I like scripting languages, it’s finding time to learn them well enough to get my ideas out there that’s a bit frustrating.
All kinds of things! I’m working on a game for ParserComp.
I can’t really tell which direction the sarcasm is going (maybe both?), but I’d say people are enthusiastically making both kinds, along with everything in between.
I love Inform 7, and it’s what I’m using at the moment. I don’t like working out how to do things, so most of my code is bare bones, i.e. really long if/thens. Actual programmers would be horrified to look at my source. However, many people really enjoy getting into the coding and making new ideas work. I feel Inform 7 is great for both kinds of writers.
You and me both!
quite frankly, there’s been a lot of the latter lately
but that’s not what I want from a work of IF. If I’d like to chat, I’d rather open wuzup. boring steaming off about silly everyday dramas is not what I seek from either scifi/fantasy books, movies or games…
but there are quite a few excellent parser-based IF which are about neither chitchat nor purely object-manipulation puzzles. Varicella and his manipulative ego seeking world-domination, as well as The Baron and the moral choices, just to name a few. I recently played April and Paris and despite being rather small and not featuring character development - how it would being a small vignette anyway? - it still sports a memorable setting and plot revolving around a social difficulty. They work to me because of clever writing and significative player agency, in the case of AiP the protagonist doesn’t engage in any significative ammount of chitchat but the actions and events he’s thrown into feel smooth and natural, not some “take the fizzbot and open the gizmattron” many IF eventually delve into when trying to design puzzles. so, yeah, I like that more than cave exploration with lots of go north…