intfiction.org

I'm interested to hear what other users like as far as the environment they use when playing IF.

When I first began playing IF, I used Windows and having an interpreter and GUEmap open was about as fancy as it got. Since I've been using Linux, some things have changed in drastic ways. I'm using a tiling window manager now and having a mapper and Gargoyle or a terminal emulator open side-by-side works quite nicely. Further than that and what has me feeling like I've arrived is using dvtm in a TTY console with an interpreter and a tile for map making off to the side. This really feels like the tops in distraction-free play.

Do any of you have interesting setups for how you're playing? If so, I'd really enjoy hearing about it!

Looks nice. I just started setting up my ARM netbook to be a mobile IF machine (amongst other things, of course). I've already got dwm running as my window manager, but due to wanting to minimize my initial RAM footprint, I've only got one TTY, so I'll probably stick with X/dwm. What are you using for your interpreter? And what are you using for mapping? I just see VIM off in the corner...

On my other machine, not much....just Grotesque, Gargoyle & IFMapper in Gnome on a 1024x768 screen, which means constant wrestling with window sizes/placement.

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Grotesque: an interactive fiction library manager for Linux
PyIFBabel: a Treaty of Babel library for Python

When I first played what we now call IF (circa 1977), I used a terminal connected to a mainframe. The terminal consisted of a keyboard and an integral printer with a very long continuous roll of paper. No CRT -- the built-in roll printer was the only output device I had available. While typing and reading the responses that the machine printed out, I juggled lots of scraps of paper, on which I wrote notes, drew maps, etc. At the end of a a night's play, I would gather up the scraps, tear off about a mile of paper with the game to date printed out on it, try to fold the long continuous sheet into something manageable, and head back for a little bit of sleep before the day's classes began. Oh, and there was no way to save a game in progress -- which meant that when I resumed the next night, I would have to spend a while typing and waiting for each response to print just to get to where I left off.

As much as I believe that, in many respects, the world in those days was a simpler (and probably better) place, I must confess that when it comes to playing IF, a modern setup is far more convenient. As far as my "modern" setup is concerned, I use nothing special -- Glulxe or Frotz running on Windows, with no special customizations. Not very sophisticated by today's standards, but compared to what I used 35 years ago its like the difference between night and day.

Your screen shot definitely brought back some memories.


Robert Rothman

The ARM netbook sounds wonderful.

I'm using Frobtads in the screenshot and Vim with a syntax patch for IFM that I got from here. For X sessions, I have IFMapper. I had a bit of struggle with IFMapper as it doesn't install straightforwardly from Arch's AUR any longer which led me to getting a little more acquainted with Ruby/Gems than I cared to be for one single program, thus making IFM much more attractive and at the very least, a solid "Plan B" in case the day arrives when I can no longer use IFMapper or don't want to fool with GUEmap in Wine.

It goes without saying that I'm happily using Grotesque in X.



I'll remember your post when I need my petty quibbles put into perspective. The cost of ink alone...

It is (link), if you're willing to work on it to get it set up the way you like it, and the price is right. I've got Debian armhf on it right now, but at some point I'm going to try to build a frankenstein ArchARM on it (it's stuck on an old kernel at the moment until some code by Genesi gets merged upstream, so I can't install ArchARM outright).



Yeah, I've had many problems with IFMapper too (mainly GUI-related, but generally Ruby-related....I'm prejudiced), so I'm in the market for alternatives, and on that netbook, Wine isn't really an option.
I'll look into Frobtads, since it'd be nice to have everything in a terminal (I just have Gargoyle set up for now).



Awesome
Well, a new version is verrrrry slowly coming together.

_________________
Grotesque: an interactive fiction library manager for Linux
PyIFBabel: a Treaty of Babel library for Python