Not sure where to post this Q but I will begin with a hearty “Hello” and “Thanks in advance” to all established IF.ORG members!
I’m a Librarian by profession but have been involved with computing since the DOS days. Did some programming and even worked in AGT for a bit (just experimenting). I have been investigating current IF and platforms recently for my own interest but also as a potential base for Library programs, especially geared to teens, that promote programming.
My question is this. Are any IF design platforms available “portable,” meaning would run from a flash drive?
The reasoning is that getting ADMIN privilages to install software on Library laptops is dificult at best plus having the teens use a flash drive means they can work on their projects between meetings and easily run their project on an individual laptop at the meeting w/o complicated, time wasting setup.
Otherwise I’ll be lurking about and learning for myself.
Hi Bob-
I’ve done some teaching with IF in school computer labs and libraries, and I’ve found that the best solution for me is to use online systems. That way, the students can even pick up their work at home if they want to, and can easily send their work to their friends. In most of the ones I know about, you could either have everyone log into one account, or let students have their own. Some online options are:
playfic.com/ is an in-browser version of Inform 7. It doesn’t have all of the features of the IDE, such as the debugging tools and the built-in help, but it is very convenient and the language is the same.
textadventures.co.uk/quest is the online editor of the Quest language, which also makes parser IF games, but has a more visual interface.
twinery.org/2 is Twine 2, an in-browser update of Twine, which is a very popular system for making choice-based games. Twine 2 is pretty different from the original Twine, but should still be straightforward to use.
writer.inklestudios.com/ is Inklewriter, which also makes choice-based stories. I found that many students I worked with preferred its aesthetic to that of Twine, and it even allows user accounts without an associated email address, which is kind of nice for younger students though maybe not relevant for the age you’re working with.
I’d be happy to chat more about teaching IF to teens in out of school environments, if you’d like.
Thanks tove, I had not thought about online versions but your comments do make sense. One issue I may have is the internal network run by evil tolls of the county IT Department who seem to view the Library as a bandwidth and security Nuisance. So the USB option may end up being the only choice.
I will bookmark your reply and likely get back to you. First I need to learn Inform7 myself.
I haven’t checked, but I think most of those systems are mostly or entirely client-side: once the page loads for the first time, you’re using very little bandwidth. Of course, fancy client-side stuff also means you have to have a reasonably recent browser, which may not be the case on County IT Department-run machines.
