intfiction.org

Oh, hmm, oops, yes, it is in scope, just not visible. Awesome coding anyways.

I'm afraid I'm not going to finish mine up. Ran out of time. Sorry about that, my game wont play right through due to my dificulties with properties, but I will probably get back to it at some stage, and the code should at least give people an idea of what's supposed to happen (ideal end game is when the player drinks the 'frothycup' tea).
http://playfic.com/games/TangaZ/the-tearoom

Anyone else only half finish?

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Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

Yes, or possibly about 3/4. I made this thing inspired by a short story by Donald Barthelme, Concerning the Bodyguard. That story is told almost entirely in the third person and in the form of questions: "Is the bodyguard sufficiently paid?"

I borrowed that style, and like the original story, the actual plot is revealed gradually, so you need to pay attention. Obviously the original story is way, way better, and you really should read it. There's a great reading by Salman Rushdie from the New Yorker Fiction podcast, on iTunes or straight as an mp3 download here.

My code uses some extensions not available at Playfic.com so I couldn't post it there. Does anybody know about adding extensions there, is that possible?

I posted my stuff at Dropbox:
source code
z8 file

The z8 is released for testing, you can "test walkthru" if you get stuck.

I'm not really proud of this, especially not the code, but this is an exercise, right?

// Peter

You should be proud Peter. You certainly completed the exercise well, while also hinting at a bigger story. Then you've got the third person treatment, which is very interesting. You're right that it has an unsettling effect, though I think the rhetorical questions might get a bit much in a longer work. I think my favourite thing, though, is the 'test walkthru' command. Brilliant idea for these things.

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Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

Finally got everything working the way I want. There are some hacky bits hidden in the code, but it works. Some of the writing was done last minute, but I think the mood is set well enough for an exercise.

http://playfic.com/games/TangaZ/the-tearoom

Any suggestions received with gratitude.

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Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

I'm wondering... Could this topic could be moved to a separate forum under Authoring? I think that would make it much easier to follow and much easier for people to join in. Each week, a new topic could be posted to the forum with a new challenge... That way you wouldn't need to hunt through so many pages for the "challenge of the week".

Perhaps there could be a "sticky topic" at the top of the forum called something like "weekly challenge suggestion box" where people could propose challenges as well.

This is just the sort of thing I've been looking for, so it would be great to work through these challenges in a collaborative environment. I'm just starting to get into IF, and I'm just about halfway through Aaron Reed's Inform7 Book.

Awesome book isn't it? Helped me get my head around I7 (a bit). I need to finish it.

A good suggestion about forums. I was thinking of starting a new thread for each week, but didn't want to clutter things up, but if we could have separate a forum we could have threads for finished exercises, each week, suggestions...

Just depends. Last week's exercise beat me. And others if they found it?

Maybe we'd be better off having two fortnightly exercises? Then people could do the one that appeals? Less pressure more choice? Would that help, do you think?

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Ever stop to think and forget to start again?

Tanga could also update the original post with the challenge of the week; that could work in the meantime.

As a somewhat interested observer, I think it would work best if each new challenge had its own thread with some sort of unifying thread title (such as "Code Task for 4/22/12: Jetpacks").

Good idea, Tove. So... Are we getting ready to do another one soon?

Any ideas for a topic/assignment? Jet packs sounds fun, but what do you do with them?

I think a bus might be a cool idea... but having tried to implement one in a hurry, it's pretty complicated and might well be left for a few exercises down the road.

One nice thing about jetpacks is that you can think of lots of things to do with them! Also, they don't have as much cultural freight -- part of the reason I didn't do the first exercise is I don't really know how to make tea.