After writing some IF for friends, in I7, I am slowly getting interested in starting writing something to officially release. But in I6.
The majority of all IF works are primarily designed around solving puzzles by the use of objects. At this time I’m more interested in works like Galatea, The Endling Archive, The Space under the Window, Whom the Telling Changed and Starborn; works that to a greater degree are primarily oriented towards simple somewhat experimental interactive storytelling.
The one-word-interface (with the nice option of choosing the style of emphasized words) of Starborn and also in Whom the Telling Changed is what I am primarily interested in here, and that’s what my question is about.
Of the stories mentioned only Juhana Leinonen’s Starborn is available as I7 source. ([url]Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.)
Now that should be satisfying enough if it wasn’t that I am considering to do my writing in inform 6.
I have no coding experience besides I7 from earlier on but am trying to learn by reading R. Firth’s & S. Kesserich’s book - Inform for Beginners.
The Inform Designer’s Manual taught me to make something like this.
Verb 'xyzzy' * -> Xyzzy;
[ XyzzySub; "And all that it gave me was this text..."; ];
But that is rather limiting compared to the sophistication of the one-word-interface in the Starborn source.
So here I am asking for some help and advice on how to go about. Examples of code would be great. Suggestion to helpful extensions that might aid would also be very useful, apart from general do and donts.
Or more specific things maybe, like this;
How to make the program note that a word have been read once and than change the words colour and description, and than if it is read a second time, let that in turn change things behind the scene in the story?
Maybe you have better ideas of what would be useful mechanisms to build into the source?
Any help is appreciated. If I eventually get more fluent in writing code, this will be how I got there.
Thank you.