A bunch o' I7 games

I found this in “current events” on the IF Wiki:
engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/cour … /index.php

They all look to be simple and short (judging by a few random source downloads, which is available with each game). The page has Z5 downloads as well as being Java online playable. Looks like this class has been going on for the past few years. I think I remember somebody from the newsgroup talking about instructing a college-level programming class that focuses on interactive fiction, but I can’t remember who.

This old thread is about these games too:

groups.google.com/group/rec.game … 7233035575

I wonder if any of these students still play or write IF.

They’re all made with Inform 6, and judging from the source code alone, might not be that much material for an actual review. They look more like I6 programming exercises to me, at least.

Really? When I peeked at a couple of the .inf source code files, they looked like the “natural language” of I7 (not the “coding” of I6). They’re all Inform 6? Sorry about that. :frowning:

It should be rather obvious when you see an I7 game. It won’t look anything like the others.

Yeah I know. And I’ve seen the I7 code snippets posted to the newsgroup. Hmmm. I guess I must have just glanced, without making sure. Sorry for the misinformation, all.

That’s okay. I’ve seen those games before, and like I said, most of the games there appear more like programming exercises to me than, say, something done for a Speed-IF comp.

Actually, at least a couple are I7 games; it’s just that for some reason they’ve posted the .inf file of the I6 generated by I7. For instance, if you look at

engin.umd.umich.edu/CIS/cour … eehler.inf

there are bunches of I7 globals declared, arrays representing rulebooks, etc.

Not sure why they didn’t post the I7 source text, but hey.

Maybe it was supposed to be I6 and so they cheated and wrote it in I7.

David Welbourn has played through several of them, and added pages to the IFWiki. The “notable features” are pretty revealing! :slight_smile:

ifwiki.org/index.php?title=M … rabtree%29
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=L … nfestation
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=Sneaky_Game
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=Project_Seed
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=Old_Man_Simmons
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=Ogre_Woes
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=N … _from_Hell
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=Master_Thief
ifwiki.org/index.php/Halloween_Beer_Party
ifwiki.org/index.php/Grounded
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=E … S_Building
ifwiki.org/index.php?title=D … Acme_Tower
ifwiki.org/index.php/Death_at_Sea

But they’re all class assignments, right? Some (most?) have probably never played IF, let alone written it (unless maybe playing a few games was an earlier assignment). It’s really cool that they’re learning this in class. I think that’s wonderful.

(Edit)

David also has a solutions, maps, and mini-reviews page for them here:
webhome.idirect.com/~dswxyz/sol/umd2006.html

It’s probably a computer class assignment to get used to coding.

I wonder how old some of the students who wrote those games were. And clearly they spend way too long writing games and not enough time in English class :slight_smile:

Had to laugh at the Wiki page for Merlin’s Treasure:

And:

I think that’s what you call using ye Olde English :laughing:

“Rased” and “vanashes” are just bad English. :slight_smile:

Or attempts to bring the playfulness of Finegans Wake to interactive fiction!