Characters' Party

I have absolutely no knowledge in programming languages and all that, but I really want to make an Interactive Fiction game. I’ve been glimpsing Inform 7, Quest and TADS 3 for some time, trying to decide which one to apply myself to really study, but one thing I noticed is that I always have to focus on one single character. Is it so? I’d like to create a game where I would have at least three people together; there is no need to have a main character, but I need them to discuss among themselves. I really want the player to be able to ask each character some keywords, and have an answer for each room. By my current understanding, I’d have to create these characters in every single room, so that they appear to be walking along with the main character (the “me”). Is it so? Where would be the best place to make a game this way (inform, etc.)? Thanks in advance, for all.

In Inform, it’s an easy matter to make NPCs follow the PC around the map. There are examples in the documentation, and I think the extension “Simple Followers” does it for you.

See: inform7.com/learn/man/RB_7_13.html

You can also attach a number of texts to individual locations.

(This is unchecked I7 psuedocode:)

[code]A room has a text that varies called rangertext. The rangertext of a room is usually “The Ranger looks around, noting nothing of consequence he might assist with.”

Report looking:
if Ranger is in the location:
say “[rangertext of the location]”

Cavern Bridge is a room. “A precarious bridge stretches north over spikes and lava and lava-dwelling piranhas and a curly slide to Hades.” The rangertext of Cavern Bridge is “‘Ah, bridges. Heights!’ exclaims the Ranger. ‘You’ll be needing to leave me behind here! I’ll guard this end of the bridge!’”[/code]

In this manner, you could attach texts to things and rooms applicable to each character and fire them when you want…such as a response to ask/tell.