I’ve noticed that not a lot of English speakers use Vorple, Juhana’s tool that extends Inform’s capabilities using Javascript and CSS. So I made a sample game, Neon Vertex, and a Youtube video to show off capabilities offered by Vorple.
Basically: better presentation, full multimedia support, hyperlinks and hyperlinks-based sections, achievements, and many more!
It’s a really awesome tool, but there are very few games who use it so far, which is a shame. In fact, the French IF community has really embraced it, and most Vorple games are currently in French. Vorple allows you to make very different games: check out Hansel & Gretel or Faute de Servo, who finished first and second of our most recent competition!
I hope you like the video and that it makes you want to use Vorple for your next project!
I think I may be one of those people who would like to use Vorple, but who hasn’t. If I were to examine my motivations, they would probably be something along these lines (bearing in mind that I’m an I7 user):
Direction. I mainly write in I7. Inform 7 offers a lot of tools, but the documentation and examples all combine to suggest how idiomatic I7 code behaves. Vorple does not. In fact, Vorple is more like some dude upending a crate of components over your head and driving off. They are neat components, sure. The reason for some of them is immediately obvious. But for me, there’s no immediate hook to pull me in, and I’m left staring at the pieces. Further documentation would help here, I suspect.
Ease of use. I7 takes a bit of time to get used to, but once you’re done, the workflow from prototype to published game is super-smooth and intuitive; it is very much a turnkey solution. Vorple isn’t. I took a look at the installation, and I think I know why it didn’t work the last time. What I still don’t know is how to produce a game that will behave in a consistent fashion on all machines and be immediately playable, without the user having to fiddle with dependencies.
Portability. I prefer to view my games as self-contained units. I don’t want my games to require an online component; conversely, I’m wary of having to juggle the installation and operation of a separate server (just considering whether I’d have to bundle everything and/or create a separate runner gives me a headache). I7, conversely, allows me to publish games as z-machine or glulx standalones, bundling everything neat as can be.
Don’t get me wrong: I’d love to play around with what Vorple has to offer. But when I consider these hurdles (perceived or actual), it effectively kills my enthusiasm. Judging by the video, that’s a crying shame.
I’m a little bit in the same boat - 3 is the big one; you can’t just hand out a blorb and the Vorple interpreter and say PLAY THIS–or merge them into an app. I’d be more likely to use Vorple if it were a standalone interpreter you could play anything through, and it’d be probably a minor thing to require it for certain games.
