Indigo New Language Speed IF

Hello, everyone!

I’m organizing another speed-IF hot on the heels of our last one. Here are the constraints:

You must code in a programming language you’ve never written a game in before.
What’s that mean, precisely? Half-hearted pokes at a language don’t count, but if you’ve ever had the thought, Okay, let’s try programming a game in X!, that counts. This is a Speed IF, not a minicomp, so I’m not going to be a dictator on what this means. I think if people take to the spirit of how they interpret this constraint that is fine.

Games must be in English.

The game must be loosely themed around the word indigo.

Games due at the end of the month.
The deadline, given that you’re using a new language and may need extra time, is two weeks instead of two hours. Entries due to my jacqueline.a.lott gmail account by the end of the month: Midnight Alaskan, April 30th. That gives you four more hours to procrastinate than if I had set the deadline via the rather arbitrary Eastern time zone - huzzah!

I guess we’ll try to play the games that we can as part of ClubFloyd (just like we did for Speed IF Jacket 4, but Floyd can only run games in ADRIFT, AGT, Glulx, Hugo, z-code, or TADS (2 or 3)–though of course, Floyd can’t display graphics or sound or anything fancy like that. But don’t let any of that constrain you! I’m hoping some folks try some other stuff… Curveship, Undum, Quest, Alan, ChoiceScript, AAS, JotaCode, who knows what.

[NB: Top People are working on getting ChoiceScript and Curveship to run on Floyd. We’re not there yet, but we might get there soon, maybe even by the end of the month. Maybe.]

I think that tying to kick it old skool would count as well… say, if you’ve only ever programmed in I7, I6 would be valid for this speed IF, because it’s so different from I7.

Have fun! Hopefully it will be a good experience and not too frustrating for those of us who take this speed for a spin…

Ooh! Maybe I should take this as my cue to try and make something in Inform? Particularly as I’m free from work from now until Easter, so unlike the previous Speed IF, I may have the time for it.

On the other hand, what I’d be able to make probably won’t be any good.

On the first foot, this is Speed IF, so maybe that’s ok. And it might be fun to do.

On the second foot, I don’t know where to start. Indigo? Hmm. This is something to think about.

I’m awfully tempted to try something in Curveship, but I sincerely doubt that I can learn rudimentary Python and Curveship and knock out something playable in two weeks. Well, not if I plan on doing anything else.

But I’ve been meaning to play around with Undum, so I may go with that.

Exactly - the bar is set much lower for Speed IFs. This is your opportunity to take a new IF language for a test drive. I really hope you put something together, Rikard!

So as long as the game meets these constraints, and it’s a complete game, it will be a valid entry, right?

Um, yeah. This is Speed-IF, after all. Why, what’re you thinking?

Just that if I do join, I might not be able to put in time to get the game tested, even with the 2-week limit. Completing an actual game is still a big hurdle for me at the moment.

Heh - no worries. I don’t think anyone tests Speed IFs. They’re usually written in a couple of hours, or an evening. The only reason for the absurdly long (by Speed IF standards) deadline is so that people also have time to get their head around the new language they’ll be using.

I thought maybe you meant ‘Can I just do an excerpt?’ or something. And quite frankly, if you start a game with a clever premise but then run out of time, nothing prevents you from this:

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Well, we’ll see. Thanks!

I have been a tester on more than one speedIF, so it’s not totally unknown. But yes, it is not common, or expected.

Still a little confused as to what this means… though my IFDemo thing (not to mention TWIFComp) probably rules out Inform 7 for me, and nothing else is remotely ruled out except maybe BASIC, so I guess it’s moot. Hm.

Hm… please explain your confusion, and I’ll try to clarify. If you mean Does “Hello, World!” count?, no. It doesn’t. From what you’ve said, sounds like you can try lots of different things, just not BASIC or I7.

The spirit of this is to try something new in a more in a substantive way. (For values of substantive that equal Speed-IF quality, that is. [emote];)[/emote] )

OK, this time…I’m really, really gonna try and actually complete an entry…and I mean it.

I hope

Well, what I meant was something like this: I’ve had the thought “hey, let’s try programming a game in ChoiceScript!”, but I haven’t actually ever programmed a game in ChoiceScript, or even downloaded the source. So I still wasn’t sure exactly how far one could go and still have something count as a new language… but I’m pretty sure that I’ve gone farther than that in I7, and I’ve never gone anywhere with any other language, so this would be an “Anything but I7” comp for me.

So, never mind.

Yeah, that sounds right. I guess a better way to say it is simply this: experience a new-to-you IF programming language in a substantive way. I’d downloaded ADRIFT Generator, for example, but never actually written so much as a room description with it. I’ve toyed with the idea of ChoiceScript, but not gotten so far as to code anything up. I’ve downloaded Curveship, miraculously gotten it to run, and looked at some sample code, but never tried to code anything for myself. Any of those would be valid for me for this Speed. Just be honest with yourself - the purpose is to break you out of your comfort zone a wee bit, and to experience something novel.

I’ve now started a project in Inform 7. If I’ll finish it remains to be seen, but I’ll try.

I’ve started and now have a few objects and two rooms [emote]:)[/emote]

Getting ready to do the hard part, adding a couple simple puzzles and then a semi-decent (or at least good by Speed-IF definition) NPC.

Oh wow, I hadn’t even heard of ChoiceScript before.

Thanks for this. I think I might actually release a game for once!

The deadline is near… my project is almost done!

When it comes to distributing ChoiceScript, would I just need to zip up the entirety of the /web folder?