#inform7 — Public Fediverse posts

My #IFComp game includes a multi-part quest. The checklist you can bring up to track your progress shows a tick for each of three sub-quests (indented beneath the main one), plus a tick for the main quest when all of those are completed.

How many "points" should this count as for the purposes of "quests completed" at the end of the game?
#InteractiveFiction #Inform7 #gamedev

Classic office problems.
#ScreenshotSaturday #gamedev #IFComp #InteractiveFiction #Inform7

I'll soon be needing testers for this interactive fiction game I've been working on. An takers?
#ScreenshotSaturday #InteractiveFiction #Inform7 #comedy #gamedev

Revisiting a series that I haven't touched in seven years. It's going to be chaos. 🦄
#ScreenshotSaturday #Inform7 #InteractiveFiction

I've been going deeper into #Inform7 trying to write an extension and the more I learn about it the more I am impressed by how powerful it can be —provided you know how to use it. Today, the lesson learned is about the power of relations and understanding by relation, which can sum up in a single line several lines of non-trivial code.

As I approach finalizing my first #Inform7 #InteractiveFiction story, I'm looking at options to make it available (for testing and/or actually playing) to a wider public than just family. This requires me to choose between publishing it under my actual name or under a pseudonym. I'm leaning towards the latter, but wondering if I should just go by Oblomov (my handle since nearly forever), the full character name Ilya Ilyich Oblomov, or make up a different first name and patronymic.

I let my son test out my draft #Inform7 #InteractiveFiction story, and it was surprisingly very useful. Some of the stuff is definitely not something a regular player would try, but it's still good to know it is now handled in the code.

#Oblomovini

I got my draft #Inform7 story tested by one of my nieces, and again by my wife. There's still a few details needed to make it fully playable if you don't know the exact sequence of actions, but it's getting there. The most difficult part remains making it possible to users to go wild with their commands without being too permissive, but still accepting what makes sense. Yet even just making “use key on door” work as ”unlock door with key” when it makes sense is not trivial.

NOW I know I'm doing something right:

*** Run-time problem MemoryAllocationFailed: INTERNAL/Extensions/Graham Nelson/Basic Inform.i7xd/Materials/Inter/BasicInformKit/RTPs
*** Memory allocation proved impossible.
*** Stack frame of 0 could not be created ***

#Inform7 #interactiveFiction #OutofMemory

Letting my wife testing my first draft of my first #inform7 #InteractiveFiction. She's complaining that it's not interactive enough because she can't set the house on fire or go outside or beat up one of the characters

My #InteractiveFiction disasterpiece, the aggressively awful yet sincerely huggy Treasures of a Slaver's Kingdom, celebrates its 18th birthday today!

If you've never played a text adventure before, this free game will give you the wrong idea about them in ways that may never fully heal. If you've played ToaSK already, Gunwar and Vessa have _missed you._ Come home, barbarian! 🥰

https://ghalev.itch.io/toask
https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=8upuvdnsk4sho6ac

#TextAdventure #AdventureGame #Inform7 #ToaSK #ZMachine

Ever want to make a parser-based interactive fiction game but didn't know how to get started? Of course you have.

Good news! I've created a small and very basic tutorial to creating IF in TADS 3.1.3 using the adv3lite library and Inform 7!

Figure out which system works for you!

https://mcoorlim.com/interactive-fiction-0-the-basics/

#interactiveFiction #gameDev #inform7 #TADS3

On top of my GDevelop jam success yesterday, it turns out that "A Normal Morning" also placed 8th in ECTOCOMP's La Petite Mort category!
https://damonwakes.itch.io/a-normal-morning
#InteractiveFiction #ECTOCOMP #Inform7 #Inform #parser #horror

Today I submitted my largest ever entry to the annual Interactive Fiction Competition. 49,506 words according to the Inform interpreter, and 57,968 if you include all my comments in the code. It's been a truly monstrous amount of work - I'm planning to take at least a couple of days off before getting started on my entry for 2026.
#WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata? #IFComp #IFComp2025 #Inform #Inform7 #InteractiveFiction

I'm really quite happy with this. Characters now respond to "ask X about themselves" etc., but will distinguish between "himself" and "herself." It's a small detail, but I think it helps conversation feel more natural and avoids situations where a straightforward "ask" command with an existing response simply generates "There is no reply."
#IFComp #IFComp2025 #Inform #Inform7 #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata?

More than a year since I first planned to do it, I've finally got my cover image for Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata?. I had to take it at night, both to get the lighting right, and because the neighbours would probably have had questions otherwise. You'll see why when the competition entries go live.
#IFComp #IFComp2025 #Inform #Inform7 #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata?

I'm down to some real fine polishing for Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata?, my entry for IFComp 2025.
#IFComp #IFComp2025 #Inform #Inform7 #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata?

I forgot to share anything for #ScreenshotSaturday yesterday, but it seems worth mentioning that #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata? has now passed 45,000 words.
#Inform #Inform7 #InteractiveFiction #TextAdventure

maybe someone is interested:

I was compiling gnome-inform just copy and pasting the instructions by @ptomato

this just works

https://github.com/ptomato/inform7-ide/blob/main/BUILD.md

at the end i have a working build of a fresh inform7-ide. and with my most famous bug:
https://inform7.atlassian.net/browse/I7-2240

is anyone good in using #sysprof ?

to use it just with the terminal i use this command:

./inform7/Tangled/inform7 -project "~/adventure.inform/" -format "Inform6/16" && ./inform6/Tangled/inform6 -E2w~SDG ~/adventure.inform/Build/auto.inf -o ~/adventure.inform/Build/adventure-built.ulx

it takes the inform7 source text, compiles it to inform6, creates the .ulx file, which you can "play" using glulx.

and yes, i would like to have that bug fixed ;)

#inform7 #terminal #vacation

ha, "ported" my 5 year old piece of interactive fiction to the current version of inform.

#interactivefiction #textadventure #inform7

I think I've written something like 3,000 words of Inform source code just today. Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata? is pretty much a novel-length work at this point.
#Inform #Inform7 #gamedev #InteractiveFiction #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata #ScreenshotSaturday

Writing with Inform7 when you get a cool idea:
"There's a pack of cigarettes in the game. I'm going to throw in a 'smoke' verb so players can try and use it."

Writing with Inform7 once that's done:
*Text to display if the player tries to smoke the cigar in the mob boss' mouth.*
*Text to display if the player tries to smoke crystal meth that they found at a crime scene.*
*Text to display if the player tries to smoke their own hat.*

#InteractiveFiction #Inform7

I've made an important addition to Who Whacked Jimmy Piñata? today: it's now possible to actually accuse other characters of the murder. If you played my earlier Who Shot Gum E. Bear? then you'll be pleased to hear that the process is a little deeper this time around: you'll have to actually provide evidence to back up the accusation.
#ScreenshotSaturday #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata #Inform7 #InteractiveFiction

One of my favourite things about writing Bubble Gumshoe games is finding opportunities to bung in sweets that I'd completely forgotten existed.
#ScreenshotSaturday #BubbleGumshoe #WhoWhackedJimmyPiñata #Inform7