Awwwww… anybody know how I can skip sleep for a couple of weeks, without going batshit insane? I’d really like to get back into IF, if only I had the time (among my many half-started projects is a game, which now needs porting to Inform7…).

Hat tip to waxy.org for both the IFComp and emshort pointers.

Notes:

1. And she has a new WordPress-based website (well, new to me — I’ve been out of touch a long time) which looks really rather nice.

In a hole in the ground lives a hobbit. A nasty, dirty, wet hole contains ends of worms and an oozy smell. A dry, bare, sandy hole contains nothing to sit down on or eat. The hole in the ground is a hobbit hole. “That means comfort.”

The perfectly round door is like a porthole. It is painted green. A shiny yellow brass knob is in the door’s exact middle. Through the door is a tube-shaped hall. Inside from the hall is the tunnel. It is very comfortable, without smoke. It contains panelled walls. The floor is tiled and carpeted. Some polished chairs and lots-and-lots of pegs for coats-and-hats are here. The hobbit is fond of visitors. The tunnel is winding on-and-on going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill (called the Hill). Many little round doors are on both sides. The hobbit is not going up stairs. Bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, many pantries, wardrobes, whole rooms devoted to clothes, kitchens, dining rooms are on the same floor. All are on the same passage. The best rooms are on the left-hand side. They contain deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

That’s honest-to-god Inform 7 code. Admittedly it needs a little setting up (defining that a hobbit hole is a kind of hole, and similar) but even that is surprisingly compact. Also it must be admitted that the game this produces bears very little resemblance to the text (although it does include the door, the knob —if you look for it— several tunnels and sundry furniture, it’s entirely lacking in hobbits, bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries or wardrobes; and you obviously don’t rate the best rooms, since they’re nowhere to be seen). Still, this should give you some idea why I’m excited about this shiny new toy.

Slesinsky has a simpler version on his blog, including a wee scrap of transcript and a shot of the IDE running. Looks lovely (suppressing pangs of extreme envy).

Here are the samples from the site (which are presumably chosen to be impressive… and they are):

• Martha is a woman in the Vineyard.
• The cask is either customs sealed, liable to tax or stolen goods.
• The prevailing wind is a direction that varies.
• The Old Ice House overlooks the Garden.
• A container is bursting if the total weight of things in it is greater than its breaking strain.

Those aren’t the output the player sees, those are statements the author uses. Programming language statements. That’s compiler input.

The programmer in me is terrified that I’ll want to do something that this won’t let me. The would-be IF author is going “wheeeee!”

… And, “%&$@#, I wonder if it will run under WINE.”

Update: Nope, at least I couldn’t make it go and nobody online has come forward either. But, oh wow oh wow oh wow: check out this machinery for “scenes” (used here as event-triggered plot developements): “Entrapment” example, “The Prague Job” example.

Congratulations to Victor Gijsbers, whose “De Baron/The Baron” won this year’s Spring Thing (original text Dutch, also with his English translation). You can download the Z-code from the Spring Thing page; if you’re new to IF, you’ll need to grab an interpreter to make it go. (The Spring Thing is a smaller but arguably tougher competition than the IFComp. Its winning entry is pretty much guaranteed worth checking out. [Update below, suggesting you skip this one.])

I’ll be sure to post a review when I’ve played “De Baron”. Until then, here’s Victor’s own description, from a call for beta-testers:

“De baron” is geen klassieke text-adventure, en bevat bijvoorbeeld geen enkele puzzel. Wat het wel is is een interactief verhaal, waarbij die interactiviteit dus ook echt belangrijk is. (Er is niet maar 1 mogelijk verloop van het verhaal; in tegendeel.) Daarnaast is het verhaal vrij duister, dus als je alleen van romantische komedies houdt moet je het misschien ook niet spelen.

In the spirit of bilingualism, here’s my rough translation of the above:

“The Baron” is not a classic text adventure, and contains for example no puzzles at all. It is, however, an interactive story, in which the interactivity plays an important part. (There is not only 1 possible storyline; rather to the contrary.) The story is pretty dark, so if you only enjoy romantic comedies you should perhaps not play it.

Update: I can’t recommend it. It’s a serious attempt at investing IF with emotional weight and significance, but the medium is working against it all the way, making it disturbing for all the wrong reasons. And although it’s clearly not the author’s intention, I think these problems trivialise the very issues that he’s trying to address. Perhaps I’ll try to write more about this later, this is already a third draft and I’m still not totally satisfied.

Update 2: I’ve had a very interesting email conversation with Victor. It seems some of my negative reaction is based on playing this too much as traditional IF, while he’s trying for a very different type of experience (based on the Narrativist style of RPG design/play). I stand by my claim that it didn’t entirely work, but my call about the issues being trivialised by the implementation was based on a misunderstanding.

The IFComp (annual interactive fiction competition) began on October 1st. Tea leaves has a good enthusiastic plug for it, which is what reminded me (only a week behind the times). Go, download, play, enjoy (maybe even vote).