Inform 7, the long-awaited ground-up rewrite of the interactive fiction authoring language, is out in beta release, and it’s… extraordinary. First the bad news: they’ve tied it inextricably into an IDE currently only available for Windows and OSX. On the other hand, that IDE looks pretty damn fantastic — packed chock-full of IF-specific goodies like a replay mechanism (including branches) that lets you adjust the source then effortlessly return to your playthrough. On the gripping hand, the language has been totally rewritten — and the only way I’ll know what I think about that is by trying it out.

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.