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:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:
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:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.
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-----=====Earth's Dreamlands=====-----
|
||||
(313)558-5024 {14.4} (313)558-5517
|
||||
A BBS for text file junkies
|
||||
@ -805,467 +805,467 @@ in the safe, Watson," said he, "and get out the papers of the
|
||||
Conk-Singleton forgery case. Good-bye, Lestrade. If any little
|
||||
problem comes your way, I shall be happy, if I can, to give you
|
||||
a hint or two as to its solution."
|
||||
From gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz Tue Sep 6 01:06:59 1994
|
||||
From: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington)
|
||||
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,news.answers,rec.answers
|
||||
Subject: Adventure Authoring Systems FAQ
|
||||
Supersedes: <authoring-systems-faq_776865602@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
|
||||
Followup-To: rec.arts.int-fiction
|
||||
Date: 31 Aug 1994 12:00:04 GMT
|
||||
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.
|
||||
Distribution: world
|
||||
Reply-To: Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
NNTP-Posting-Host: kauri.vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
Originator: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
|
||||
Archive-name: games/adventure-systems
|
||||
Maintained-by: Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz <Nathan Torkington>
|
||||
Last-changed: Thu Jun 30 11:13:13 NZT 1994
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
Changes:
|
||||
* ftp.gmd section
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
This is a list of systems that can be used to author adventure games.
|
||||
Information about TADS, ADVSYS, ADL, OASYS, INFORM and ALAN can be
|
||||
found here.
|
||||
|
||||
Where possible, pointers to existing information (such as books,
|
||||
magazine articles, and ftp sites) are included here, rather than
|
||||
rehashing that information again.
|
||||
|
||||
If you haven't already done so, now is as good a time as any to read
|
||||
the guide to Net etiquette which is posted to news.announce.newusers
|
||||
regularly. You should be familiar with acronyms like FAQ, FTP and
|
||||
IMHO, as well as know about smileys, followups and when to reply by
|
||||
email to postings.
|
||||
|
||||
For more information on interactive fiction in general, pointers to
|
||||
books and dissertations, and this group's focus, see David Graves'
|
||||
"Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" posting, which appears periodically
|
||||
in rec.arts.int-fiction.
|
||||
|
||||
This FAQ is currently posted to rec.arts.int-fiction and news.answers.
|
||||
All posts to news.answers are archived, and will then possible to
|
||||
retrieve the last posted copy via anonymous FTP from
|
||||
rtfm.mit.edu
|
||||
as
|
||||
/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/adventure-systems
|
||||
Those without FTP access should send e-mail to
|
||||
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
|
||||
with
|
||||
"send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources"
|
||||
in the body to find out how to get archived news.answers posts by
|
||||
e-mail.
|
||||
|
||||
This FAQ was mostly written by Nathan Torkington, with numerous
|
||||
contributions by readers of rec.arts.int-fiction. Credits appear at
|
||||
the end. Comments and indications of doubt are enclosed in []s in the
|
||||
text. Each section begins with forty dashes ("-") on a line of their
|
||||
own, then the section number. This should make searching for a
|
||||
specific section easy.
|
||||
|
||||
If you suffer loss in any way, shape or form from the use of
|
||||
information in this file, then Nathan Torkington expressly disclaims
|
||||
responsibility for it. It's your own damn fool fault if you go broke,
|
||||
detonate your computer or eat broccoli as a result of anything you
|
||||
read here.
|
||||
|
||||
As a final note, this FAQ should be regarded as volatile. If this
|
||||
version is more than two months old, you should consider acquiring a
|
||||
new version. See the instructions above for details of how to do
|
||||
this.
|
||||
|
||||
Contributions, comments and changes should be directed to
|
||||
Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
List of Answers
|
||||
|
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1 What to look for in a system
|
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2 Writing your own adventure
|
||||
3 TADS
|
||||
4 ALAN
|
||||
5 ADVSYS
|
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6 ADL
|
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7 OASYS
|
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8 INFORM
|
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9 Interactive-Fiction FTP Site
|
||||
Z Credits
|
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|
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----------------------------------------
|
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1 What to look for in a system
|
||||
|
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--> Sample adventures, written using the system. This will make
|
||||
learning how to program the system easy. It will also show you the
|
||||
workarounds for any clumsiness in the language.
|
||||
|
||||
--> The ability to handle non-player characters. This means that
|
||||
players should be capable of being addressed, eg "amy, take the cat"
|
||||
should be a valid command to type. Players should be capable of
|
||||
having turns in the background (to allow movement, thieving, etc).
|
||||
|
||||
--> The ability to handle events that occur independent of players
|
||||
actions (often called fuses and daemons). Fuses are scheduled events,
|
||||
such has having the bomb detonate three turns after the fuse is lit.
|
||||
Daemons are routines that are called once every move.
|
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|
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--> Documentation. You need, at least, a reference page. Sample
|
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code helps, and a full explanation of the order that routines are
|
||||
called by the game kernel (eg ADL calls the following for each direct
|
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object: the actor's action, the verb's preaction, the indirect
|
||||
object's action, the direct object's action, then finally the verb
|
||||
action. If any one of these procedures returns a true value, then
|
||||
that procedure is assumed to have completed the command handling for
|
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that direct object, and processing continues for the next direct
|
||||
object. After all the direct objects are handled this way, the room's
|
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action is called and the kernel continues).
|
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|
||||
--> Distribution mechanism. Is the game code fully yours to use? Do
|
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you have to pay a fee for commercial distribution? For shareware
|
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distribution? For free distribution? Are you obligated to offer the
|
||||
source code to the game interpreter as well as your compiled
|
||||
adventure?
|
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|
||||
--> Is it object oriented? If so, you will probably have an easier
|
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time of writing your adventure -- text adventure worlds lend
|
||||
themselves to object orientation better than some other forms of
|
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simulation. Of course, learning the subtleties of the OO method might
|
||||
be harder than writing your game using a traditional (non-OO) system.
|
||||
|
||||
--> Is the game language functional or procedural? That is, does the
|
||||
language look like LISP (lots of parentheses) or a kind of cross
|
||||
between BASIC and C (curly braces {} are a dead giveaway for C
|
||||
lookalikes). You might have to learn a whole new programming style if
|
||||
you write your adventure in a language style that you are unfamiliar
|
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with.
|
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|
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----------------------------------------
|
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2 Writing your own adventure
|
||||
|
||||
Dave Librik posted Dave's Quick Guide To Getting Started with TADS,
|
||||
which was so good that I've generalised it to cover most adventure
|
||||
systems.
|
||||
|
||||
Above all else, the key to learning how to write adventures is to
|
||||
start writing one. Practice not only makes perfect, but
|
||||
trial-and-error makes passable too. You will need the following:
|
||||
|
||||
--> a language/kernel reference manual for your adventure system.
|
||||
You might have to register your system to get this.
|
||||
--> printouts of sample adventures. Staple each printout, so the
|
||||
printouts won't get lost or confused. Also print out any
|
||||
standard libraries that the system comes with (eg adv.t in TADS
|
||||
or standard.adl in ADL).
|
||||
|
||||
Now:
|
||||
--> familiarise yourself with the basics of the language. Subtleties
|
||||
(syntax details, daemons, fuses) should be left for later -- just
|
||||
the basic ideas of objects, inheritance (if your language is OO),
|
||||
printing text. It might help if you already knew a language in
|
||||
the same style (procedural or functional) as the language you
|
||||
will have to program in.
|
||||
--> read the sample adventures. Get a feel for how items and rooms
|
||||
are defined. This step is fairly important -- you will write
|
||||
most of your adventures by strategically stealing the way someone
|
||||
else has written theirs (software professionals call this "code
|
||||
reuse" -- we call it laziness).
|
||||
--> make a copy of one of the simpler sample adventures. Take out
|
||||
all the stuff specific to that adventure (rooms, players,
|
||||
objects, etc) and just leave the verbs, the initialisation code,
|
||||
and the definition of the player's character. Now start writing
|
||||
your own adventure. Start simple -- a couple of rooms and some
|
||||
objects to take.
|
||||
--> add more complicated things. For ideas of things to add, it
|
||||
helps to have played some adventures. Try adding code for doors,
|
||||
containers, other actors, new verbs, fancy verbs that need
|
||||
indirect objects. Use the sample adventures that came with the
|
||||
system as a reference for using things.
|
||||
--> if the sample adventure you modified included standard code for
|
||||
players or startup (std.t in TADS), then include those libraries
|
||||
and customise them to your taste (you should have no trouble
|
||||
reading and understanding the code by now). Add any of your own
|
||||
initialisation code to this.
|
||||
--> when you want to start making significant changes to the
|
||||
behaviour of the adventure, you will have to change any standard
|
||||
libraries that your adventures includes (standard.adl in ADL,
|
||||
adv.t in TADS). Whenever you make a change, comment at the top
|
||||
of the file why you make the change, and exactly what you
|
||||
changed. This is so that when your later adventures need any of
|
||||
the features you have added, it will be easy to add them. It
|
||||
also helps when newer releases of the adventure system arrive --
|
||||
you can make the changes to the new standard library with minimal
|
||||
hassle.
|
||||
--> now realise that what you have written is a practice game. It
|
||||
probably wasn't well laid out, or well planned, or even
|
||||
consistent. To write your Real Adventure, you will have to go
|
||||
through some serious Design and Implementation.
|
||||
|
||||
The classic Colossal Cave adventure has been rewritten in TADS by Dave
|
||||
Baggett <dmb@ai.mit.edu> and is available in source from the IF
|
||||
archive (see Section 9) in the directory
|
||||
if-archive/games/others/ccr.tar.Z
|
||||
|
||||
The documentation to INFORM (see section 8) contains a wealth of
|
||||
material relevant to designing adventure games under any system. This
|
||||
is highly recommended for those wishing to write their own games.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
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3 TADS
|
||||
|
||||
TADS stands for "Text Adventure Development System". It is available
|
||||
for MSDOS, Atari ST, Macintosh, Sun, SGI, Linux, DEC/MIPS, and NeXT
|
||||
computers at the moment. It is available via anonymous FTP as
|
||||
msdos.archive.umich.edu:msdos/games/adventure/tads.zip
|
||||
mac.archive.umich.edu:mac/game/gameutil/tads2.1.cpt.hqx
|
||||
atari.archive.umich.edu:atari/Games/Tads/tads.lzh
|
||||
ftp.gmd.de:if-archive/programming/tads/
|
||||
but these are not the latest versions (at the time of writing). The
|
||||
latest version, TADS 2.1, features virtual memory, expanded C-like
|
||||
syntax, improved documentation and an improved debugger.
|
||||
|
||||
TADS is released by High Energy Software, and is shareware. Shareware
|
||||
games can (and have) been written using TADS, and commercial
|
||||
distribution of games written using TADS seems allowable. TADS
|
||||
consists of a compiler (which converts the source code to adventures
|
||||
into TADS game code) and an interpreter (which reads the TADS game
|
||||
code produced by the compiler and lets users play the game).
|
||||
|
||||
Registered users get a form of the interpreter which can be combined
|
||||
with the game code file to form a single executable for distribution.
|
||||
The interpreter is licensed for shareware use, you don't have to pay a
|
||||
penny if you distribute your games via shareware. If you plan to sell
|
||||
it commercially, contact Mike Roberts for information on getting the
|
||||
rights.
|
||||
|
||||
The TADS language is declarative and object-oriented. It appears very
|
||||
C-like, and the syntax shouldn't be too difficult to learn by people
|
||||
who know C or Pascal. The language provides a basic syntax, some text
|
||||
manipulation and support for object-oriented programming. The
|
||||
interpreter provides parsing, question-and-response I/O format, and
|
||||
activation of the appropriate methods in objects depending on what the
|
||||
player types. The language has support for actors, fuses and daemons.
|
||||
|
||||
TADS comes with the source to a trivial adventure, and source to an
|
||||
Infocom quality game ("Ditch-Day Drifter"). On registration of the
|
||||
package, a manual can be obtained. The manual for v1.* is very good
|
||||
(although it doesn't explain well the contents of the standard library
|
||||
file, adv.t). The v2.1 manual is apparently twice the size of v1.
|
||||
|
||||
The prices for versions < 2.0 are:
|
||||
TADS shareware fee: 25.00
|
||||
Includes printed TADS Author's Manual, the
|
||||
current TADS software on specified media,
|
||||
plus the source code for "Ditch Day
|
||||
Drifter," a complete sample game.
|
||||
Deep Space Drifter: 10.00
|
||||
Includes "Deep Space Drifter" on the disk
|
||||
media specified above, plus a complete map
|
||||
of the game and the DSD Hint Book.
|
||||
California residents please add 7% sales tax.
|
||||
|
||||
The price of v2.1 is US$40 (+ California sales tax for California
|
||||
residents, $3 for shipping and handling within the US and Canada, or
|
||||
$8 for international air mail). If you register "Deep Space Drifter"
|
||||
at the same time, the total is only US$50 (plus sales and shipping).
|
||||
For more information, contact:
|
||||
--> BBS: 415 493 2420 (set modem to 14400-N-8-1)
|
||||
--> CompuServe: 73737,417
|
||||
--> GEnie: M.ROBERTS10
|
||||
--> Internet: 73737.417@compuserve.com
|
||||
--> US Mail: High Energy Software, PO Box 50422, Palo Alto, CA
|
||||
94303.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
4 ALAN
|
||||
|
||||
The Alan System is a special purpose language for creating interactive
|
||||
fiction or text adventures. It consists of a compiler which compiles
|
||||
Alan source to an intermediate form and an interpreter that interprets
|
||||
such an intermediate form.
|
||||
|
||||
The Alan language was designed to give the maximum functionality from
|
||||
as little code-writing as possible. This means:
|
||||
--> the system provides default behaviour for many things (which the
|
||||
author can override).
|
||||
--> the system directly supports locations, objects, actors and
|
||||
other concepts natural to the domain of interactive fiction.
|
||||
--> the author can extend the allowable input of the player, and
|
||||
connect actions to that input.
|
||||
|
||||
It is also a safe language in the sense that extensive compile-time
|
||||
checking makes it nearly impossible to produce a game that crashes or
|
||||
behaves inconsistently.
|
||||
|
||||
The language is declarative and very close to English. It supports
|
||||
fuses and daemons by use of events, and is object-inspired (all
|
||||
declarations are local to entities, but no inheritance).
|
||||
|
||||
The Alan System is request-ware. The complete system is available
|
||||
without charge through electronic mail. Send a message with a single
|
||||
line:
|
||||
SEND INFO
|
||||
to
|
||||
alan-request@softlab.se
|
||||
for more information.
|
||||
|
||||
The complete distribution includes the compiler, the documentation, a
|
||||
100+ page manual in plain text and postscript versions, some examples
|
||||
and the interpreter with debugging support. The interpreter can be
|
||||
redistributed with your games, so this seems to open the way for
|
||||
commercial and shareware release.
|
||||
|
||||
The manual is available from the IF archive (see Section 9) in the
|
||||
directory
|
||||
if-archive/programming/alan/manual.zip
|
||||
|
||||
The current version of Alan is 2.4 which runs on Sun/UNIX, Amigas, PCs
|
||||
(MSDOS and OS/2) and VAX/VMS. A major revision of the manual is
|
||||
planned, and a larger game is also being worked on for release.
|
||||
|
||||
The authors may be contacted at:
|
||||
|
||||
alan-request@softlab.se pseudo-mail-server for deliveries
|
||||
thoni@softlab.se
|
||||
gorfo@ida.liu.se
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
5 ADVSYS
|
||||
|
||||
ADVSYS (ADVenture SYStem) was written by David Betz, and the latest
|
||||
version (1.3) is based on the 1986 release of 1.2 which seems more
|
||||
prolific. This package consists of LaTeX and ASCII documentation, C
|
||||
source code for the compiler and interpreter, and the source code for
|
||||
several sample adventures (as well as a demonstration library). It
|
||||
was written up in Byte magazine [reference here].
|
||||
|
||||
The language is LISP-like, and object-oriented. The game has no
|
||||
knowledge of the difference between actors, objects, locations, etc --
|
||||
all this must be present in the game code. As such, the runtime
|
||||
library is rather more complex than might be desired. Actors, fuses
|
||||
and daemons can all be implemented easily.
|
||||
|
||||
There is [somewhere] a library of code developed by the (now-defunct)
|
||||
ADVSYS mailing list. This provides rather better code than the
|
||||
library distributed with ADVSYS, and includes containers and limits to
|
||||
containment.
|
||||
|
||||
The documentation says "Permission is hereby granted for unrestricted
|
||||
non-commercial use". You might have to contact David Betz to ask
|
||||
about commercial and shareware distribution.
|
||||
|
||||
ADVSYS was posted to comp.sources.games, and appeared in volume 2. It
|
||||
can, therefore, be found on any FTP site that archives it. Two such
|
||||
FTP sites are:
|
||||
ftp.uu.net:/usenet/comp.sources.games/volume2/advsys
|
||||
wuarchive.wustl.edu:/usenet/comp.sources.games/volume02/advsys
|
||||
|
||||
An ANSI C version is available, on the IF Archive site (see section 9).
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
6 ADL
|
||||
|
||||
ADL (Adventure Design Language) was written by Ross Cunniff and Tim
|
||||
Brengle. The package posted to comp.sources.games consists of plain
|
||||
ASCII documentation, C source for a compiler, interpreter and
|
||||
debugger, and several sample adventures (ranging from the complex to
|
||||
the very simple) which illustrate the various features of ADL.
|
||||
|
||||
ADL is a declarative, semi-object-oriented language. It has the
|
||||
concept of methods (procedures that are attached to objects) but not
|
||||
inheritance. This means that an object-oriented style of programming
|
||||
will be rather inhibited.
|
||||
|
||||
The language recognises actors, locations and objects as being
|
||||
distinct. Fuses and daemons are supported in the language. A
|
||||
standard library comes with the package, that gives a firm foundation
|
||||
to write games on.
|
||||
|
||||
The documentation is very close to being excellent, and contains a
|
||||
full language reference. The documentation doesn't appear to contain
|
||||
any guide to distribution of anything but the source code. Therefore
|
||||
it may be legal to distribute the compiled interpreter with your game.
|
||||
For more information, you should contact the authors at:
|
||||
|
||||
USMAIL: Ross Cunniff
|
||||
636 La Grande, #7
|
||||
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
7 OASYS
|
||||
|
||||
OASYS stands for Object-Oriented Adventure System. It was distributed
|
||||
in comp.binaries.ibm.pc in 1992, and is available from any FTP site
|
||||
which archives cbipc. It was written by Russell Wallace, who is
|
||||
reachable via e-mail as RWALLACE@vax1.tcd.ie.
|
||||
|
||||
The package has documentation, two sample adventures, C source for the
|
||||
compiler and interpreter, and MS-DOS binaries for the compiler and
|
||||
interpreter. The source is missing an include file (Russell will
|
||||
provide it on request) and shouldn't be very difficult to port to non
|
||||
MS-DOS systems.
|
||||
|
||||
The language is declarative, and (not really) object-oriented. The
|
||||
major limitation of the parser is that it forces the player to type
|
||||
the adjectives along with the noun ("ceramic key" must be typed, even
|
||||
if there are no other keys accessable). This may be fixed later.
|
||||
|
||||
Actor support is provided, and players can issue commands to other
|
||||
actors. [fuses? daemons?]
|
||||
|
||||
There don't appear to be any legal restrictions, so you can probably
|
||||
distributed compiled interpreters with your commercial/shareware/free
|
||||
games.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
8 INFORM
|
||||
|
||||
INFORM was written by Graham Nelson at Oxford University, UK. It is a
|
||||
compiler that produces Infocom story files. There are many
|
||||
public-domain interpreters for these files, available from the
|
||||
Interactive Fiction archive site.
|
||||
|
||||
The compiler is written in ANSI C, and is freely available (but not
|
||||
public domain). It produces version-3 files from a fairly C-like
|
||||
source language, and can produce version-5 files as well (an important
|
||||
innovation since they are twice as large --- Trinity-sized instead of
|
||||
Zork-1-sized). The documentation (in the same package as the source)
|
||||
contains a description of INFORM, as well as a specification of the
|
||||
story file form. It also contains enough articles for a short book on
|
||||
game design, which are not specifically about INFORM.
|
||||
|
||||
Two example games are included, one medium-sized and one trivial.
|
||||
Both the source files and the story files are included. There are
|
||||
also fully modifiable libraries, which are heavily commented.
|
||||
|
||||
INFORM is genuinely free, and the rights to a game it produces belong
|
||||
to the author of the game.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
9 Interactive-Fiction FTP Site
|
||||
|
||||
The FTP site ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive contains most, if not all,
|
||||
of the software mentioned here as well as interpreters for Infocom
|
||||
games, source and binaries for many other games and sundry information
|
||||
files too numerous to mention.
|
||||
|
||||
ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive is mirrored in
|
||||
wuarchive.wustl.edu:/doc/misc/if-archive.
|
||||
|
||||
The latest FAQ is stored here as
|
||||
if-archive/info/authoring-systems.FAQ and as
|
||||
if-archive/programming/general-discussion/authoring-systems.FAQ
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
Z Credits
|
||||
|
||||
Nathan Torkington <Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz>, David Librik
|
||||
<librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, Dave Baggett <dmb@case.ai.mit.edu>, Thomas
|
||||
Nilsson <thoni@ida.liu.se>, Graham Nelson <nelson@vax.ox.ac.uk>,
|
||||
Volker Blasius <blasius@gmd.de> and the documentation for the various
|
||||
systems mentioned here.
|
||||
|
||||
From gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz Tue Sep 6 01:06:59 1994
|
||||
From: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz (Nathan Torkington)
|
||||
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,news.answers,rec.answers
|
||||
Subject: Adventure Authoring Systems FAQ
|
||||
Supersedes: <authoring-systems-faq_776865602@kauri.vuw.ac.nz>
|
||||
Followup-To: rec.arts.int-fiction
|
||||
Date: 31 Aug 1994 12:00:04 GMT
|
||||
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.
|
||||
Distribution: world
|
||||
Reply-To: Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
NNTP-Posting-Host: kauri.vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
Originator: gnat@kauri.vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
|
||||
Archive-name: games/adventure-systems
|
||||
Maintained-by: Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz <Nathan Torkington>
|
||||
Last-changed: Thu Jun 30 11:13:13 NZT 1994
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
Changes:
|
||||
* ftp.gmd section
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
This is a list of systems that can be used to author adventure games.
|
||||
Information about TADS, ADVSYS, ADL, OASYS, INFORM and ALAN can be
|
||||
found here.
|
||||
|
||||
Where possible, pointers to existing information (such as books,
|
||||
magazine articles, and ftp sites) are included here, rather than
|
||||
rehashing that information again.
|
||||
|
||||
If you haven't already done so, now is as good a time as any to read
|
||||
the guide to Net etiquette which is posted to news.announce.newusers
|
||||
regularly. You should be familiar with acronyms like FAQ, FTP and
|
||||
IMHO, as well as know about smileys, followups and when to reply by
|
||||
email to postings.
|
||||
|
||||
For more information on interactive fiction in general, pointers to
|
||||
books and dissertations, and this group's focus, see David Graves'
|
||||
"Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)" posting, which appears periodically
|
||||
in rec.arts.int-fiction.
|
||||
|
||||
This FAQ is currently posted to rec.arts.int-fiction and news.answers.
|
||||
All posts to news.answers are archived, and will then possible to
|
||||
retrieve the last posted copy via anonymous FTP from
|
||||
rtfm.mit.edu
|
||||
as
|
||||
/pub/usenet/news.answers/games/adventure-systems
|
||||
Those without FTP access should send e-mail to
|
||||
mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
|
||||
with
|
||||
"send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources"
|
||||
in the body to find out how to get archived news.answers posts by
|
||||
e-mail.
|
||||
|
||||
This FAQ was mostly written by Nathan Torkington, with numerous
|
||||
contributions by readers of rec.arts.int-fiction. Credits appear at
|
||||
the end. Comments and indications of doubt are enclosed in []s in the
|
||||
text. Each section begins with forty dashes ("-") on a line of their
|
||||
own, then the section number. This should make searching for a
|
||||
specific section easy.
|
||||
|
||||
If you suffer loss in any way, shape or form from the use of
|
||||
information in this file, then Nathan Torkington expressly disclaims
|
||||
responsibility for it. It's your own damn fool fault if you go broke,
|
||||
detonate your computer or eat broccoli as a result of anything you
|
||||
read here.
|
||||
|
||||
As a final note, this FAQ should be regarded as volatile. If this
|
||||
version is more than two months old, you should consider acquiring a
|
||||
new version. See the instructions above for details of how to do
|
||||
this.
|
||||
|
||||
Contributions, comments and changes should be directed to
|
||||
Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
List of Answers
|
||||
|
||||
1 What to look for in a system
|
||||
2 Writing your own adventure
|
||||
3 TADS
|
||||
4 ALAN
|
||||
5 ADVSYS
|
||||
6 ADL
|
||||
7 OASYS
|
||||
8 INFORM
|
||||
9 Interactive-Fiction FTP Site
|
||||
Z Credits
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
1 What to look for in a system
|
||||
|
||||
--> Sample adventures, written using the system. This will make
|
||||
learning how to program the system easy. It will also show you the
|
||||
workarounds for any clumsiness in the language.
|
||||
|
||||
--> The ability to handle non-player characters. This means that
|
||||
players should be capable of being addressed, eg "amy, take the cat"
|
||||
should be a valid command to type. Players should be capable of
|
||||
having turns in the background (to allow movement, thieving, etc).
|
||||
|
||||
--> The ability to handle events that occur independent of players
|
||||
actions (often called fuses and daemons). Fuses are scheduled events,
|
||||
such has having the bomb detonate three turns after the fuse is lit.
|
||||
Daemons are routines that are called once every move.
|
||||
|
||||
--> Documentation. You need, at least, a reference page. Sample
|
||||
code helps, and a full explanation of the order that routines are
|
||||
called by the game kernel (eg ADL calls the following for each direct
|
||||
object: the actor's action, the verb's preaction, the indirect
|
||||
object's action, the direct object's action, then finally the verb
|
||||
action. If any one of these procedures returns a true value, then
|
||||
that procedure is assumed to have completed the command handling for
|
||||
that direct object, and processing continues for the next direct
|
||||
object. After all the direct objects are handled this way, the room's
|
||||
action is called and the kernel continues).
|
||||
|
||||
--> Distribution mechanism. Is the game code fully yours to use? Do
|
||||
you have to pay a fee for commercial distribution? For shareware
|
||||
distribution? For free distribution? Are you obligated to offer the
|
||||
source code to the game interpreter as well as your compiled
|
||||
adventure?
|
||||
|
||||
--> Is it object oriented? If so, you will probably have an easier
|
||||
time of writing your adventure -- text adventure worlds lend
|
||||
themselves to object orientation better than some other forms of
|
||||
simulation. Of course, learning the subtleties of the OO method might
|
||||
be harder than writing your game using a traditional (non-OO) system.
|
||||
|
||||
--> Is the game language functional or procedural? That is, does the
|
||||
language look like LISP (lots of parentheses) or a kind of cross
|
||||
between BASIC and C (curly braces {} are a dead giveaway for C
|
||||
lookalikes). You might have to learn a whole new programming style if
|
||||
you write your adventure in a language style that you are unfamiliar
|
||||
with.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
2 Writing your own adventure
|
||||
|
||||
Dave Librik posted Dave's Quick Guide To Getting Started with TADS,
|
||||
which was so good that I've generalised it to cover most adventure
|
||||
systems.
|
||||
|
||||
Above all else, the key to learning how to write adventures is to
|
||||
start writing one. Practice not only makes perfect, but
|
||||
trial-and-error makes passable too. You will need the following:
|
||||
|
||||
--> a language/kernel reference manual for your adventure system.
|
||||
You might have to register your system to get this.
|
||||
--> printouts of sample adventures. Staple each printout, so the
|
||||
printouts won't get lost or confused. Also print out any
|
||||
standard libraries that the system comes with (eg adv.t in TADS
|
||||
or standard.adl in ADL).
|
||||
|
||||
Now:
|
||||
--> familiarise yourself with the basics of the language. Subtleties
|
||||
(syntax details, daemons, fuses) should be left for later -- just
|
||||
the basic ideas of objects, inheritance (if your language is OO),
|
||||
printing text. It might help if you already knew a language in
|
||||
the same style (procedural or functional) as the language you
|
||||
will have to program in.
|
||||
--> read the sample adventures. Get a feel for how items and rooms
|
||||
are defined. This step is fairly important -- you will write
|
||||
most of your adventures by strategically stealing the way someone
|
||||
else has written theirs (software professionals call this "code
|
||||
reuse" -- we call it laziness).
|
||||
--> make a copy of one of the simpler sample adventures. Take out
|
||||
all the stuff specific to that adventure (rooms, players,
|
||||
objects, etc) and just leave the verbs, the initialisation code,
|
||||
and the definition of the player's character. Now start writing
|
||||
your own adventure. Start simple -- a couple of rooms and some
|
||||
objects to take.
|
||||
--> add more complicated things. For ideas of things to add, it
|
||||
helps to have played some adventures. Try adding code for doors,
|
||||
containers, other actors, new verbs, fancy verbs that need
|
||||
indirect objects. Use the sample adventures that came with the
|
||||
system as a reference for using things.
|
||||
--> if the sample adventure you modified included standard code for
|
||||
players or startup (std.t in TADS), then include those libraries
|
||||
and customise them to your taste (you should have no trouble
|
||||
reading and understanding the code by now). Add any of your own
|
||||
initialisation code to this.
|
||||
--> when you want to start making significant changes to the
|
||||
behaviour of the adventure, you will have to change any standard
|
||||
libraries that your adventures includes (standard.adl in ADL,
|
||||
adv.t in TADS). Whenever you make a change, comment at the top
|
||||
of the file why you make the change, and exactly what you
|
||||
changed. This is so that when your later adventures need any of
|
||||
the features you have added, it will be easy to add them. It
|
||||
also helps when newer releases of the adventure system arrive --
|
||||
you can make the changes to the new standard library with minimal
|
||||
hassle.
|
||||
--> now realise that what you have written is a practice game. It
|
||||
probably wasn't well laid out, or well planned, or even
|
||||
consistent. To write your Real Adventure, you will have to go
|
||||
through some serious Design and Implementation.
|
||||
|
||||
The classic Colossal Cave adventure has been rewritten in TADS by Dave
|
||||
Baggett <dmb@ai.mit.edu> and is available in source from the IF
|
||||
archive (see Section 9) in the directory
|
||||
if-archive/games/others/ccr.tar.Z
|
||||
|
||||
The documentation to INFORM (see section 8) contains a wealth of
|
||||
material relevant to designing adventure games under any system. This
|
||||
is highly recommended for those wishing to write their own games.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
3 TADS
|
||||
|
||||
TADS stands for "Text Adventure Development System". It is available
|
||||
for MSDOS, Atari ST, Macintosh, Sun, SGI, Linux, DEC/MIPS, and NeXT
|
||||
computers at the moment. It is available via anonymous FTP as
|
||||
msdos.archive.umich.edu:msdos/games/adventure/tads.zip
|
||||
mac.archive.umich.edu:mac/game/gameutil/tads2.1.cpt.hqx
|
||||
atari.archive.umich.edu:atari/Games/Tads/tads.lzh
|
||||
ftp.gmd.de:if-archive/programming/tads/
|
||||
but these are not the latest versions (at the time of writing). The
|
||||
latest version, TADS 2.1, features virtual memory, expanded C-like
|
||||
syntax, improved documentation and an improved debugger.
|
||||
|
||||
TADS is released by High Energy Software, and is shareware. Shareware
|
||||
games can (and have) been written using TADS, and commercial
|
||||
distribution of games written using TADS seems allowable. TADS
|
||||
consists of a compiler (which converts the source code to adventures
|
||||
into TADS game code) and an interpreter (which reads the TADS game
|
||||
code produced by the compiler and lets users play the game).
|
||||
|
||||
Registered users get a form of the interpreter which can be combined
|
||||
with the game code file to form a single executable for distribution.
|
||||
The interpreter is licensed for shareware use, you don't have to pay a
|
||||
penny if you distribute your games via shareware. If you plan to sell
|
||||
it commercially, contact Mike Roberts for information on getting the
|
||||
rights.
|
||||
|
||||
The TADS language is declarative and object-oriented. It appears very
|
||||
C-like, and the syntax shouldn't be too difficult to learn by people
|
||||
who know C or Pascal. The language provides a basic syntax, some text
|
||||
manipulation and support for object-oriented programming. The
|
||||
interpreter provides parsing, question-and-response I/O format, and
|
||||
activation of the appropriate methods in objects depending on what the
|
||||
player types. The language has support for actors, fuses and daemons.
|
||||
|
||||
TADS comes with the source to a trivial adventure, and source to an
|
||||
Infocom quality game ("Ditch-Day Drifter"). On registration of the
|
||||
package, a manual can be obtained. The manual for v1.* is very good
|
||||
(although it doesn't explain well the contents of the standard library
|
||||
file, adv.t). The v2.1 manual is apparently twice the size of v1.
|
||||
|
||||
The prices for versions < 2.0 are:
|
||||
TADS shareware fee: 25.00
|
||||
Includes printed TADS Author's Manual, the
|
||||
current TADS software on specified media,
|
||||
plus the source code for "Ditch Day
|
||||
Drifter," a complete sample game.
|
||||
Deep Space Drifter: 10.00
|
||||
Includes "Deep Space Drifter" on the disk
|
||||
media specified above, plus a complete map
|
||||
of the game and the DSD Hint Book.
|
||||
California residents please add 7% sales tax.
|
||||
|
||||
The price of v2.1 is US$40 (+ California sales tax for California
|
||||
residents, $3 for shipping and handling within the US and Canada, or
|
||||
$8 for international air mail). If you register "Deep Space Drifter"
|
||||
at the same time, the total is only US$50 (plus sales and shipping).
|
||||
For more information, contact:
|
||||
--> BBS: 415 493 2420 (set modem to 14400-N-8-1)
|
||||
--> CompuServe: 73737,417
|
||||
--> GEnie: M.ROBERTS10
|
||||
--> Internet: 73737.417@compuserve.com
|
||||
--> US Mail: High Energy Software, PO Box 50422, Palo Alto, CA
|
||||
94303.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
4 ALAN
|
||||
|
||||
The Alan System is a special purpose language for creating interactive
|
||||
fiction or text adventures. It consists of a compiler which compiles
|
||||
Alan source to an intermediate form and an interpreter that interprets
|
||||
such an intermediate form.
|
||||
|
||||
The Alan language was designed to give the maximum functionality from
|
||||
as little code-writing as possible. This means:
|
||||
--> the system provides default behaviour for many things (which the
|
||||
author can override).
|
||||
--> the system directly supports locations, objects, actors and
|
||||
other concepts natural to the domain of interactive fiction.
|
||||
--> the author can extend the allowable input of the player, and
|
||||
connect actions to that input.
|
||||
|
||||
It is also a safe language in the sense that extensive compile-time
|
||||
checking makes it nearly impossible to produce a game that crashes or
|
||||
behaves inconsistently.
|
||||
|
||||
The language is declarative and very close to English. It supports
|
||||
fuses and daemons by use of events, and is object-inspired (all
|
||||
declarations are local to entities, but no inheritance).
|
||||
|
||||
The Alan System is request-ware. The complete system is available
|
||||
without charge through electronic mail. Send a message with a single
|
||||
line:
|
||||
SEND INFO
|
||||
to
|
||||
alan-request@softlab.se
|
||||
for more information.
|
||||
|
||||
The complete distribution includes the compiler, the documentation, a
|
||||
100+ page manual in plain text and postscript versions, some examples
|
||||
and the interpreter with debugging support. The interpreter can be
|
||||
redistributed with your games, so this seems to open the way for
|
||||
commercial and shareware release.
|
||||
|
||||
The manual is available from the IF archive (see Section 9) in the
|
||||
directory
|
||||
if-archive/programming/alan/manual.zip
|
||||
|
||||
The current version of Alan is 2.4 which runs on Sun/UNIX, Amigas, PCs
|
||||
(MSDOS and OS/2) and VAX/VMS. A major revision of the manual is
|
||||
planned, and a larger game is also being worked on for release.
|
||||
|
||||
The authors may be contacted at:
|
||||
|
||||
alan-request@softlab.se pseudo-mail-server for deliveries
|
||||
thoni@softlab.se
|
||||
gorfo@ida.liu.se
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
5 ADVSYS
|
||||
|
||||
ADVSYS (ADVenture SYStem) was written by David Betz, and the latest
|
||||
version (1.3) is based on the 1986 release of 1.2 which seems more
|
||||
prolific. This package consists of LaTeX and ASCII documentation, C
|
||||
source code for the compiler and interpreter, and the source code for
|
||||
several sample adventures (as well as a demonstration library). It
|
||||
was written up in Byte magazine [reference here].
|
||||
|
||||
The language is LISP-like, and object-oriented. The game has no
|
||||
knowledge of the difference between actors, objects, locations, etc --
|
||||
all this must be present in the game code. As such, the runtime
|
||||
library is rather more complex than might be desired. Actors, fuses
|
||||
and daemons can all be implemented easily.
|
||||
|
||||
There is [somewhere] a library of code developed by the (now-defunct)
|
||||
ADVSYS mailing list. This provides rather better code than the
|
||||
library distributed with ADVSYS, and includes containers and limits to
|
||||
containment.
|
||||
|
||||
The documentation says "Permission is hereby granted for unrestricted
|
||||
non-commercial use". You might have to contact David Betz to ask
|
||||
about commercial and shareware distribution.
|
||||
|
||||
ADVSYS was posted to comp.sources.games, and appeared in volume 2. It
|
||||
can, therefore, be found on any FTP site that archives it. Two such
|
||||
FTP sites are:
|
||||
ftp.uu.net:/usenet/comp.sources.games/volume2/advsys
|
||||
wuarchive.wustl.edu:/usenet/comp.sources.games/volume02/advsys
|
||||
|
||||
An ANSI C version is available, on the IF Archive site (see section 9).
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
6 ADL
|
||||
|
||||
ADL (Adventure Design Language) was written by Ross Cunniff and Tim
|
||||
Brengle. The package posted to comp.sources.games consists of plain
|
||||
ASCII documentation, C source for a compiler, interpreter and
|
||||
debugger, and several sample adventures (ranging from the complex to
|
||||
the very simple) which illustrate the various features of ADL.
|
||||
|
||||
ADL is a declarative, semi-object-oriented language. It has the
|
||||
concept of methods (procedures that are attached to objects) but not
|
||||
inheritance. This means that an object-oriented style of programming
|
||||
will be rather inhibited.
|
||||
|
||||
The language recognises actors, locations and objects as being
|
||||
distinct. Fuses and daemons are supported in the language. A
|
||||
standard library comes with the package, that gives a firm foundation
|
||||
to write games on.
|
||||
|
||||
The documentation is very close to being excellent, and contains a
|
||||
full language reference. The documentation doesn't appear to contain
|
||||
any guide to distribution of anything but the source code. Therefore
|
||||
it may be legal to distribute the compiled interpreter with your game.
|
||||
For more information, you should contact the authors at:
|
||||
|
||||
USMAIL: Ross Cunniff
|
||||
636 La Grande, #7
|
||||
Sunnyvale, CA 94087
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
7 OASYS
|
||||
|
||||
OASYS stands for Object-Oriented Adventure System. It was distributed
|
||||
in comp.binaries.ibm.pc in 1992, and is available from any FTP site
|
||||
which archives cbipc. It was written by Russell Wallace, who is
|
||||
reachable via e-mail as RWALLACE@vax1.tcd.ie.
|
||||
|
||||
The package has documentation, two sample adventures, C source for the
|
||||
compiler and interpreter, and MS-DOS binaries for the compiler and
|
||||
interpreter. The source is missing an include file (Russell will
|
||||
provide it on request) and shouldn't be very difficult to port to non
|
||||
MS-DOS systems.
|
||||
|
||||
The language is declarative, and (not really) object-oriented. The
|
||||
major limitation of the parser is that it forces the player to type
|
||||
the adjectives along with the noun ("ceramic key" must be typed, even
|
||||
if there are no other keys accessable). This may be fixed later.
|
||||
|
||||
Actor support is provided, and players can issue commands to other
|
||||
actors. [fuses? daemons?]
|
||||
|
||||
There don't appear to be any legal restrictions, so you can probably
|
||||
distributed compiled interpreters with your commercial/shareware/free
|
||||
games.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
8 INFORM
|
||||
|
||||
INFORM was written by Graham Nelson at Oxford University, UK. It is a
|
||||
compiler that produces Infocom story files. There are many
|
||||
public-domain interpreters for these files, available from the
|
||||
Interactive Fiction archive site.
|
||||
|
||||
The compiler is written in ANSI C, and is freely available (but not
|
||||
public domain). It produces version-3 files from a fairly C-like
|
||||
source language, and can produce version-5 files as well (an important
|
||||
innovation since they are twice as large --- Trinity-sized instead of
|
||||
Zork-1-sized). The documentation (in the same package as the source)
|
||||
contains a description of INFORM, as well as a specification of the
|
||||
story file form. It also contains enough articles for a short book on
|
||||
game design, which are not specifically about INFORM.
|
||||
|
||||
Two example games are included, one medium-sized and one trivial.
|
||||
Both the source files and the story files are included. There are
|
||||
also fully modifiable libraries, which are heavily commented.
|
||||
|
||||
INFORM is genuinely free, and the rights to a game it produces belong
|
||||
to the author of the game.
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
9 Interactive-Fiction FTP Site
|
||||
|
||||
The FTP site ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive contains most, if not all,
|
||||
of the software mentioned here as well as interpreters for Infocom
|
||||
games, source and binaries for many other games and sundry information
|
||||
files too numerous to mention.
|
||||
|
||||
ftp.gmd.de:/if-archive is mirrored in
|
||||
wuarchive.wustl.edu:/doc/misc/if-archive.
|
||||
|
||||
The latest FAQ is stored here as
|
||||
if-archive/info/authoring-systems.FAQ and as
|
||||
if-archive/programming/general-discussion/authoring-systems.FAQ
|
||||
|
||||
----------------------------------------
|
||||
Z Credits
|
||||
|
||||
Nathan Torkington <Nathan.Torkington@vuw.ac.nz>, David Librik
|
||||
<librik@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, Dave Baggett <dmb@case.ai.mit.edu>, Thomas
|
||||
Nilsson <thoni@ida.liu.se>, Graham Nelson <nelson@vax.ox.ac.uk>,
|
||||
Volker Blasius <blasius@gmd.de> and the documentation for the various
|
||||
systems mentioned here.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Aesop's Fables Translated by George Fyler Townsend
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user