Hi, guys. I'll get straight to it, then bore you with the details: Can anyone recommend some good software, preferably costless, that will enable me to do simple text adventure games? I've checked out a few "text adventure creator" apps, but I'm trying not to over-complicate matters.

 

I don't want to do anything fancy. I just want to be able to do:

• Room descriptions
• Look, Get, Operate, Push, Pull, whatever
• Inventory puzzles
• Dialogue trees for NPC's

The "dialogue tree" thing is probably what's going to trip up most of the already-available solutions.

 

Anyway, here's what I want to use this for: In light of the Two Guys reunion and the resurgence of the long-slumbering SQ community, I feel the fan fiction itch start to, er, itch again. But I don't just want to do standard text fan fictions, because frankly, I'm a bit embarrassed of those I did ~15 years ago.

 

I want to do interactive fan fiction. I want to do small, content-driven text adventures starring our friend Roger Wilco. I have a number of story ideas ready to go. But I'm not much of a programmer (case in point). So what I'm really looking for is an easy-as-pie GUI-thing that lets me concentrate on writing crazy shit and less time learning a new scripting language.

 

Any help? Anyone?

There's this cool thing, which basically generates choose-your-adventure online books. But it costs money. I'll give it some more thought.

Did you see TADS or Inform?

What was the name of the engine that the fanmade KQ5 text adventure was made with? Z something?

You may be thinking of Z-machine. However, the King's Quest Omnipedia (there's... two of them!) states that the KQ5 text adventure uses an engine called "Quest." Might be worth pursuing.

Thank you for all your suggestions! I think I may have glanced at one or two of these already (QUEST and TADS look familiar); but I'll dive into them with gusto this time and give them a proper whirl.

Sounds intriguing. Sound also like the kind of thing I might like to do other than, you know, do actual useful work...

Keep us updated, Troels. The project definitely sounds interesting.

I'm giving Inform a whirl now, and it seems to be just the ticket. It's one of those things I wished existed when I was a kid, and dismissed as an adult, thinking, "Nah, how would that even work?" But here it is.

 

I'm building a test game called Roger's Quarters (guess what that's about), just to get a feel of the stuff and teach myself the basics before I start terrorizing you all with deviousness. :)

 

Thank you very much for the recommendation! This seems like just the ticket.

 

Others are free to jump on this bandwagon, by the way. I'm through with regular fan fiction; this stuff is the future. ;)

Sweet, glad it worked out for you. Can't wait to see the result.

I've actually been tossing this idea around for a while myself, mostly to contribute to the fangame craze that's whirling around with the Space Quest series this year, so I too will give Inform a try tonight and, well... inform you all about the progress that I make with it.

@Mad_C33: Awesome! :D

 

Well, I can see there's a slight learning curve, so a fully fledged game might be some time away. Still, this seems like just the sort of "programming language" I could get my head around. Once I get the hang of it, this should be tremendous fun.

 

I can't wait to see what you cook up, Mad_C33. Maybe we could pool our resources and learn this stuff together. If I achieve any significant progress tomorrow, I'll post my findings in a "make your own interactive fan fiction" thread.

You know, this could be the perfect outlet for that collaborative fangame effort that was brought up a while ago. We could decide on a red thread to carry through the games, and then do a bunch of smaller text adventures that fit within the larger scheme of things.

 

The thought of users submitting SQ-text adventures to SQN/VBC is also sort of mindblowing to me right now. Must be the red wine from last night still talking.

Bit of an update: I've found that Inform is a bit irritating for my tastes, language-wise, so I'm using Quest and am finding the interface to be very intuitive and open-ended, almost exactly what I need. Will provide further info as I go along. For all intents and purposes, I've started my interactive fan-fic. :)

I just want to let all of you know that I haven't given up on this and am developing a game as I speak.

Likewise. Haven't given up. Though time gets in the way. So if anyone out there is holding their breath, you can let go now. Just breathe shallowly and we're cool. :)

Been thinking about doing something related to this, too. Maybe SQ5, as that's my favourite in the series (was thinking of SQ2).

Sounds like there's some awesome ideas bouncing around here. Can't wait to see the results.

That sounds awesome Troels :) I wish you luck on your project. Also, this thread has inspired me to take a stab at making my own IF. I have zero programming experience, so I'm going to find the easiest one, and teach myself how to do it :P I'll do something really simple and easy, just for fun.

Chrono, if you find one that's easy - let me know. I wouldn't mind taking a stab at one.

For somebody who enjoys writing a lot, and the idea of games, I have to say I've found trying to make interactive fiction absolutely infuriating. Maybe I'm spoilt by how easy AGS is but I actually find graphical games much, much easier to work with. I might give Quest a go, I suppose, but INFORM and whatever the Infocom system were I found terribly fiddly.

Tawmis and Jared: From my research, I gather that Quest is supposed to be good for beginners, with little to no prior programming experience. This is the system that I messing with now :) I also found another one called Adrift, that is supposed to be equally easy, if not more so. I haven't tried that one yet though, so I can't really give my personal opinion. You can find Adrift here and Quest here.

I can learn programming languages (fluent in VB and Java). My using Quest is not because I'm inexperienced with programming, but because the other tools just don't suit my needs.

I can learn programming languages (fluent in VB and Java).

 

Do not be offended... but I was torn between finding a picture of 3CPO saying, "I am fluent in over 6 million forms of communication. What? VB and Java? Why it's a second language to me, sir!"

 

But instead went with something more SQ related...

For somebody who enjoys writing a lot, and the idea of games, I have to say I've found trying to make interactive fiction absolutely infuriating. Maybe I'm spoilt by how easy AGS is but I actually find graphical games much, much easier to work with. I might give Quest a go, I suppose, but INFORM and whatever the Infocom system were I found terribly fiddly.

 

It feels really odd, but I agree completely with you. Maybe it's just because I have very limited space in my brain for learning programming languages, but I somehow managed to squeeze the AGS scripting language in there, next to Microsoft QBasic and basic HTML. INFORM just seems so easy on the surface, but I just can't wrap my brain around it.

 

I hate to harp on about this, but if we just had a pool of graphics to pick from, I could whip up a fan game in AGS in no time.