Fun!
Years ago I wrote a Zork-style game engine. It was scripted with objects and locations with attributes. You were also an object. Other simple scripts emitted messages and changed attributes when match conditions were satisfied.
Sounds like any other programming language when I say it like that. But the scripts created dependency trees which got triggered. So not a declamatory language with subroutines etc.
Nice, do you still have it? Possibly online somewhere?
The ScummVM-Wiki [1] recommends building fangames as text-adventures first, so all the characters, places and stories are defined before starting with graphics. They recommend Inform [2]
It was on an old 40Mb disk in a long-discontinued computer line. Actually I recently sent that computer to a guy who revives old hardware, and he got some stuff off of it! Maybe I'll ask him.
For Zork style (i.e. text) adventures it's well worth checking out http://inform7.com - yes, http, as unfortunately their cert is broken.
In summary you use a declarative English-like language, saying things like "The Library is a room" and "Inside the Library is a book". Inform's compiler takes those rules and builds a runnable text adventure using an engine based on the Infocom one that Zork was written with.
It comes with a syntax highlighting IDE, including a game player.
Comments
Fun! Years ago I wrote a Zork-style game engine. It was scripted with objects and locations with attributes. You were also an object. Other simple scripts emitted messages and changed attributes when match conditions were satisfied.
Sounds like any other programming language when I say it like that. But the scripts created dependency trees which got triggered. So not a declamatory language with subroutines etc.
Anyway, blast from the past.
Nice, do you still have it? Possibly online somewhere?
The ScummVM-Wiki [1] recommends building fangames as text-adventures first, so all the characters, places and stories are defined before starting with graphics. They recommend Inform [2]
[1] https://wiki.scummvm.org/index.php/HOWTO-Fangames
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform
It was on an old 40Mb disk in a long-discontinued computer line. Actually I recently sent that computer to a guy who revives old hardware, and he got some stuff off of it! Maybe I'll ask him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrP8h0yUCLo
Asked, awaiting reply.
Cool, is the guy from the video the one you sent your computer to? Good luck!
For Zork style (i.e. text) adventures it's well worth checking out http://inform7.com - yes, http, as unfortunately their cert is broken.
In summary you use a declarative English-like language, saying things like "The Library is a room" and "Inside the Library is a book". Inform's compiler takes those rules and builds a runnable text adventure using an engine based on the Infocom one that Zork was written with.
It comes with a syntax highlighting IDE, including a game player.