The entire IF community is competition crazy. About a quarter of the IFWiki
front page is taken up with competition news and there's a category for it
here. Also when an IF author farts it sounds like this: crrrmprrtrrrshrrrn.
Are there any way to easily create an IF game? It seems like it should be really simple, and I'd like to write one, but I can't code, soo....
As Terry mentioned, Inform 7 seems to have wide appeal to non-coding types. On the other hand, people who know a little coding may (like me) find the idea of a natural language IDE thingy to be a bit intimidating. If you know C++ or Java,
TADS is your friend. TADS2 is quite simple to use, I think, while TADS3 is a little scarier but has an enormous amount of out-of-the-box potential. The following TADS3 code snippet creates a room with a cage containing a fairy and an exit to the north:
secretroom: Room 'Hidden Room'
"A small, windowless room with bare white walls. "
north = readingroom
;
//the first list of words are words the player might use to refer to this object
//the second is the phrase the game will (typically) use to refer to it
+cage: OpenableContainer 'delicate wire bird cage' 'bird cage'
"A small bird cage of delicate wire. "
//we can see, hear and smell inside the cage, but not touch anything
material = fineMesh
//this is the description that appears when we look around, unless we move the cage
initSpecialDesc = "A small bird cage hangs from the ceiling. "
;
++fairy: Actor 'little tiny winged naked fairy/pixie/woman' 'fairy'
"A tiny naked woman with a pair of transparent, rainbow-tinted wings.
<p>She doesn't seem to be especially bright, but then her brain can't be any larger than a pea. "
isHer = true
;
+++ignoringState: HermitActorState
//her description in the room
specialDesc()
{
if(fairy.location==cage)
"The cage seems to contain, of all things, a fairy. ";
else
"A fairy is hovering in the air here. ";
}
//this state is her starting state
isInitState = true
//it's a hermit state, so she won't talk to you
noResponse()
{
if(fairy.location==cage)
"The fairy just stares at you gloomily from between the bars of the cage. ";
else if(fairy.location==me)
"The fairy just squirms in your grip. ";
else
"The fairy swoops through the air, ignoring you. ";
}
;
The cage behaves as you would expect, and the fairy responds to any attempt at conversation by staring at you gloomily, poor thing. I, personally, don't find this code to be especially difficult to understand (compared to, say, your average Allegro game), but I guess mileage will vary.
Worse than the coding is the testing. This was just supposed to be a short little snippet, but then I realised that I had to change portions of the text depending on whether the fairy was in the cage or in your inventory or whatever. It's polishing these damn things that takes 90% of your time and effort. And if you don't polish it, then the bare bones won't work either.
The IF Community has still seen a lot of popular short competitions, though, and I'd like to think that TIGS could at least give them a run for their money in terms of bravura, spunk and giant nudity.