Which engine is best/easiest to use?
Schwa
other post - but I noticed that most
posters here are using a variety of other languages. What I would like
to know is which one is the easiest to
use (perhaps even work in Win95). I have a very modest knowledge of
programming so that INFORM engine
looks like C code and is probably out of the question. Any
suggestions? Oh, and are these programs freeware/shareware?
Bennett
I have a very modest knowledge of
>programming so that INFORM engine
>looks like C code and is probably out of the question. Any
>suggestions?
I'm a newbie returning to the fold, so to speak, so take this advice with
that in mind. I've only ever worked with BASIC (in various guises) over the
years, but I've recently been introduced to Inform. It's not that hard - a
hell of a lot is done for you, and what isn't is usually explained pretty
well in the Designers Manual. I had a few hiccups getting syntax correct,
but I'm plodding along now. I highly recommend it.
>Oh, and are these programs freeware/shareware?
Inform is freeware (ie the compilers and libraries are, the language
obviously is free ;-), I suggest you check out the FAQ posting here, then
look up the various languages available and see what suits you. I find
Inform's object-oriented style needs a little getting used to, but I can
still see ways to do the things I want to.
Cheers
Bennett
--
University of Cambridge Dept of Medicine
Opinions expressed are mine - I'll take the rap for my own mistakes.
(swap cam for spam to reply via email)
Big fish, little fish, put it in a box. Stacking boxes, stacking boxes...
Gabe McKean
easier for me to understand. But that may be just because I've had prior
experience with C and C++, they're probably equally easy/difficult to
understand to someone with little or no programming experience. In any
case, you'll have to do some degree of programming in whichever language you
choose, if you want to do anything interesting in your game. TADS, for
example, virtually requires that you not be afraid to browse though adv.t
and std.t (the two standard libraries) to figure out how things work, and to
make some modifications to them where necessary.
David Cornelson
news:89uhe8$jhm$1...@leopard.it.wsu.edu...
> I personally like TADS. From what I've seen of Inform syntax, TADS is
The number one question of newbies. Which language?
And if you're not a programmer by profession or nature, Inform, TADS, and
Hugo can be intimidating. Heck, even if you are a programmer, these
languages can be difficult.
Through simple determination, I have learned Inform, although I could
probably pick up TADS or Hugo at anytime with a lessor degree of difficulty
than before.
Anyway, I have spoken of another bridge often, a user interface that would
help the new IF writer along, especially the non-programmer. One is in the
works and solidly on the path to completion.
Visual Inform is a Win95/98/2000 user interface that will allow a user to
create a simple game without knowing code. However, to create any logic to
your game, you will need to learn the syntax eventually. But Visual Inform
will help you with that as well.
I'm hoping that over time, I can build many many shortcuts to enhance the
new user's ability to write games while gradually wading into the depths of
code.
The initial release of Visual Inform is probably quite a few weeks off. I
intend a Beta for the 15th of this month, but with a newborn baby in the
house, it seems that my time is needed elsewhere. I will likely have a very
raw Beta then, but still, much work needs to be done to polish it and make
my vision become a reality.
Whichever language you choose, just keep plugging away. The best way to
learn is to say "I can", and stop thinking "I can't". I seem to keep proving
this to myself over and over and yet never take hold of the point.
Jarb
Agbampton
>I have a very modest knowledge of
>programming so that INFORM engine
>looks like C code and is probably out of the question. Any
>suggestions? Oh, and are these programs freeware/shareware?
If you don't like the 'c' like look of inform, I fear you will find that the
other oft mentioned TADS and Hugo engines look rather too 'c' like as well..
If you want a classical 'all text' game, I suggest you take a look at ALAN..
not quite as powerful as Inform, TADS or Hugo, but very friendly and plenty
'powerful enough'..
If you want to use Win 95/98/NT 'bells and whistles' and have no objection to a
more modernised approach to text games, I'd suggest you look at 'Quest'.
As far as I know, all these are avaiable as free/shareware - Quest has a
Ł10/$20 shareware fee if you want the optional CAS compiler... but other than
that it's fully functional for free..
I think you can safely say Inform TADs & Hugo are on a par complexity wise.. so
you can group those together. Alan and Quest are noticeably easier.
Don't be mislead by claims that it's easy to set up the basic stuff in xxx -
the basic things are easy in ALL the engines.. it's when you want to add custom
functionality the pain factor of needing to understand the darn things sets in!
Try setting yourself a little *slightly* non standard 'game problem' to code..
and see how long it takes you learn how to code it in each of the languages..
then you'll know how easy / hard you find them to cope with.
Best of luck
Al
If you can keep calm when all around you are losing their heads,
then you don't understand the gravity of the situation....
Alex Warren
> Anyway, I have spoken of another bridge often, a user interface that would
> help the new IF writer along, especially the non-programmer. One is in the
> works and solidly on the path to completion.
>
> Visual Inform is a Win95/98/2000 user interface that will allow a user to
> create a simple game without knowing code...
Similarly, QDK for Quest is a Win95/98/NT4/2000 user interface that will allow
you to create a game **as complicated as you like**, without knowing any code at
all. Best of all it's written by me - take a look at
http://www.axesoftware.co.uk/quest/ for further info.
Hopefully Quest 2.15 should be out soon (i.e. within a few weeks) with QDK 1.0
Beta 4, which should make things easier still. Go to the "Email updates" page at
the Quest website to stay informed, and join the Quest 3.0 Beta Updates mailing
list at http://www.axesoftware.co.uk/quest/beta/ to stay informed of updates to
the new, simpler, more powerful Quest 3.0 - which will be out in an early alpha
form in a few months' time.
--
Alex Warren, Axe Software · al...@axesoftware.co.uk · ICQ: 4043750
http://www.axesoftware.co.uk - including Quest, the IF system for Windows
SteveG
wrote:
> [advice about changing to another IF language from AGT]
I think Agbampton has given some useful advice to which I'd add ....
for a quick overview of IF languages read the raif FAQ
http://www.davidglasser.net/raiffaq/
Alan Firth's website has a good essay on choosing an IF language (as
well as source code for a sample game written in several languages)
http://homepages.tesco.net/~roger.firth/cloak/index.html
There are some helpful tutorials for TADS, Inform and Alan which
somewhat level the learning curves for those languages. (The locations
of the tutorials are mentioned at the webpages for those
languages--see the FAQ for the languages' homepages.)
Bob Newell's "Which System is Better?" essay is an interesting though
somewhat outdated read.
ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/info/whichsys.zip
(There's TADS and Alan 'Whichsys fact-updates' in the same directory.)
The main problem with using AGT (or MAGX), besides any inherent
limitations of the AGT language itself, is that there is no support
available from fellow users--certainly in the raif newsgroup anyway,
there might be vibrant AGT user communities elsewhere but I'm not
aware of them.
I'd say that, if you want to move on from AGT but don't want to try
the leap to one of the big three (i.e. TADS, Inform and Hugo) then
take a look at Alan. It is a well-designed language that is easy to
learn and there's a reasonable level of peer support available from
other Alan users. Even if you eventually decide that you need more
power your time spent learning Alan will not be wasted as the
experience you gain will be directly applicable to the more
complicated languages.
--
SteveG
(Please remove erroneous word from address if emailing a reply)
Eric Mayer
> Right now I'm trying to use AGT, but I'm getting errors - check my
>other post - but I noticed that most
>posters here are using a variety of other languages. What I would like
>to know is which one is the easiest to
>use (perhaps even work in Win95). I have a very modest knowledge of
>programming so that INFORM engine
>looks like C code and is probably out of the question. Any
>suggestions? Oh, and are these programs freeware/shareware?
>
>
>
I recommend ALAN. You wil be told it is not as powerful as the other
languages available but although ALAN games do not have some of the
bells and whistles of the others I have yet to come across anything
ALAN cannot do so far as telling a story in text goes.
As for simplicity, if you have a modest knowledge of programming you
should have no problem with ALAN. With no knowledge of programming
whatsoever I managed workable scenarios in a week and a passable game
within a few months. And I definitely thought that INFORM looked too
intimidating given my background and available time.
You might check out the sample code at Roger Firth's Cloak of Darkness
pages. (To me the AGT code looks as confusing as INFORM!)
http://homepages.texco.net/~roger.firth/cloak
--
Eric Mayer
Web Site: <http://home.epix.net/~maywrite>
"The map is not the territory." -- Alfred Korzybski
Wild
(http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~jcw/adrift)
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Nat Lanza
> For the beginner, you can't go very wrong by looking at ADRIFT
> (http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~jcw/adrift)
Well, you can if you're not using a Windows machine. Or if you care
about players who don't use Windows being able to play your game.
I don't remember if anyone's mentioned this in this thread yet, but
one of the big advantages of Inform, TADS, Hugo, and Alan is that
they're available for a wide variety of platforms.
--nat
--
nat lanza --------------------- research programmer, parallel data lab, cmu scs
ma...@cs.cmu.edu -------------------------------- http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~magus/
there are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths -- alfred north whitehead
dcorn...@my-deja.com
Nat Lanza <ma...@cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> Wild <jcwNO...@tardis.ed.ac.uk.invalid> writes:
>
> > For the beginner, you can't go very wrong by looking at ADRIFT
> > (http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~jcw/adrift)
>
> Well, you can if you're not using a Windows machine. Or if you care
> about players who don't use Windows being able to play your game.
>
> I don't remember if anyone's mentioned this in this thread yet, but
> one of the big advantages of Inform, TADS, Hugo, and Alan is that
> they're available for a wide variety of platforms.
Not only is this a benefit, but the way the community is spread out, it
very likely a requirement for any new tool. I suspect some of the newer
tools of less than great success because of this issue.
Visual Inform is being developed for Windows only because that is the
environment within which I feel comfortable. It is my great hope that I
will be able to port this project to a different language (C++/Java) so
that it does indeed become cross-platform.
But first I need to work out all of the UI issues with people. Once I
have an environment that is stable and productive for people, then I'll
start working on a cross-platform version.
In a way, the Windows version, even when it reaches the production
release stage, is just a prototype for a future, cross-platform release.
In this regard I make one plea. Even if you despise Windows or have
little chance to use Visual Inform, please follow the website at
http://www.iflibrary.org/vinform, review the screens, send comments, and
add anything that you can. All of your input, unrelated to windows, will
be helpful to making a usable product.
Jarb
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Mike Arnautov
> I don't remember if anyone's mentioned this in this thread yet, but
> one of the big advantages of Inform, TADS, Hugo, and Alan is that
> they're available for a wide variety of platforms.
Well, A-code (also represented on Roger's excellent page) is at least as
portable as any of these and is pretty simple. If portability is
important and the bells and whistles of Inform or TADS do not appeal,
I'd say it is worth checking out. But then, I would. :-)
--
Mike Arnautov
mailto:m...@mipmip.demon.co.uk
http://www.mipmip.demon.co.uk/mipmip.html
Jonadab the Unsightly One
> > I don't remember if anyone's mentioned this in this thread yet, but
> > one of the big advantages of Inform, TADS, Hugo, and Alan is that
> > they're available for a wide variety of platforms.
>
> Well, A-code (also represented on Roger's excellent page) is at least as
> portable as any of these and is pretty simple. If portability is
> important and the bells and whistles of Inform or TADS do not appeal,
> I'd say it is worth checking out. But then, I would. :-)
At least as portable as Inform? Do you have any idea what
that implies? I mean, what if I want to play your game on my
Whocket III? If you wrote it in Inform I can use WhIPZip, but
if it's in A-code, what then? Is there a WhIP port of that?
--
If your IP address starts with 202, you can't
send me mail. Sorry. I was getting too much
spam from that IP block.