Inform, the powerful and freeware interactive fiction design system that has recently made it to its seventh version, is something I've been meaning to learn for quite some time now. Well, for a bit longer than that actually, but it seems the time has finally come, or at least will come as soon as the brilliant-looking Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7
Anyway. The book, written by A. Read, will be 448 pages long, and will impressively feature a prologue by Don Woods and some closing thoughts by Richard Bartle. You can of course pre-order it via Amazon
Inform 7 is a wonderful program that i've only dabbled with myself. I haven't played a lot of IF, but the simple act of creating a world from only a few lines of English still gives me a buzz.
ReplyDeleteIf I recall correctly, there are two manuals built in to I7, one being a recipe book, which I found very helpful. There are various tutorials around and i've been following Emily Short's blog for over a year now - she has some good discussion on IF in general and links to useful resources.
That said, i'd never considered actually looking for a book on Inform 7. Personally I prefer having a physical book to thumb through. I use pdfs too occasionally, but it's not the same and it's nice to learn without staring at a screen all day.
These are great finds, Gnome, thanks=)
Actually, I'm more of a printed manual man myself dear Rambo. PDFs can get to tiresome and fiddly, whereas a book is as intuitive a little helper as they get. And I will get this one and at some point start an Inform project.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the post. Cheers!
So Inform 7 is like The Quill on the ZX Spectrum, correct?
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of being able to publish browser-based IF. Accessibility is the name of the game, man.
In a way yes dear Marc. Though we must all admit that neither The Quill nor PAW have been surpassed. Inform wont even load on a 128k machine, let alone a 64k or 48k one. Tsk, tsk... Still, accessibility, yes, that's important.
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