vivdunstan

Reminded of April 1 Source Code Amnesty Day for interactive fiction games, I've just uploaded Inform source code for my IFComp 2024 entry Bad Beer. Source uploaded to IFArchive, and will take some days to process. Maybe ready by April 1st or soon after? Fab initiative.

More interactive fiction game design work, drawing up an honest assessment of the current state of implementation of my next game. AARRGGHH!! Even if I know some bits have detailed designs worked out, just needing ("just" haha!) coding. But this all does help focus the mind on what to tackle next. Eg I may tackle chapters 6 and 7 next - already largely designed, relatively easy to code - while musing in the background more ideas for the scarier chapters 2 and 5.

Firing up Twine to figure out a plot/geography puzzle/state transition diagram for my current interactive fiction parser game. I don't usually do this but since this will require coding a lot of mini scenes and timed actions in Inform 7/10 I want to design first. Sort of like in pic (not this game).

And several minutes later after updating my Twine version I've made a good start. The Twine plot/puzzle diagram for just part of my new parser game is already vastly more complex than the example in the picture below. I've lots more to figure out before I can start coding it properly in Inform 7/10.

I'm continuing my reread of The Fellowship of the Ring. And the party have just got through Moria. But I was struggling hugely to visualise in my mind the different rooms and levels that the party were going through, especially later on in their time in Moria. But I can remember a time when I could visualise them clearly. For many years. So this seems to be something I've lost since, or can't do now anyway. It's not that I'm not remembering the Peter Jackson movie version. But my image of the journey through Moria was memorably different from the movie I saw in 2001. I remember clearly having "thoughts" about the film's depiction of Moria, and how different it was from how I imagined it looked ever since I'd started reading the book for the first time as a young child. But now I can't really visualise any geography at all as I read.

Relatively recently I tried an aphantasia online test. And scored highly. Which would fit with my struggles to visualise things in my mind now. Including faces. Even very close family! But I'm now wondering after this LOTR rereading experience if it's something that I've developed more in recent years. Perhaps as a result of my progressive neurological illness.

When I was young I could visualise things, and draw from images in my mind. However when my neurological illness started in 1994 at age 22 I quickly noticed my ability to think abstractly diminishing. Rather a big problem for a computer science PhD student needing to program. I quickly lost the ability to program effectively in lots of languages. Though at the time I just coped as best as I could. It's more distressing looking back.

So yup, I wonder if visualisation is another loss with time, perhaps due to my long term illness. It's partly also why I dreaded designing cover art for my latest IFComp game. But hey, got there!

Curiouser and curiouser anyway. I am enjoying my LOTR reread despite this. Next up Lothlorien.

Sending out my IFComp 2024 game for its final round of playtesting. Scary and exciting at the same time! Also tomorrow I will be officially registering to enter the competition.

I'm nearing the end of getting my latest competition interactive fiction game ("Bad Beer") ready for its final round of playtesting. At the moment it's 13,363 words of Inform natural language source code. It will get a little longer when I add more customised responses to standard commands (one of the last few things to do). But not much longer. It is going into IFComp 2024 in August.

By comparison my 2018 IFComp game "Border Reivers" is 18,926 words of code. Though much of that is in tables for conversational responses: 7,000+ words for those alone. My 2020 Spring Thing game "Napier's Cache" is 23,181 words of source code.

"Bad Beer" is a modest game in scope, but is still deeply implemented. At least it was manageable in the time I had!

Struggled enormously to wake at 4.30pm - still very heavily sedated from my latest post Covid vaccine neuro flare. But currently - miraculously! - awake enough to fix a couple of key bugs in my IFComp text adventure game. I have a couple more weeks to work on it before the final round of playtesting. Still have one big structural change to make, as well as many small things (I'm about halfway through my to do list). But pleased with tonight's brief work. Which I have also tested as much as I can re the new code. Lots of running around locations in the game, trying to beat a time issue, and also observe what happens in different places and different situations.

Blitzed lots more game coding overnight. Now just have to draw up a walkthrough and instructions for playtesters, and then I can send out the recruitment call for volunteers. Going to leave it a day or two before doing that to give me a bit of a break, and a bit of distance. But delighted to get to this stage. This is my latest interactive fiction / parser text adventure game, that I'm entering into IFComp this August coming.