vivdunstan

Taking stock of my latest parser interactive game writing progress. Much to do, but encouraged can finish in time for IFComp 2026. And can see a way forward in the short term. Happy to share that it's episodic, and historical, but otherwise spoilery details redacted in the attached progress summary!



Thinking about what needs to be tackled/finished, I'm thinking I'll code the rest in order of chapters 2, 5, 6, 4, 1, 3 and 7. The first three are ones I'm currently most excited to tackle. Coding 4 from the existing plot design should be fairly mechanical. And finishing 1, 3 and 7 ought to be be easy.

Of course "ought to be easy" is a very risky thing to say when it comes to writing and coding up computer games, including interactive fiction! But I also know they're the sections that need the least amount of work still done on them. And almost certainly best tackled late in the day.

Pleased to manage some more interactive fiction game coding, now developing chapter 6 of 7 in my next parser text adventure game. Not developing in sequential order! Currently flitting to and fro between coding in Inform 7 and researching a topic. While also trying to visualise the scene in my brain!

Inform 7 is a magical system to code interactive fiction games in. But it's also brilliant how you can quickly test things even just to improve writing. I've just coded another test command "test X" to jump to the latest code. I can't say what X is - spoilers. But I'm very happy typing that command!

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.

Gosh this looks fun from Andrew Plotkin: The Visible Zorker, a new way of visualising the game source code being executed as interactive fiction / text adventure game Zork 1 is played.

IFComp has opened for another year, with 67 different interactive fiction games entered. Ranging from traditional parser text adventure games through to choice based pieces and RPGs. I have a game in the competition this year ("Bad Beer") but would encourage folks interested in new IF games to check out all of the competition entries. All are worth playing, covering a huge range of genres, themes and styles. Judging is open to all comers, and runs until October 15th. https://ifcomp.org

Just finished my IFComp game coding, and uploaded a game file to the competition website. 4 weeks ahead of the deadline. But I can now relax. Seeing the preview there, including how it will look to people browsing the competition website, is exciting. It's also nice to see the play online option now works for it.

Down to just 1 thing left on my todo list of IFComp game fixes. That was 107 items long, including some tricky or major changes. I will be signing up to enter IFComp at the start of July, with final game submission due in late August. The competition and judging runs through September and early October - a month earlier than in the past. And yes, I really need to sort out some cover art. I have a design in mind, and have been experimenting with ideas re drawings on my iPad. That O'Grade in Art and Design has to come in useful somewhere 😜

A nice article on Ars Technica today.

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.

With a new month it's time for me to start looking at revamping my IFComp interactive fiction / text adventure game. I've had fab feedback from the initial playtesters, and want to make lots of key changes before final playtesting in July, before the competition in August. Maybe start Monday though!