Re: TADS & other adv. writing systems


16 Mar 1995 11:55:52 GMT

Inform is also very well thought of.

Inform
======

Available from ftp.gmd.de in source form.

Great documentation.

Pre-compiled versions for PC, Mac, Amiga, Arcimedies (sp?) etc.

Freely available - (not shareware, but not quite public domain).

Inform compiles your adventure into one of the formats used by the old
infocom adventure games. You can then play the game (unchanged) on any
machine which has a suitable interpreter (the most popular is probably
ZIP).

ZIP (not to be confused with the zip compression program :-) is
available in source form from ftp.gmd.de and pre-compiled for several
machines (PC, Mac etc.)

Both Inform and ZIP can easily be compiled on most unix machines (HP,
Sun etc).

Inform is still being supported by its author Graham Nelson
(nelson@vax.oxford.ac.uk).

TADS
====

Shareware - You get a debugger and manuals when you register.

I believe the documentation is very good, but I have not seen it.

Source not available.

Still being developed.

High level code is a different style to Inform, but most people agree
that Inform and TADS are about as powerful and easy to use as each
other (some people find one easier than the other).

Available pre-compiled for a small range of machine (but that range
covers a high percentage of possible users).

I use Inform, but havn't written anything much yet.....

Even if you get TADS, I recommend you get the Inform manuals because
they give lots of useful info about writing adventures in general.

Have fun
Mark Phillips