Hi Dark, Yeah, Inform has fared really well over the past 30 years. Since being turned over to the open source community its continue to grow, get better, and supports just about every software platform you can imagine. As you were saying its kind of funny that games like the Infocom games from the 1980's run on anything and everything. The frotz interpreter runs on Mac OS, linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, Windows, etc. You name it there is probably an interpreter out there for it. Other adventure systems and languages can't make that claim.
Not only that, but considering the age of the language you can pretty much expect it to be fairly complete and full of features. Which, of course, it is. Its had 30 years of updating, development, and so on. Adrift, which has only been around since the 90's, is an infant compared to Inform and I've noticed there are a number of things /Adrift lacks that Inform has. So the age of the language does matter here to some degree. Cheers! On 6/1/11, dark <d...@xgam.org> wrote: > Hi Tom. > > An interesting fact about the original inform zcode system which infocom > developed in the 80s was that apparently being cross platform was actually > built into the language sinse at that point there were various computers on > which to run the games, apple, comador 64, comador amigar, zx spectrum, > atari st etc, so they wanted a virtual machine that would run their specific > format games equally well on all systems. > > It's interesting that that aspect has remained with the language through 30 > years and goodness knows how many versions, and now it's just as possible to > play a game like zork or Arthur on an iphone runing frotz as it was on a > comador 64 back in the day. > > indeed, I myself wouldn't have played any of those games if it weren't for > winfortz, and only started on interactive fiction in about 2003. > > As regards quest, I just mentioned it sinse they're remit is to create some > software a litle like bgt for adventure games, where you simply add rooms, > objects, commands, timers counters and other things into a script file. > > never having looked at creating games myself, I can't compare this to other > languages out there, i was only going on their remit. > > Beware the grue! > > Dark. > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org. > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
