Invalid characterset or character set not supported Inform 7, and 1st review in a while





Inform 7, and 1st review in a while
October 02, 2010

So I wrote my first review in a while. It's nice to have tourneys to motivate this, and I was able to put aside the usual worries, like

1) did I write this before?
2) did I fall into the same traps I usually do?
3) did I remember all the fun stuff from this cool game?

There's a problem here with writing: too little, and you don't wring out the mistakes with experience. Too much, and you can get bored, if that's not what you really want. Unfortunately this creeps into my reading others' reviews. It's too easy to recognize "oh this again" and shut off the writing-enjoyment sub-lobe in my brain. Yet at the same time, I do enjoy even making minor changes in my review, whether from others' suggestions or my own observations.

Having said that, I'd like to discuss a new area of creativity I discovered. Someone recommended this book to me. It's about the wonderful IF language Inform 7.

You can look at pages in the book if you're so inclined, More wonderfully, the author has a webpage of examples from the game so readers don't have to type much out.

In fact, he's gone so far as to put the examples in the code, commented out. So you have everything but the narrative of the book on the pages where online viewing is disabled.

Now that's pretty damn generous. And I've learned a lot just comparing the sources from chapter to chapter, de-commenting examples to see how the game changes.

Oh yeah. I read about a competition where you had a 1 room game. I wrote such a game myself. It's juvenile and sophomoric and self-righteous and the most fun I've had writing anything in over a year. I'd always wanted to write a real text adventure, and this is closer than ever before.

At the moment I'm slowly learning how to do stuff to write a text adventure based on my high school. It's just neat to know how things work. I've had a lot of moments where I've seen a way to do something but had a feeling I could do it better--and I've been right. Feels good to have instincts work right & also feels good to have a sort of writing that allows stuff you can't get away with in essays or fiction.

PS if anyone wants to write a text adventure, why not give I7 a shot. The in-program docs are really incredible and I'd also love someone to share ideas with.

Most recent blog posts from Andrew Schultz...

Feedback

No one has responded to this post yet.

eXTReMe Tracker
© 1998-2024 HonestGamers
None of the material contained within this site may be reproduced in any conceivable fashion without permission from the author(s) of said material. This site is not sponsored or endorsed by Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, or any other such party. Opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily represent the opinion of site staff or sponsors.