((Survival Horror - The Choices Thread))

[Sensar]

Fuck him. 1.

[tamwyn]

I vote two, just so we have another human shield in case something happens.

[WJChesek ((Evern))]

1

While my heart says two, I've learned that my heart is wrong quite often.

[Kaez]

We definitely can't risk food shortages based on our prior decision, and -DEFINITELY- can't risk the Little Shop of Horrors.

1.

[Bloodeye the Bai Ze]

1.

... then find some Weed-B-Gone.

[J.O.N ((Dragonwing))]

POST!

[tamwyn]

POST!!!

[o ding]

For those of you who participated, I'm gonna (hopefully, I've got a decent bit done already and I might post the "prologue" soon) be bringing this back in a more traditional, linear form resembling a CYOA book. Specifically, I'm trying to make it into an actual text-based game - or, well, I will try, after I finish writing it - but since I know nothing about programming that's a big emphasis on "try."

So, yeah.

[Kaez]

*excited*

[o ding]

After downloading a tutorial and an OS (I think that's the term) called Inform 7, I'm beginning to think this might be slightly easier than I suspected.

I'm going to keep messing around with it tonight and tomorrow, and depending on how it goes, something might happen. Now, it's manual time.

[o ding]

Well, I was certainly wrong.
This is a fucking bitch. Inform is meant for adventure games, puzzle games, and pretty much nothing else exists anywhere ever that doesn't just do the same thing but worse. I've only made it through about 7 -chapters- of about 25 -chapters- in the manual, and I only have a very shaky understanding of the most basic concepts.

Oh well. Can't expect to be a master on my first day.
...I need a blog for this...

[o ding]

I wrote this in the last ten minutes or so. Just an example of the format and the like.

Survival Horror
An Interactive Fiction by schroing
Release 1 / Serial number 100328 / Inform 7 build 5Z71 (I6/v6.31 lib 6/12N) SD

your cubicle
You're sitting at a desk in your cubicle. There's a picture of your wife on the desk, along with your computer and a pen. To your east is the cubicle's entrance.

You can see a desk (on which are a picture, a computer and a pen) here.

>look at desk
Your desk. It has a picture of your wife, Martha, on it, along with your computer.

>look at picture
A picture of you and your wife, Martha, at the beach. She looks great - you don't.

>look at computer
Your work computer. It's nothing special; right now, it's got a spreadsheet opened up. You're not very interested in it.

>look at pen
Just a ballpoint pen. Over the last few days in which you've been using it, you've noticed that it's particularly sharp.

>east

Office
The Office. It's filled with all kinds of cubicles, including yours. Nobody really seems to be out and about but you - everyone else must be working away.

>

And here's the source code, incredibly simplified (thank god) by Inform.

"Survival Horror" by schroing

your cubicle is a room. The description is "You're sitting at a desk in your cubicle. There's a picture of your wife on the desk, along with your computer and a pen. To your east is the cubicle's entrance." There is a desk in your cubicle. On the desk is a picture, a computer, and a pen. The desk is a supporter. The picture is a thing. The computer is a thing. The pen is a thing.

The description of the desk is "Your desk. It has a picture of your wife, Martha, on it, along with your computer."

The description of the picture is "A picture of you and your wife, Martha, at the beach. She looks great - you don't."

The description of the computer is "Your work computer. It's nothing special; right now, it's got a spreadsheet opened up. You're not very interested in it."

The description of the pen is "Just a ballpoint pen. Over the last few days in which you've been using it, you've noticed that it's particularly sharp."

The Office is a room. The description is "The Office. It's filled with all kinds of cubicles, including yours. Nobody really seems to be out and about but you - everyone else must be working away." There is a door between The Office and your cubicle. The Office is east of your cubicle.

[Kaez]

Kind of escape-the-room style? Just without pictures?

[o ding]

Right. I can set it up so that there's more than one room, and I can set up dialogue and conversation and stuff. What I'm worried about is making some sort of a morality system - I haven't seen anything in the manual or in the downloadable extensions related - so that there could be different outcomes if you made the same choice, or different options available to you depending on what you've already done.

So far the closest thing I can think of is clever use of rooms. But that would involve making a hell of a lot of rooms, over and over again, and having to code them differently each time so that inform wouldn't get confused...but, then, fucking around to make attributes would probably be even more difficult.

Mreh.

[o ding]

Problem. The sentence 'Morality is a property' reads to me as if 'Morality' refers to something I should create as brand new - a property of something. But that can't be right, because this is a kind of value where I can't simply invent new values. (Just as the numbers are ..., 1, 2, 3, ... and I can't invent a new one called 'Susan'.)

Perhaps you wanted not to invent a constant but to make a variable - that is, to give a name for a value which will change during play. If so, try something like 'The bonus is a number which varies'.

Or perhaps you wanted to create a name an an alias for a constant value. Some programming languages encourage this, but Inform doesn't: instead, make it a variable and then don't vary it - 'The lucky number is a number that varies. The lucky number is 8.'

Mother*&^%er!