I just did a minor update to Setting Out, the links have been updated. In case you missed it you can play online here.

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It’s been a long standing ambition of mine to write an adventure game, and though I’ve been experimenting I’ve never made anything that you could sit down and play.  Since I have some free time at the moment I thought I’d go ahead and write a piece of Interactive Fiction, using Inform 7. I’ve tried Inform before but never really got anywhere, but this time I’ve gotten a lot further, and created a two room game. It’s very simple and deeply un-original but even the act of creating this simple game has taught me a lot.  I still have a way to go, whilst I think I’ve grasped writing puzzles that require one action e.g unlocking something but I’m a little stumped on how to arrange puzzles that require the user does more than one thing.  I’m reading through some IF forums and worked examples so hopefully something will click soon.

Despite it being very simple, I am enjoying the process of writing it a lot.  There’s a lot to remember though, forgetting to define a fireplace as fixed in place allowed me to pick it and and carry it around, whilst amusing  allowing it to remain would completely destroy any kind of atmosphere I create. I’m also trying to make it as non linear as possible to encourage exploration, and avoid frustrating users by forcing them through in a set order.

I’m also debating ‘set dressing’, whilst the aims of the piece are simple I do wonder if it’s worth putting items such as photographs about the world which when looked at give some background information. These items wouldn’t be needed for solving the game just to add atmosphere, but then again I don’t want to clutter it.

Still first I need to figure out this whole multi requirement puzzle thing, so it’s kind of like I at least am on my own adventure already.

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