Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Creating IF Using Inform 7- "IT'S [not] A TRAP!!!"

Making my own piece of Interactive Fiction has been one of the most exciting and inspiring experiences known to me. I have been able to creatively express myself, and involve others in my creative process by sharing my piece with them. In making my piece, titled “Dream Walking,” I decided that I would like to write a sci-fi story that revolved around a character who does not remember who he is, and must find his way home before something terrible happens (see fig. 1)
Fig. 1


Different kinds of interaction I hoped to incorporate into my piece were exploring different rooms and finding all sorts of things that end up being pieces to various puzzles, usually locks and keys that open different things, like boxes, doors, and the like (see fig. 2).
Fig. 2


I wanted readers to be constantly thinking, trying to figure out what would happen next in the story, and how it would affect the main character as he progresses through the story. I wanted it to be a bit frustrating, so that readers would feel rewarded once they figured out different puzzles I presented (especially since the main character cannot progress until certain things have been found).


Inform 7 is an interesting piece of software, though much, much more than once I found myself feeling like Charlie Brown when Lucy tells him he can kick the football, only to pull away at the very last second: “AAAAAAUUUUUUGGGHHHH!!!!!” I, too, felt like a blockhead. I thought that (being a bit of a geek) I would have a relatively easy time using Inform7; I was wrong. But, that said, once a user gets a basic grip on Inform, it becomes a heck of a lot more fun—as a matter of fact, my boyfriend has decided that he will make his own piece of IF using Inform 7 because watching me create mine, and playing it was quite fun! To begin, I read the manual on Inform7 so that I could have a solid background on how to start my story, and make it work without having any problems (see fig. 3). I also wound up doing a few google searches to get clearer answers to certain problems I encountered repeatedly, such as making a character talk. I have since then written a piece of IF that has become Star Trek fan fiction (which I am very pleased with), instead of simply a sci-fi story about an abstract character. I am not sure if this will alienate some readers because there are a number of references that may be caught only by “Trekkies,” though I have tried to let the story explain as much as possible to interactors without giving the whole plot away.
Fig. 3


Making this story really opened up a whole new world of creativity for me to tap into. I was amazed with how much detail I was able to insert in my story, and make a world no one had ever traveled through before. Part of the reason why I titled the piece “Dream Walking” is because I felt as though I was putting a dream to life, by creating this fantastical realm that used to reside in my brain and nowhere else. Thinking back on what I had hoped to accomplish with this piece, I feel successful, even though it is not yet complete. I was able to create a series of rooms for the interactor to travel through, all of which the interactor had to in order to finish the story. The only issue I had with creating this aspect was that I wanted to have rooms in a house, and then regions outside to explore, but could not seem to get Inform 7 to understand what I was trying to do, so I settled for rooms named “Outdoors” and the like, so my character could access places that at least appeared to be outside the house, even if in text, they were inside the house, if that makes sense (see fig. 4). Also, I wanted readers to be able to find things that they would later realize were clues and tools to help them get to the end of the story, such as a crowbar hidden in a box under a bed, a lockpick stashed inside an old toilet tank, and a key that opens a certain thing as well as a door (see fig. 5).
Fig. 4


Fig. 5


Unfortunately, there are a number of things that have frustrated me throughout this process, the main one being the task of making characters talk. Each time I would try different ways to make the character say something, I would generate a problem, in which Inform 7 did not know what I was trying to do, or what “talk” meant, and so on (see fig. 6). This is an issue I am still working on, but I think I may have found the solution (I’ll come back and edit this if I do). Also, I had some serious problems with compass directions, mainly in labeling where things were inside rooms, because if I typed for instance “the desk is west of the door,” I would generate a problem telling me that the desk cannot be (“is” as in “to be” not “is located”) “west of the door” because that would imply that I am saying the desk is a compass direction (see fig. 7). I wound up removing many of those descriptions because I just kept generating errors each time I tried to place an object in a certain area or direction of the room. Based on my experience, this issue may be due to my inexperience, but I think it also has a lot to do with Inform 7 and how much it as a software program is capable of understanding.
Fig. 6


Fig. 7


Writing IF, for me, is very different from writing a story. I think part of this is because it is much easier for me as a writer to be more creative when I can have or give more than one option for action in a narrative. I find it different from a standard story because even though my piece is more story oriented, it also requires a lot of thinking and action on the part of the interactor. I have definitely been more inspired to write using Inform 7, mostly because (as I mentioned in an earlier post) I love choose-your-own-adventure books, and this was like creating my own choose-your-own-adventure; the only difference between my piece and the choose-your-own-adventure books is that in the books you have even more options than I have been able to create (thus far). I can play with Inform 7 for hours, working on my piece, and once I finish this one, I hope to post it online and get some feedback from other IF lovers and geeks alike. Inspired authors who feel stifled by the demands of print-text should definitely try creating a piece of IF. Even if it does not seem to fit the genre one would prefer to write for, it will surely help the creative process and inspire you write more!

1 comment:

  1. Found this:

    Talking to is an action applying to one visible thing.
    Understand "talk to [someone]" or “converse with
    [someone]” as talking to.
    Check talking to: say "[The noun] doesn't reply."

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