Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7 [Paperback]

Inform 7 is free software for creating interactive fiction (IF), a form of text-based gaming that enjoyed a brief period of commercial popularity back in the 1980s, and still enjoyed by a loyal group of enthusiasts.

The development system is unique in its use of a programming syntax that often resembles plain English. This makes it quite easy for new authors to create simple stories. However, as soon as you want to try anything unusual, the language's eccentricities can pose a challenge.

This volume, by noted IF author Aaron Reed, is a big help. It works through a complete non-trivial example story, "Sand-Dancer." He begins with a description of the Inform environment and builds the code almost line by line, thoroughly explaining each step. By the end of the book, most of Inform's major features have been encountered and discussed.

Reed's book is a nice complement to Inform's built-in documentation. Recommended for new IF authors and students, as well as experienced Informers who want to hone their understanding.

I'm not one for long reviews. If you are interested in authorizing interactive fiction using Inform 7, then you should not hesitate to buy this book. He covers a lot of ground in a sensible order, he gradually increases the complexity but keeps it hands on. Even the story authored through the course of the book is exceptional, truly "interactive fiction" (and not yet-another puzzle game or dungeon trawl). This book gives you the tools to really exploit all the power inside Inform. Get it.

Inform 7 is completely different to its predecessors. This version is an ambitious attempt to let the game writer use natural language (NL) for making an Interactive Fiction (IF) game.

I bought both this book, and the Inform Designer's Manual together, and was surprised to find them totally different. Some people don't realise that computers do not understand natural language. In reality, IF7 NL is converted into IF6 form behind the scenes. If you have decided that you want to write in Natural English, then this book shows you how. If you don't know the distinction between IF6 and IF7, then you should do some homework before buying this book.

The book is just over 400 pages. A running example game is given. It demonstrates that IF7 allows verbose input. More important, the author's sample game is verbose. When reaching half-way through the book, the author's sample game is composed of thousands of characters, and yet the game does extremely little. Having a verbose IF system is one thing, but the verbose story adds another level of verbosity. The third level of verbosity is the author's explanations of his story text. At this stage of the game, there is not enough happening.

When I played IF during the 80s, my gaming friends formed a small community, and we worked together to solve puzzles. The games popular at the time weren't verbose. They usually had short descriptions, where all text was meaningful (i.e., useful for solving the game). These early games were based on puzzles and problem solving. The author being reviewed has rarely mentioned the word "puzzle", and is mad-keen on story. There is a lot of philosophy about story-telling and IF, but this is redundant here, only making the books longer. If you want the history, it's better to get a copy of Twisty Little Passages. The book reviewed here is an exhaustive treatment on how to write a tiny story, as opposed to what I'd call a game (i.e. puzzles and logic).

Three quarters through the book, I found the author had taught me little. I could have written the book in 100 pages, not 400.

If you're the literary type, perhaps an English teacher, you may finish this book without frustration. Despite being a Computer Scientist, I still have a passion for writing - but succinctly. I have implemented "Colossal Cave" in about 5,000 lines. If the author tried to do the same, he would require about 100,000 lines.

The example game itself is almost enough to turn me off writing IF, especially as it resembles the old role-playing games, where "luck" features instead of logical puzzles. The constant theme of cigarettes and smoking is also bad taste.

If you want to write IF with Inform 7, and are happy to write reams, the book is good. Otherwise, a different system (perhaps Inform 6) is a better choice. English teachers would find Inform 7 better for students, while earlier versions are more suitable for computer classes.

As I said earlier, NL is not understood by the computer. The author of Inform 7 has used a facade to make IF7 appear to understand NL, but because your words aren't really understood, many of the player's responses may end up producing illogical results, which is embarrassing for the game-author. Other bugs will reveal ambiguities in NL. All IF requires hours of testing, but I think if you use NL then you will have to do more testing. If something goes wrong (e.g. the game player types something that isn't foreseen), then the game could bomb. The results are unpredictable.

It's hard to to rate the book, as it depends on both the audience, and on what the audience think of the IF7 system used.