Little About Me

Sora574
-EDIT-

george
OK, I have a question. Can we call you Sora as well, or does it have to be Sora574? :D (I had to think about this for a half a minute earlier today in another thread, so this is my opportunity to answer that question!)

Sora574
:lol: Sora's fine. The numbers aren't really part of the name -- They're just there to be there.

davidw
I don't use Inform 7 myself, but I'm curious in what way you find it, and the other systems, non-customisable.

Sora574
davidw wrote:I don't use Inform 7 myself, but I'm curious in what way you find it, and the other systems, non-customisable.

I was hoping someone would ask that :)

In Quest, you have the option to create things extremely easily. Just click a few buttons and you can control the world.
That doesn't happen in Inform. You have to manually type everything by hand (although it's in a version of 'plain English')
For example, in Quest, you could click the 'New Object' button and make an object (let's say, a box), then go to a tab and make it run all kinds of scripts (like what it does when it opens/closes, what it does when you take/drop it)
In Inform 7, this would look something like this:
A box is in the room. It is an openable closed container.
After opening the box:
say "You open the box."

After closing the box:
say "You close the box."

You can also use things like
move the box to another room


Now don't get me wrong -- I can see why some people could like this. But creating commands is a bit tricky.
First, you have to do something like this
Understand "fall" as falling.

Then
Falling is an action applying to nothing.

And finally...
After falling:
say "You hit your face on the ground.";

Now, again, I understand how people could like this method. But imagine if you want something more complicated. In Quest, you could create a command with a pattern like 'throw #object1# and #object2# at #object3#'. Then you could just add a script, so you can throw 2 things at a time.
In Inform 7, you're actually not allowed to do anything with more than two objects. It refuses to let you.

As for ADRIFT, I actually kind of like the way it sets up the locations. However, creating objects is a pain, as I couldn't find anything telling me how to put them in an actual location. I refused to go any further after that, so I don't know how the commands work there.

There's so much more things that you can do in Quest that you can't do in other systems (or at least, other programs make them more difficult) such as setting variables and functions that you can call later, editing the style of the text, or the style in general. As far as I've seen, Quest has been the only one that has had side-panels in the game.

davidw
Re problems with objects in ADRIFT, do you mean V5? I agree V5 is confusing and probably more trouble than it's worth. But try doing the same thing in V4 and you'll find it a cinch.

Sora574
I'll give it a shot. I doubt there's anything different you can do with styles though, correct?

davidw
No, nothing with styles, and in all honesty the ADRIFT Runner is a bit of an eyesore. But I think you'll find V4 a lot easier to use than any version of Quest.

Sora574
Hmm... So while I admit it has its strong points, it's just not something I could switch to.
Although it would be a great starting point for text adventure creators, it's not nearly as advanced as I would like. (I can't use JavaScript or HTML!)

davidw
I suppose those are fair points, but if you're a programmer then a system like ADRIFT (or Quest for matter) seems like a strange choice. As a non-programmer, I have precisely two options: ADRIFT or Quest*. As a programmer, you have them all. I'd imagine Quest's strange mix of GUI and programming would be off-putting to a programmer, but then again I'm not a programmer so maybe it seems perfectly natural to you.

* I guess a third if I count Inform 7 as well, because you don't need to be a programmer to understand the basics of it, but a lot of the more complicated stuff is certainly daunting to my non-programmer way of thinking.

Sora574
Although I have HTML background, I know very small amounts of JavaScript -- which is something I'm just starting out with. Editing HTML pretty much demands JavaScript, which is perfect, as Quest accepts both languages. Honestly, I use Quest mostly because of the flexibility with other languages.

As for it feeling 'natural'... I wouldn't go that far.
There's a lot of small differences that you sometimes don't think about while editing different languages (Besides HTML. It's a completely different ballgame) such as instead of 'if (variable !== null)', Quest uses 'if (not variable = null)', and instead of 'randomFunction ("string", (function () { script }))', Quest uses 'RandomFunction ("string") { script }'... And that's just Quest. Inform and ADRIFT both have completely different languages (umm... ADRIFT is more like all-GUI) than any other language I know.

Pretty small changes, but enough to break the code if you slip up.

davidw
ADRIFT is aimed at ease of use (V4 anyway, V5 is a whole different matter) so it's probably of limited interest to a programmer in any event. You can pull off some pretty complex things with it if you try, but I guess if you're a programmer you wouldn't find a lot there to interest you and you'd be better off sticking with a programming language.

Is Quest more powerful? Certainly. But I think that power comes at a cost: namely, that it's not as easy to use and the interface is confusing. The last time I tried to write a game with Quest, the power behind the system impressed me, but the interface didn't. Everything seemed to involve entirely too many mouse clicks and unnecessary options and I felt the system could have been improved a great deal by stripping away a lot of the complexity and just leaving the bare basics. It also seemed that most of the games written didn't take advantage of the extra power Quest had, which made it seem even more unnecessary.

Right now, ADRIFT V5 and Quest don't appeal to me much for largely the same reason: too many options, too much complexity, too much effort. As long as there's a simpler alternative, I'll use that.

Pertex
davidw wrote:... I felt the system could have been improved a great deal by stripping away a lot of the complexity and just leaving the bare basics. It also seemed that most of the games written didn't take advantage of the extra power Quest had, which made it seem even more unnecessary...


Thats right, but I think Alex has noticed that, too. His first step was to insert a simple and an advanced mode. And with Q5.5 it's possible to switch off features you don't want to use. On the other hand it is amazing which features are requested by non programmers, when they start their first project.

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