Hey guys!

I was just wondering if any of you are interested in an IF Writing Comp. An IF is an Interactive Fiction. You know, text adventures. They come in many forms: CYOAs, Old-School Adventure Games, even visual novels I guess (but less emphasis on the visuals). Basic Programming Knowledge is optional but otherwise unnecessary. I haven't had the time to explore it, but I'm sure most of you have heard of it. Consider this yet another ambitious Interest Gauge, but for now, let's just see what you guys think about it.

For the duration of this thread, feel free to link your favorite IFs (I'll be posting some samples down below), discuss the IFs that you've played/read, and maybe if you desire it make one of your own and share it with us!


Example of IFs:

My Father's Long Long Legs (Horror)
Urquel, The Black Dragon (Fantasy / Humor)
- This game was made using Twine, an open-source, free, tool that requires absolutely no coding skillz. Twine is bar-none the easiest choice with its engine specifically made for those wishing to focus purely on the narrative.




The Mansion II (Mystery)
Dream Pieces (Fantasy / Puzzle)
The Uncle Who Works For Nintendo (Horror)

- Both works made using Quest, another free software that you can use either online or as a downloadable. There are more things you can do with this, such as object manipulation and an inventory system which also makes things more gamey but satisfying all the same.




Unholy Flesh (Horror)
A Small Talk at the Back of Beyond (Sci-fi / Mystery)
You Find Yourself in A Room from Kyra (Mystery)

- These games were made using Flash. Obviously, the programming is quite high in this one as well as the necessity to do a little art. I only linked this because they look amazingly simulated and they're pretty neat games.




There are other IFs out there, created with other IF Software. But they are either commercial, or require you to have moderate programming knowledge. I'd be willing to put those in if interest develops here but for now, you'll either have the choice of Quest or Twine. Both apps btw, have active forum communities in case you're stuck and the documentation can't help you out.

If this picks up I'd be interested in getting involved. I don't know if I have the patience to learn an entire new software kit, but I'd surely be happy to help with things like making the story coherent and proofreading.

...

Imagine the in depth choose-your-own-adventure kind of games. Like whole stories can continuously build on one another until you have this in depth plot that started with your first choice: "Bacon or Egg" and how that influenced everything in the end... I've always like stories where you are the hero kinda and where you choose where you go with it.

You really gotta keep track when writing something like this... so I am interested in helping anyway I can.

This is certainly interesting. But which of these softwares do you recommend the most? As in, the most useful for a newbie in programming.

...

if we were to do this i'd say we could start with something simple and relatively short as a "proof of concept" and to see how difficult it will be, then maybe commit to a bigger project which can be a bit more flashy

Quote from Hewitt

Just use Twine dude. It's the simplest one with little to no programming required. It has mods for advanced feature support but they arent really necessary unless you wanna make something flashy.

The naked twine jam that I just linked proves that you dont need fancy shit if your narrative is interesting

Error launching installer. Anger...building...

Guess I shall settle for Quest.

Can I introduce to you all Choice Of Games? They produce extremely high quality works of interactive fiction; you can download choice of the dragon and choice of broadsides from appstore or google play for free to try some of their gamebooks out.

If you're interested in buying one of their games, I'd be happy to give further recommendations.

I had intended to put Choice of Games in this thread as well, but unlike the above, this one is actually a Commercial product. Yes, the games are free but I do believe you need to pay a certain amount for some of their major ones (Dragon, Romance, Vampire, Pirates, etc.) in order to unlock the whole thing so to speak. I could be wrong though, but the actual making of these Choice games...the site allows you to do it for a price as well.

Would like to take this time to also show you guys Fear of Twine, which is yet another collab of Twine Games.

There's also Love is Zero, a game that lets you become a teenage vampire chick. Hilarity ensues.

I just wanna share this very very old game I found called Shade.

You play as a guy who is preparing to leave for an art festival and the entire game takes place in a single room: your apartment. Aaaaand...I cannot spoil anymore than that, but know this: the game won an award when it first came out so the story is really good. I advise you to check it out and leave a comment or two about it.

Do threads like these count as interactive fiction?

Hmm~I haven't done a lot of IFs but by definition yeah~that's pretty much what it is~
o w o

I'll revive this shit.

Hell, if we get a good crew, I'll totally be down to sketch some art for this shit. This could be really good.

Define "revive", are you actually planning to make something from these software.

Also I've found a great deal of awesome, funny ones over the months so I'll update the thread later.