Well, after two weeks of essentially beating my head into a concrete wall and losing sleep (more valuable than gold in my book) over the program, I have determined that as far as the electronic world goes Interactive Fiction, or IF for short, is quite possibly one of the greatest threats to not only the sanity of aspiring writers but also to global security.
(I’m sure it’s not that bad when you know what you’re doing… I didn’t)
Initially I was kind of excited to work with Inform 7. I’ve always liked the premise of IF- I had read and loved several books, most of them of the Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine, which allow the reader to control the outcome of the story based on decisions they make along the way. The interactivity makes for a very compelling experience- it’s one thing to be watching or reading about a character, but to actually be in their shoes and affecting their life (or sudden lack thereof) means a much more adventuristic feeling can be had. I had also done some basic HTML coding before, so I figured this would be a fun exercise and a way to use some of my creative power.
My basic premise with my story was that the main character- whom I didn’t plan on giving a legitimate name- is a prisoner aboard a space station (I’m a science fiction nut so this came naturally to me).The character, who would only be known by his prisoner number, has no memory of how he got there or why he is there, and now has to find a way to escape the station. My initial plan was to have four rooms- the cell the character starts off in, the cell hall that room is located in, an air-traffic control room adjacent to the small prison ward, and a hangar where the character would steal a ship and escape. Along the way, there were to be clues the player would pick up on to figure out who they were and why they were on this station, and would be able to use that information to enhance their ability to progress in the game. Additionally, each room would require at least one puzzle to be solved before the character could advance, and there would be two guards on duty for the character to interact with, one of whom would end up being an ally to the player and one who is horribly fearful of them (if the player allows them to live). Finally, as a fun addition, at every opportunity possible I wanted to include as many ways for the player’s character to die as I could within reason- in the cell alone I came up with two scenarios in which the player could die, and several more in the security foyer outside the cell. The feel I was going for with this story was that of a desperate struggle for survival, and I felt the more opportunities there were for the player to die simply from touching the wrong thing or not reacting quickly enough it would add to the pressure the player would feel.
Rapidly and regrettably I realized that this was a bit too ambitious for my first use of Inform 7. As previously noted I’ve done some basic programming before, but that foreknowledge didn’t help one bit with this new language, where all of your specifications for the code have to be typed out in English and forgetting a stupid period somewhere can result in your program failing altogether (not that this isn’t possible with other languages, but it’s more annoying and much easier to miss a comma or misplace a period than to forget to put brackets around an I for italics.
In addition to the confusing nature of the syntax of Inform 7, I also found the help guides for it- both those that came with the program and another one that was provided by my instructor- to largely be a headache to sift through. The way that I learn things best is if material is presented to me as “Doing this causes that” and then playing around with that material to see what happens. The formats of both guides were in essay form, which in and of itself is not a bad thing , but a list of commands would have been considerably more helpful than the wall of text the two guides were. And worse than that was that it always presented commands as “alternatives,” never saying what they were an alternative to (an example is the if/then commands: I want to be able to say plainly that the character needs to do a particular thing to be able to advance or get somewhere in a conversation or puzzle). Even the most exciting thing about IF to me, the ability of the player to alter the storyline to their liking, was hindered (or, more appropriately, ruined) by the baseless hypothetical syntax of Inform 7. I enjoyed coming up with the storyline and all of the avenues it could take- I used to write short stories as a hobby and as a gamer my favorite video games are RPGs, or “role-playing games,” so interactivity with the plot of a story is something that I love dearly and get a lot of fun out of. Being utterly unable to program my thoughts into something that Inform 7 could read or work with killed any passion for this that I may have possessed initially as far as electronic-text IF is concerned. I don’t blame the program entirely for this exercise being a disaster for me, though. Despite having done programming before I’m not good at it, and I have no doubt that this played a large part in my lack of comprehension and ability to write IF.
While not my cup of tea, as must surely be obvious by now, electronic IF has a lot of room for creativity for people who understand how to use Inform 7, much in the same way that hard-copy IF and RPGs do, have had, and have seen huge success because of. It can mutually inspire all concerned with the process- the author is challenged to thin k of every possible action a player may want to take in a situation and come up with an avenue for the reader to explore through that action, which was the case for me while writing it, and the reader can manipulate the plot(s) to their liking, inspiring a huge bout of creativity and intrigue on their part. Many humans play the “what if” game- some, such as theoretical physicists, even turn it into a career- and IF allows them all the space in the world to make their own fate in the story (I think the reader having power over the outcome of a story instead of being along for the ride is another draw to IF, but that’s just me).
It’s cool if you know what you’re doing. I’d much rather sit down with a cup of coffee and a good RPG.
-Actorbass33 the Triumphant
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