Inform

Inform is a technology developed by Graham Nelson since 1993 object oriented programming language, can be programmed into the text adventures.

History

Inform is based on the reverse engineering of the Z -machine developed by Infocom. Therefore behave the games as produced by Infocom, even if the object-oriented programming language Inform on source code level is fundamentally different from the functional language ZIL, the high level language even used by Infocom is different. They also run on all computers on which there is a virtual Z -machine, from the PDA via various home computers to modern PCs, Macintosh, and Linux computers. Also Inform itself runs on many different systems. Inform is freeware and licensed as Artistic License. Therefore, it may be distributed or changed for free if certain provisions are met.

There are now numerous with Inform programmed and free playable or downloadable on the internet games that can compete with the old Infocom games sometimes.

An important contribution to the success of Inform made ​​the extensive manual The Inform Designer's Manual, which in issue four (known as " DM4 " ) has grown to 570 pages. It is available in both printed edition and freely available on the internet. The manual explains the programming of Inform so that even programming novices with enough stamina to cope with it. A section of the manual deals regardless of Inform the " Craft of Adventure Games " (The Craft of Adventure).

The first five versions of Inform emerged in quick succession zwischen 1993 and 1995. Inform 5 was the first version that was used to any significant extent by persons other than the Inform- author Graham Nelson himself. The completely rewritten, systematic Inform 6 appeared in 1996 and remained for ten years, the current language version. During this time, appeared primarily bug fixes and minor enhancements of the libraries.

Language versions

Since Inform 6 is to create other language versions the option next to the English version. The official languages ​​are German, French, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Slovenian, Spanish and plan language Lojban.

German language version

1996 translated Tinic Urou the English program library of Inform 6 into German. This translation had in many places for errors, so made ​​two enhancements in this release: Toni Arnold and Ralf Herrmann published 1998/1999 independently two German libraries. Here, Toni Arnold oriented on the Swiss German. Also Ralf Hermann's version had both strengths and weaknesses. When Max callus began in 1999, the Inform text adventure "Star Rider", in German language to write one of the largest freeware text adventures, he used it all the libraries by Toni Arnold and revised and expanded this. Later he took over parts of Ralf Hermann's library. This new library was first published in 2001. Through the German Interactive Fiction community this version of the library has been improved and the " official German version ". Close to it is by Martin Oehm another unofficial library called " deform ".

Problems that were occurring in the German translation of Inform:

  • Umlauts
  • Declension of nouns
  • Genus of objects
  • Inflected item (instead of a / the)
  • Inflected adjectives

Inform 7

The developed since 2006 by Graham Nelson and Emily Short Inform 7 is pursuing a fundamentally new approach. The programming is done in a style similar to natural English declarative notation; all the typical programming concepts such as variables, assignments, procedures, etc. are coded with (simple) English sentences. The Literate programming is done so already in the source code. The aim is also a writer, which is foreign programming per se, are interested in the development of interactive stories. This goal is also to provide a complete IDE with specially adapted to the development of text adventures diagnostic and testing tools. Under the hood of extensive Preprozessorsystems natural language but still works the Inform 6 compiler, so it is possible to include in a book written with Inform 7 program individual in Inform 6 coded sections.

Other language versions

Again exist alongside the English version other official language versions including: German, French, Italian, Spanish and Swedish.

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