Inform is a programming language for creating interactive fiction

I discovered Inform 7 last year and was impressed at the sophisticated platform it provides for writing interactive fiction in semi-natural English. In the 1980s there were plenty of books about writing text adventure games (as they were more widely called then) on home microcomputers, and I learned a lot about programming Acorn computers from Peter Killworth&#x27;s &quot;How To Write Adventure Games for the BBC Microcomputer Model B and Acorn Electron&quot;. So to give Inform 7 a try, I implemented the mini four-room adventure from that book, and wrote a walk-through of how to do it quite neatly with the building blocks of Inform 7 here in case anyone&#x27;s interested: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eclecticstacks.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;mini-adventure-in-inform-7&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.eclecticstacks.com&#x2F;post&#x2F;mini-adventure-in-inform...</a>

I had the pleasure of being taught mathematics by the creator of Inform, Graham Nelson, at Oxford (and Oxford class sizes are _small_, 2-5 students). He’s a super interesting guy - created Inform, teaches pure mathematics at the highest level, but seems to most enjoy writing poetry.

As I posted about 4 months ago on &quot;The Futures of Inform&quot; &lt;<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32571293" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=32571293</a>&gt;:<p>The &quot;Inform 7 Programmer&#x27;s Manual&quot; by Ron Newcomb explains Inform 7 from the point-of-view of someone who knows how to program in other languages. Version as of August 15, 2011: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.plover.net&#x2F;~pscion&#x2F;Inform%207%20for%20Programmers" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.plover.net&#x2F;~pscion&#x2F;Inform%207%20for%20Programmers</a>...<p>An older 2009 version (if PDF is a problem): <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.plover.net&#x2F;~pscion&#x2F;inform7.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.plover.net&#x2F;~pscion&#x2F;inform7.html</a>

Inform 7 code is interesting from a conceptual perspective —- <i>“How could we build a programming language that looked like natural language?”</i><p>In practice though, I think it ultimately falls into some kind of uncanny valley, where it’s just enough like natural language that it seems like a certain sentence or grammatical construction should work, but it doesn’t.

Related: Has anyone tried ChatGPT to generate Inform code? Could be interesting.

Inform7 it&#x27;s cool but the generated adventures are &#x27;huge&#x27; and the might run slow on m68k based machines. If you like oop (much easier than Python, even a kid from Elementary could understand the basic syntax) and supporting legacy machines, inform6 is still maintained. IBG.pdf for an introduction to if6 and DM4 for mid-high complex stuff such as writting libraries and setting up non-standard objects with twisted grammars.

Related:<p><i>Inform: A Language for Interactive Fiction</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9279639" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=9279639</a> - March 2015 (50 comments)<p><i>Inform 7: An adventure game programming system based on natural language</i> - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=134541" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=134541</a> - March 2008 (1 comment)

Related comment from yesterday&#x27;s thread about the Ink language: &quot;Inform7 internally works like a very primitive rules engine...&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34081090" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34081090</a>

What are the most popular languages for writing IF?<p>Why would I choose one over another?

Does anyone have any experience integrating Inform into something like a C++ based game as a rules engine to add emergent complexity for objects&#x2F;interactions&#x2F;dialog?

Inform 7 is a work of art and one of the most interesting programming languages out there.