Creating Interactive Fiction with Inform 7

by Aaron A. Reed

CREATING INTERACTIVE FICTION WITH INFORM 7 is a jargon-free, step-by-step guide to mastering the basics of creating dynamic, text-based story worlds. Inform 7 is a free multiplatform interactive fiction authoring environment that uses an intuitive natural language syntax. A tool focused on writers, not programmers, Inform allows users construct complex, rich storytelling worlds by writing sentences as simple as "Tom is a person," or as complicated as "Instead of attacking Tom when something lethal is held, now every nearby watchdog owned by Tom hates the player." No prior programming experience is required. Throughout the book, readers develop a full-length, release-quality example game, exploring the real-world issues involved in authoring participatory narratives and gaining skills that can be applied to the creation of future games and stories.

Genres: Games, Programming, Nonfiction, Computers, Technology

448 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2010

About the author

Aaron A. Reed is a writer and game designer focused on the intersection of prose and play and finding new ways for people to tell stories together. His fiction, games, and playable artworks have won recognition from a broad range of storytelling communities, including the Independent Games Festival (video games), the ENnie Awards (tabletop roleplaying), and Kirkus Reviews (traditional publishing). Aaron is a multi-time IndieCade and IGF finalist, and his work has also been shown at South by Southwest, Slamdance, and GaymerX; he has spoken about digital storytelling at PAX and PAX East, Google, WorldCon, NarraScope, and the Game Developer Conference. He lives in Santa Cruz, California.

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among the better how-to books I've read. This gives plenty of interactive fiction history/theory/philosophy, good examples/hands-on exercises, and is funny to boot.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting book and accessible. Nice to have all that information in one place. It's not that you CAN'T look up most of the information in the book online or in the program directory packaged with Inform7, but more that it's a source code for a complete game with the author's reasoning behind the way he phrased things and world setup and how one might go about designing a game. The directory in the program itself of examples feels much more random. It helped me figure out at least one of the problems I had with my own game, so there you go.

I haven't read every last word of it, but I've made my first major skim and delved through and made bookmarks and pasted on washi tape (because it's low tack and makes for a great way to highlight) next to sections that were promising.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so freakin' much from this book and used it to teach my Interactive Narrative class about Inform 7. I read aloud the intro chapter about the expressive power of words over high-tech graphics and audio that games normally employ. The example story, Sand Dancer, that evolves over the course of the book is a really great working example.

[Neil Stonewall Herrmann · Rating 1 out of 5]

A miasma of asinine clichés unrivaled in Western Letters.