Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
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From: Russell L. Bryan <rbryan@Mail.trincoll.edu>
Subject: Re: So you want to write a text adventure?
Message-ID: <1992Nov10.194125.27132@starbase.trincoll.edu>
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Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:41:25 GMT
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In article <1992Nov10.161306.1805@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> James E Crawford,
crawford@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu writes:
>1) What programs are available to create IF and more importantly,
>where can I get them? I have a Mac and access to a 486; I'd prefer
>to work on the Mac though....

OK, TADS is the one I use, and there are version available for both Mac
and IBM.  I would suggest that you wait a month before buying it, as
version 2.0 will soon be released.

>2) Are there any IF "languages" which support collaborative writing 
>(ie. the "user" has the opportunity to add on to the existing world,
>thus creating a dynamic environment)?

You're looking for a Thieve's World version of interactive fiction, I
suppose, and although I can see no reason why it couldn't work, no such
project has been attempted, or at least not with TADS.  There ARE a
number of games within the Unkuulian world for TADS, but they are all
self-sufficient and separately coded.

If you wished to do what you've suggested in TADS, you would probably
want to create a "shell" world with certain locations, rooms, items, and
characters who would run throughout the world in question.  It would be
up to the individual writer to adjust that world in the desired manner,
but the "shell" of rooms and actors and such could be used over and over
again ad inifinitum.

TADS, incidentally, is an object-oriented language, so it is very
conducive do this kind of manipulation.

-- Russ
