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From: cinnamon@kaiwan.com (R. Dominick)
Subject: Re: IF languages on Amiga
Message-ID: <CFMKFn.Fuy@kaiwan.com>
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Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1993 20:47:46 GMT
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Sandie A. Grow (sgrow@cie-2.uoregon.edu) wrote:

> I was wondering what language is the most veratile and/or easiest to use.
> Should I go with AGT or TADS since I can reach a pretty wide audience? Or
> should I take a stab at Inform to reach an even wider one...? How does
> Alan compare to either of these, and which ones are object-oriented?

AGT is not object-oriented, but is probably the simplest of those
three softwares to use.  The thing that is a pain is keeping track of
everything's number, and there are programs to make that easier.  I
*do* like TADS - it's one of three shareware packages I've ever
registered - and the appearance of run-times for many machines is an
incentive to use it.  It is object-oriented, moreso than any other
language for IF I've tried -- and much like C++, my programming
language of choice.

Inform: I've only used it on a Unix box, 'cause I can't get it to
operate quite correctly under MS-DOS (Huge memory model is a pain to
code for), and it's nifty, especially when it makes you realise how
limited Infocom's tools were at that point (the v3 games).  You do
have to code your own parser, tho'.

I'm currently fooling with ALAN, seeing what it's like; I notice a
resemblance to ADA.  Some of the examples I've gotten from the
if-archive are quite nifty - especially the fully-functional Floyd! -
but I'm still deciding about this one.

Yes, I'm opinionated and willing to blather at length.  Ah, well.

> Also, has anyone seen or used Visionary by Oxxi? I'm aware that it's
> capable of doing not only text only games, but gfx/txt and even Dungeon
> Master style games. Since I don't have time (or talent) to be my own game
> company, I'd like to stick to text only games, so should I bother with
> Visionary?

Visionary is *very* limited; it'd be impossible to implement anything
very complex adventure-wise in it.  It *is* a good system for
designing your standard dungeon-crawl DungeonMaster/EyeOfTheBeholder-
type o' game... but you might not want to mess with it, much.

-- 
i dreamt that one had died in a strange place
