I've been making some really great progress on my cyberpunk interactive fiction parser game lately.

I feel like my understanding of the themes and world and writing style I want to use is really starting to come together, and I'm close to finishing the games introductory chapter which will serve as a sort of preview for the game for anyone interested. I've been putting a simply immense amount of work into making sure every single location feels unique and textured and interesting and the night market for instance feels extremely active and alive. As well as giving NPCs a little bit of agency and meaningful dialogue.

I also just recently finalized the main cast and stuff as well which I'm pretty happy about, the themes and cast came together a lot more naturally once I decided that I wanted to deal heavily with queer experience and themes directly as well as more traditional cyberpunk ones.

The games now up on a public github repo if anyone's interested or wants to follow the development; although I don't imagine looking at a half finished parts or IF game is that interesting, I did kind of put a description of the themes and goals of the game in the readme.

https://github.com/alexispurslane/circuitboard-streets

#interactivefiction #tads3 #parser

Okay, after my initial panic attack of maybe losing a year-long project to a technical block, I managed to fix it. I used a very dirty #javascript hack to be able to bodge in the HTML that was lost when Parchment interprets my game.

It's not an ideal situation, nor a pretty one, but it might just get me over the line.

The gist of it: https://gist.github.com/BrettWitty/36f821d76d60d00ab00276a08842de25

#TADS3 #interactivefiction

Okay, after my initial panic attack of maybe losing a year-long project to a technical block, I managed to fix it. I used a very dirty #javascript hack to be able to bodge in the HTML that was lost when Parchment interprets my game.

It's not an ideal situation, nor a pretty one, but it might just get me over the line.

The gist of it: https://gist.github.com/BrettWitty/36f821d76d60d00ab00276a08842de25

#TADS3 #interactivefiction

Oh dear... I wondered why my game -- when rendered in Parchment -- looked a bit goofy. I ignored that as just a CSS customization thing.

Turns out Parchment only renders non-HTML #TADS3, and there is a weird history of TADS vs HTML vs WebUI that I've always been confused about.

All in all it means my finale is unable to be reached.

Fuuuuuuuu... My wax wings! Meeeelting!

I think, though, I might have an ultra-janky solution to save my game. Wish me luck.

#interactivefiction

I'm looking for some basic alpha feedback on my #TADS3 #interactivefiction game Hand Me Down. If you're keen, DM on intfiction.org or here.

https://intfiction.org/t/seeking-alpha-testers-for-hand-me-down/61948

I'm looking for some basic alpha feedback on my #TADS3 #interactivefiction game Hand Me Down. If you're keen, DM on intfiction.org or here.

https://intfiction.org/t/seeking-alpha-testers-for-hand-me-down/61948

I'm thinking of running an early alpha for my #IF game in #TADS3. It'd be good to get it ready for the end of next week, because I'm taking the first two weeks of May off to concentrate on working on the game.

If you're open to giving me some feedback on a very early version of a parser game, let me know.

I have my #IF creative project accountability meeting tomorrow. According to git I've added 688 lines of #TADS3 code, and removed 2,534 lines (a mapping library). 21kB of writing in a month.

Doesn't feel like an ultra-productive month, but interesting to see numbers against it.

#tads3 #parser #interactivefiction #cyberpunk story outline complete! (Blue is a story scene, salmon colored is a scene that requires more active interaction than topic selection but has no win/lose condition, and pink is a puzzle). If you can decipher my handwriting, you yet a sneak peak lmao. My puzzles are planned in my notebook tho. Now, to rest up so hopefully my PCS lets me work on it soon... ;-;

Adding tags to this post bc I forgot: #parser #interactivefiction #textadventure #videogame #tads3

Also update on my FPS game project: I have realized that while the programming and writing parts of it are within my capability (once I heal from this concussion), FUCK do I not want to deal with graphics. So for now, while I decide what I want to do, I'm postponing it and introducing a new project instead: a parser-based interactive fiction game!

I'm really excited about this one because it aligns perfectly with the two things I'm good at already and like doing most: simulating cool things in programming languages, and writing. I'm going to be using TADS 3, which is an amazing interactive fiction development system that's so nice to use it makes me want to write some IF just to use it.

In addition, my girlfriend and I have been playing a lot of long form parser interactive fiction together every night (listening to someone narrate, looking at a map, and thinking through puzzles is something I can usually do without much pain even if I've used up the time I have feeling good to do other stuff that day), so I'm kind of in love with this medium right now and have some ideas for something that would fill an underserved niche.

I'm planning on this being a pretty long form work, kind of to get me back into the groove of writing science fiction after months of not doing it. The setting is going to be a transhumanist cyberpunk (with some Gothic and brutalist aesthetic influence) story with themes of body modification as positive self expression, the nature and uses of political violence, and what friendship actually means to different people. It involves an ex-warehouse worker running a train into not-Amazon :). Some inspirations are, in no particular order: The Crow, Dark City, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

#cyberpunk #interactivefiction #IF #tads3 #videogames #anticapitalist #writing

Bah. Tried to make a tricky thing in #TADS3 but couldn't quite get it to work how I wanted. It's just one of those moderately complex quality-of-life things that you could omit, but it'd be awesome if you didn't.

(I wanted something like a CollectiveGroup that instantiates as a ListGroup when all the items are together. Think a costume with multiple parts that list in the inventory as "a cool costume (made up of: foo, bar)" but just "foo" if you just have it.)

Back to the drawing board!

Today's #Dungeon23 #interactiveFiction location may or may not be inspired by apartments I've rented in the past. I hope you're enjoying these posts as I build the game, and will consider checking it out when I post a build of the first "level" in February or March. #gameDev #TADS3

#Dungeon23 day 19. An #interactiveFiction project, in which I create a new room every day. Implemented in #TADS3

#Dungeon23 day 17. A wizard's chamber. #interactiveFiction using #TADS3

Yes, yes, I misspelled candles, I fixed it in the source code.

One of the challenges in doing a #dungeon23 #interactiveFiction project where I add a room every day is in trying to make sure that its ultimately 365 rooms aren't *shallow.*

I'm implementing puzzles and environmental storytelling as I go; it's easy in #TADS3 to give unimportant objects the "Decoration" class to let players know not to bother with them, but I do want a bit of irrelevant world simulation where things can be manipulated even if they're not part of the game's progress.

#dungeon23 day 10, let's keep this streak going - I'm building an #interactiveFiction game one room per day throughout the year. Let's see how it goes! #gamedev #TADS3

#Dungeon23 day 9. Implemented a smithy. There may be a puzzle involved. #interactiveFiction #TADS3 #megadungeon

My take on #dungeon23 is that I'm building an #interactiveFiction megadungeon by implementing one room every day. Here is today's: (yes, I see the spelling error) #gamedev #tads3

AND here is the room for #Dungeon23 day 7! Wrapping up the hallway with its east end and some promising exits. Tomorrow we'll have some more rooms that aren't halls, I promise. :D #interactiveFiction #TADS3