Interactive Fiction?

So me and my friends are basically the biggest role-playing nerds ever, and we all love adventure games. We basicly write adventure games out on paper, get the group together, and play them. But lately, we have all decided that it would be more fun to code computer based adventuree games. Basicly, I want to know how to go about doing this. Basically the games will be in the style of Zork or Colossal Cave Adventure. At this point, I have a few questions about how I will go about making this game.

1: How do I go about making the players input thing to move around, pick up objects, ect.?

2: How do I make an inventory that the player can check?

That's all I can think of know, but I might have some more questions as I get more into programming the game. Thanks in advance.

It all depends on how much experience you have with coding to begin with.

The quick answers to question 2 is vectors or arrays (depending on what you want to do - vectors is the most likely route though). Question 1 is answered by your choice of answer related to Question 2.

If you're new to C++ then you could do worse than getting hold of "Beginning C++ Through Game Programming" by Michael Dawson - that takes you through pretty much everything you need to know (except streams) about text game programming including "adventure" games while teaching you C++.

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Originally Posted by BuzzBuzz

It all depends on how much experience you have with coding to begin with.

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I sorta a noob, I understand the basics but have yet to accualy code somthing that wasn't just testing to see how stuff works.

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Originally Posted by BuzzBuzz

The quick answers to question 2 is vectors or arrays (depending on what you want to do - vectors is the most likely route though). Question 1 is answered by your choice of answer related to Question 2.

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I tried to read some tutorials on vectors and arrays, but don't really understand them all that well. How could I use the to make an inventory?

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Originally Posted by BuzzBuzz

If you're new to C++ then you could do worse than getting hold of "Beginning C++ Through Game Programming" by Michael Dawson - that takes you through pretty much everything you need to know (except streams) about text game programming including "adventure" games while teaching you C++.

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Unfortunately, I don't think I will be able to get a hold of that book, or any programming book, really. I can't find any bookstores that carry them, and I'm not old enough to have a credit card, so I can't order them off the internet either.

As it happens, there are some special programming systems just for writing interactive fiction. You might be interested in Inform or TADS:

Home : Inform

TADS - the Text Adventure Development System, an Interactive Fiction authoring tool

Either of these will take care of all the basics of parsing player commands, tracking inventory, etc., for you.

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Originally Posted by chrysanthemum

As it happens, there are some special programming systems just for writing interactive fiction. You might be interested in Inform or TADS:

Home : Inform

TADS - the Text Adventure Development System, an Interactive Fiction authoring tool

Either of these will take care of all the basics of parsing player commands, tracking inventory, etc., for you.

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Well, I kind of wanted to do the games in C++, not only because I wanted to make the games, but also because I want to learn C++.

Well, if you really want to do it as a way to learning C++ then it's not a bad way to get into it.

You will need to understand how arrays and vectors work though to be able to do pretty much anything efficiently. Have another look those tutorials and use them as a basis for something simple that is relevant to you - I wrote a program using structs and arrays that gave information on James Bond films to get my head around them when I first encountered them.

Your best bet is to work out what you want to do, write it out in pseudocode so you know where you're going and then give it a bash. If you need help with something then that is what this forum is for.

Also, when you get to graphics try the SFML library. It's nicely organized for C++ and it's portable so you won't get sucked into Microsofts crap like I did.

Hey,

If the original poster is interested, I have a good example project in c++ demonstrating a simple text based adventure game. I think it has an inventory system, too. Post back if you want it.

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Originally Posted by sbrundage81

Hey,

If the original poster is interested, I have a good example project in c++ demonstrating a simple text based adventure game. I think it has an inventory system, too. Post back if you want it.

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Yes, an example would defiantly help a lot.

What's your email?

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Originally Posted by sbrundage81

What's your email?

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[email protected]

Sent. It's in .rar format, hope that's ok.

You could post your game in the games sticky thread if you wanted to. I for one would probably look at it. :)

P.S. Thanks for the links in this thread, very useful . . . I would have suggested the SDL instead of SFML, but that's because I haven't heard of SFML before. :)