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Interactive Fiction Competition?


Vorticon

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I was watching on You Tube the very interesting documentary on text adventures and interactive fiction called "The Lamp", and it occurred to me that it may be fun to start a programming competition on the topic.

 

Official Rules:

Overview: Create a 5 room or location max text only adventure with a clear winnable objective.

Submission Deadline: July 15th 2014. All submissions should go into this post: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224499-interactive-fiction-context-entries-submissions/

Judging Period: July 16th to September 1st 2014

Winner announcement: First week of September 2014

Entry Rules:

  • Maximum of 5 rooms or locations.
  • Text only. No graphics in any shape or form are allowed.
  • Regular sized custom fonts (8x8 pixels) are allowed.
  • Screen color changes are allowed, as well as highlighting of text for emphasis.
  • Use of sound/speech during play is allowed.
  • Maximum hardware requirements: 32K RAM and one or more disk drives.
  • Programming language: TI Extended Basic only. Compiled XB will not be allowed because it may provide an unfair advantage as far as text processing is concerned. No other flavor of XB is allowed for similar reasons.

That's it! Let your imagination loose :)

Edited by Vorticon
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I should also clarify that different fonts may be used as long as they are normal sized (8x8 pixels), and that the screen color can be changed to reflect the mood of the location.

System requirements should not exceed 32K RAM and one disk drive.

He. Ta. My little text adventure in development already breaks several of the new rules above. Is compiled XB and/or a 360K disc okay ?

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He. Ta. My little text adventure in development already breaks several of the new rules above. Is compiled XB and/or a 360K disc okay ?

 

The reason for the 5 room limit is to control program size to encourage submissions and to make it easy for the reviewer to test them. If each submission was large and complex, it would be difficult to test all of them in a meaningful and fair way. Compiled XB is not an issue here since speed is not a factor in text adventures. As for disk size, that's up to the amount of data you want to store, although I can't image you needing 360K for a 5 room adventure :) Perhaps you can adapt your existing one as a teaser for the larger article?

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OK. I'm going to officially launch this contest. I am planning on creating an entry myself as well, and if it turns out to be the only one, well it will still be a new piece of software for the TI :grin: Official rules are now posted in the first entry of this thread.

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Since compiled XB is not allowed, then I guess any kind of machine code execution is not allowed. Right ?

 

Is it allowed to 'step outside' XB with the likes of peek and poke ?

 

:)

 

If "stepping outside" of XB can be achieved using stock XB commands and without calling custom assembly routines (ROM routines are OK), then it should be fine. I'm not trying to be difficult, but rather trying to level the programming field as much as possible to account for all levels of coding skills.

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As I think about this project some more, I think one key aspect here is creating a smart sentence parser. While a basic one with a verb and noun is fairly simple to implement, this quickly devolves into a exercise in semantics and grammar when full sentences are expected. On the other hand, does it really matter to the player whether he she uses OPEN DOOR versus OPEN THE DOOR? Not really... But chained actions in one sentence may be more the way to go such as TAKE LANTERN AND LIGHT IT. Of course context become the issue here since the parser will need to know that IT is equivalent to LANTERN in this setting, while equivalent to something else in another setting.

Interesting problem :)

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I guess or hope that the nature or definition of a "text adventure", or do I have to say "interactive fiction", includes what I was thinking of. More of a "take left or right path" options only. The definition of "location" and/or "interactive" might become a bit of an issue to some, but then the "guided and maybe intersecting 'tour'" can have stuff like "Pick up axe, Yes or No ?" stuff !? What I'm getting at, - I don't think, quote "key aspect here is creating a smart sentence parser" is applicable with where I'm heading, but I hope that's alright ?

 

:)

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I guess or hope that the nature or definition of a "text adventure", or do I have to say "interactive fiction", includes what I was thinking of. More of a "take left or right path" options only. The definition of "location" and/or "interactive" might become a bit of an issue to some, but then the "guided and maybe intersecting 'tour'" can have stuff like "Pick up axe, Yes or No ?" stuff !? What I'm getting at, - I don't think, quote "key aspect here is creating a smart sentence parser" is applicable with where I'm heading, but I hope that's alright ?

 

:)

Karsten that sounds good actually because there were a series of Fighting Fantasy adventure gamebooks released worldwide that had choices like that - say you were stood on a street you had the option to go further down the street, or go into the house that was set back from the rest .... if you encountered a person in the gamebooks you often had the choices of talking to them or attacking them with your sword .... and it would still be classed as interactive fiction .... Im thinking if you involved random occurances that would really add to it :)

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As I think about this project some more, I think one key aspect here is creating a smart sentence parser. While a basic one with a verb and noun is fairly simple to implement, this quickly devolves into a exercise in semantics and grammar when full sentences are expected. On the other hand, does it really matter to the player whether he she uses OPEN DOOR versus OPEN THE DOOR? Not really... But chained actions in one sentence may be more the way to go such as TAKE LANTERN AND LIGHT IT. Of course context become the issue here since the parser will need to know that IT is equivalent to LANTERN in this setting, while equivalent to something else in another setting.

Interesting problem :)

Hi vorticon.

 

So, first off it was said let's go with a 5 room limit so that people from all walks of TI programming could get involved. That's nice, I can be involved then as I have my limits but I can do * something *

 

Next you've more or less said you would like a parser akin to those in an Infocom adventure. Mmmmm. That might be awkward for me, for one ... I really struggle with parsers as I'm not too cracking with splicing strings, SEG$ does what I need it to but I'll be here forever if I have to take it from a two-word parser to anything bigger ... still, that's just me, there are others here that could really go to town with a good parser. But don't expect mine to be that good, is all im saying :) lol

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Let me clarify here: having a parser is not a requirement for a text adventure submission at all. This was just preliminary rumination on my part as I mulled my own project over in my head. People can create any type of user interface they like, as long as it is text based. There are no additional constraints to the context other than what was stated in the official launch in an earlier post.

 

With regard to the term interactive fiction versus text adventure, this is just semantics I picked up from watching The Lamp documentary :) In my view, if you interact with anything within a simulated environment, be it an object or a person, then it is interactive fiction of which a text adventure is simply a special subset.

 

In this contest, while we only 5 room, there is no constraint regarding the content of each room or location. You could have multiple puzzles, false leads, interactive NPC's, death traps or even embedded mini-games in each room, making for a potentially very rich environment. As I said, let your imagination loose :)

Edited by Vorticon
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