Today marks a remarkable achievement for me. I've just managed to get a bit of original interactive fiction code to work. The first time I've gotten an original idea to work in IF.
Usually, the coding just whines about phrases and punctuation and how "if x is more than 5" does not make any sense. But I've finally gotten a proof of concept working.
Basically, it's a small simulation of a ship and the many things you can do with it. The "proof of concept" was the simulation of having a pleasure cruise in Europe. Every other part of the simulation can be copied from it: having pleasure cruises in other parts of the world, raiding other ships, exploring the unknown reaches of the world, etc. Just change the variables, the set-up, and the responses, and everything works out.
The problem is, it was a spur-of-the-moment idea, and I'm at a dead-end with it. Maybe in a week or two, I'll come up with new ideas and keep working off-and-on-again at it.
Right now, there are other sections that are unimplemented, like a crew loyalty setting (to determine whether the crew should mutiny or not) and ship size (to determine how much you can carry, how overcrowded the ship is, and the like). It's basically a husk, but it can be filled. I have many such husks to fill, a lot of which however are either broken or were supposed to go in a specific but now forgotten direction.
Still, I imagine every video game creator has that moment when he has tamed his computer. The sudden uplifting moment when he realizes that he no longer needs to be afraid of his computer, that now he is the master. Or she.
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