ObjectPascal: Interactive Fiction in REST
I finally got the needed motivation to get my new REST Apps sub-domain up and running, along with the deployments of the first REST application, and of course the needed REST Server. If you have been following my posts on ObjectPascal, then this is where you can see everything that I've worked on live!
Adventure Kernel
Firstly, this name was thought about when I was in my 20s, so the name is fairly awful when I think of it. However, since this is the same engine from my 20s, and that is the name I picked, it is going to stick for a bit. At the current moment, I am not going to be moving this project forward as a polished interactive fiction publishing platform. It will remain in this prototype stage for the foreseeable future.
With that said, it doesn't mean that if an interactive fiction author cannot use the engine. This application does support full public registration and logging into the editor. If you wanted to see how this REST application looked and functioned from a backend/editor perspective, then you'll need to create an account to see and use it.
However, to see the gameplay, you don't need to login, although there is a nice Guest Login button on the main page which will show you a list of all the published games, both by me, and by anyone who dares to press the Publish button in the editor. Games can also be Unpublished as well. As of the moment of this writing, there one adventure that I created as a Welcome game to show what the engine is capable of, as well as to include some examples and a few locations to showcase the engine features itself. I highly recommend checking it out if you like interactive fiction to see how the overall gameplay feels.
The editor form mostly works, but there are still a few bugs that need to be addressed. For example, when creating a new game, it will not properly initialize all the location target fields with 0, which can be a pain for anyone just trying it out, so I'll have this resolved very soon. Another bug is with the Item Here:, as it doesn't work like the rest of the fields in the form, as it is connected to a different table for items. This field only has issues if the location hasn't yet been saved, and thus does not currently have a Location ID. In order for the items table to function, it needs to know the location ID, and if it's not available, it cannot create the item. This will also be addressed in a future update. You should also save your location after each edit, if you move to a different location at any point without saving, you might lose any changes you've made. I'll need to think of an easy way to check for modifications, and then prevent the user from moving to a different location if something has been edited.
For the most part, this bugs are rather trivial once you know of them, and know how to get around them. Feel free to check out the editor and create something of your own if you wish. The engine is built to be very easy to use for someone who doesn't know anything about programming, in fact, you don't need any coding skills to use this engine! All you need is a creative imagination and an idea for a story. As long as you can type out the story, you can create a interactive fiction game!
Conclusion
This post is rather short, but most of the information about the actual REST application and game engine can be found from within the Welcome game itself. Also, if you wanted to try to write your own, create an account on the main page.