Text Adventure Development System: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:56, 3 April 2004

Revision as of 11:48, 18 April 2004

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in place of simpler systems like AGT ([[Adventure Game Toolkit]]).

However, [[Graham Nelson]]'s [[Inform_programming_languageInform programming language|Inform]] has, since its release in 1993,

slowly gained popularity and superseded TADS in the last half of the 90s.

Nevertheless, TADS 2 has been maintained and updated at regular intervals by its creator, [[Michael J. Roberts]], even after it became freeware in July 1996.

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supports it.

Recently, TADS received a major overhaul with the release of '''TADS 3''', which is a complete rewrite of the TADS engine, only retaining the platform-dependant code to ease [[porting]].

TADS 3 has many new features, such as its efficient dynamic objects (with [[automatic garbage collection]]), structured [[Exception handling|exceptions]], native [[UTF-8]] strings, and many useful function classes.

and many useful function classes.

==TADS games==

Games written in TADS are compiled to a platform-independent format that can be played on any computer for which a suitable [[interpretervirtual (computer software)|interpretermachine]] (VM) exists. Such interpretersvirtual machines exist for most platforms, and in this respect, TADS closely follows the example of the original [[Infocom]] [[Z-machine]], as well as modern languages such as [[Java programming language|Java]] and [[C_sharp_programming_languageC sharp programming language | C#]].

Whereas the TADS 1 and 2 interpretersVMs had to [[parse]] the commands entered by the player, before sending the results on to the game, TADS 3 employs a more general-purpose virtual machine, where the command-parsing is done by the game code itself, akin to Inform. The rationale for this is that it is easier to customize the parser.

==The Programming Language==

TADS 2 is based on [[C programming language|C]], with bits of [[Pascal programming language|Pascal]].

A [[Hello world program]] isn't that simple to write in TADS 2, because TADS 2 requires a working [[world model]] to compile.

#include <adv.t>

#include <std.t>

&nbsp;

replace commonInit: function

{

"Hello World!\n";

quit;

}

&nbsp;

startroom: room; // We must define a startroom object.

Of course, the goal of TADS 2 is to make Interactive Fiction (and not Hello World programs) simple to implement, and in pursuing that goal it succeeds.

Nevertheless, TADS 3 dispenses with the requirement of a working world model, and also abandons the Pascal elements of the language.

function main(args)

{

"Hello World!";

}

==Further reading==

* [[Interactive Fiction]] in general.

* [[Inform]] is another interactive fiction design system that is comparable to TADS in terms of power, flexibility, portability, and popularity. Another well-regarded system is [[Hugo programming language|Hugo]], though it is not nearly as widely-used as either TADS or Inform.

==External links==

* The TADS page: [http://teladesign.com/tads/ The TADS page]

* Official web site: [http://www.tads.org/ The official TADS web site]

* [http://wurb.com/if/platform/2 TADS 2] and [http://wurb.com/if/platform/39 TADS 3] games on Baf's Guide

* TADS 2 interpreters for several platforms: [http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/programming/tads2/executables/ TADS 2 interpreters for several platforms]

* [http://www.tads.org/t3dl.htm TADS 3 interpreters for DOS, Windows, and source for Unix: http://www.tads.org/t3dl.htm]

* [http://www.hypertads.org/ HyperTADS], a MacOS multimedia interpreter for TADS 2 and 3: http://www.hypertads.org/

* [http://www.firthworks.com/roger/cloak/tads/index.html "Cloak of Darkness" in TADS] (A sample game coded in several languages, to demonstrate the coding of each): http://www.firthworks.com/roger/cloak/tads/index.html

* [http://lists.v-space.org/listinfo/tads3/ The TADS 3 mailing list]