Submitted by J.P. Tuttle (not verified) on February 10, 2008 - 20:28.
Hey--
As far as I know, I've never seen this used in schools, but I think there's a lot of potential for activities in English class. Ever play any of the old Infocom text adventures -- Adventure, Zork, etc? Basically, the game would describe where you were, and you would type in a command -- "go north", "examine book", etc.
Inform 7:
http://www.inform-fiction.org/I7/Inform%207.html
is a natural-language text-adventure design system. To quote their web page:
"In place of traditional computer programming, the design is built by writing natural English-language sentences:
- Martha is a woman in the Vineyard.
- The cask is either customs sealed, liable to tax or stolen goods.
- The prevailing wind is a direction that varies.
- The Old Ice House overlooks the Garden.
- A container is bursting if the total weight of things in it is greater than its breaking strain."
It's quite easy to use, comes with a bunch of well-written documentation, and runs on Windows or Mac. One could probably have lots of fun using it to write interactive stories and to study aspects of stories (plot, character, dialogue, etc.)
Cool idea for activity -- write text adventures
Submitted by J.P. Tuttle (not verified) on February 10, 2008 - 20:28.
Hey--
As far as I know, I've never seen this used in schools, but I think there's a lot of potential for activities in English class. Ever play any of the old Infocom text adventures -- Adventure, Zork, etc? Basically, the game would describe where you were, and you would type in a command -- "go north", "examine book", etc.
Inform 7:
http://www.inform-fiction.org/I7/Inform%207.html
is a natural-language text-adventure design system. To quote their web page:
"In place of traditional computer programming, the design is built by writing natural English-language sentences:
- Martha is a woman in the Vineyard.
- The cask is either customs sealed, liable to tax or stolen goods.
- The prevailing wind is a direction that varies.
- The Old Ice House overlooks the Garden.
- A container is bursting if the total weight of things in it is greater than its breaking strain."
It's quite easy to use, comes with a bunch of well-written documentation, and runs on Windows or Mac. One could probably have lots of fun using it to write interactive stories and to study aspects of stories (plot, character, dialogue, etc.)
Just a neat idea.
-- J.P. Tuttle