2024 Note on Registrations

Dark · 2017-06-24 17:49:48

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Okay, some people will have heard of this site ---- link here

It is exactly what it sounds like, a website where people can play text adventures, aka interactive fiction games online.
The games are created using an engine called Quest, or an online editer. Despite an earlier version of both the site and the quest program being accessible there was a long period where things certainly were not.

I cannot speak for the quest program or other text adventure creation tools, but I am pleased to report that at least with I.E. and Nvda, and presumably other web browsers and screen readers, the accessibility of the site and the games seems vastly improved.

Okay, so what should you expect here?

Anyone familiar with the standard interactive fiction games will know the type of thing, object manipulation puzzles such as get lamp, examine dwarf, hit box with spongecake etc. I do believe the quest parser is a little less infinite than that found in a lot of zcode games, but since there are quest online versions of several if classics like hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy I could be wrong on this score.

Nevertheless, the access seemed fairly easy and at least some games even auto read incoming text. The only thing to be careful of are the inbuilt keyboard shortcuts up and down arrow which scroll through previously entered commands, so if your using Nvda, I'd recommend reading the page, hitting e for edit area, typing your command then hitting nvda space to go back to browse mode, ditto with supernova if you have automatic forms mode off (I'm not sure about Jaws though I assume it has something similar).

What I will say did tickle my fancy is the rpg category, since your traditional parser heavy puzzle orientated interactive fiction community, textadventures.co.uk has a healthy selection of rpg games and even I believe some strategy.

These seem to need actual hot spot on text clicking as opposed to typing commands but should be familiar to anyone who knows gamebooks, indeed I can say I was having some fun with avast maties, a pirate battle game with lots of plundering and looting and pillaging Garrrr! .

Enjoy! I'll say I'm relieved this one has had the access treatment.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

Dakonna · 2017-06-24 17:55:44

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hello, yes indeed I have heard of this. Actually about six years ago quest games used to be just about the only things I played as there were already a large selection of titles available. Surprised that its still around, actually, and yes I was pretty sad about the whole thing becoming inaccessible with jaws and nvda, and glad to hear its back up. I recommend you have a playthrough of asasson, darkness falls, and the two mantion games.

I used to be a knee like you, then I took an adventurer in the arrow.

Orin · 2017-06-25 07:03:02

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Creation of Quest games seems more accessible now as well.

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mata · 2017-06-25 07:52:27

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Last time I check was like 3-4 months ago. So now it's improved huh? Interesting.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

SLJ · 2017-06-25 10:37:43

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Is Quest easier to learn than Inform7? Time to check this out...

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
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Dark · 2017-06-25 11:07:01

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In fairness I'll also say that accessibility does seem to depend upon the game.

One I tried, the abyss was written in all caps and Nvda had no luck at all.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

SLJ · 2017-06-25 11:33:54

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Hi again.
I have briefly taken a look at the creation system, not knowing much about what I was doing.
The Quest program for Windows might be usable with NVDA, but it don't seem to be fully accessible.
However, the web creation seems to be very accessible, but takes some time to get used to. I think, if you know what you are doing and if you know how Quest works, you'll find it accessible. Currently I don't have much time to look into this, but I hope that people who have more experience with this wanna give it a try to see if it really works.
I have two questions:
1: Do you know if it's possible to save your progress when playing in the browser?
2. To my big surprise, I saw you can choose between different languages when creating a game. Does that mean you have to make all commands from scratch, or does the game know some standard commands which has been translated?

Best regards SLJ.
Feel free to contact me privately if you have something in mind. If you do so, then please send me a mail instead of using the private message on the forum, since I don't check those very often.
Facebook: https://facebook.com/sorenjensen1988
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Dark · 2017-06-25 12:23:02

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Saving is something I had problems with, particularly in avast maties, since I was told to save often but couldn't find commands to do it, neither is their anything in the faq and the only places I've seen references to saving the game occur in titles that have been imported from zcode, so if anyone knows about Saving I'd like to know too.

I suspect that it is far easier to play the games in the browser than by downloading the files themselves and running them in the quest program?

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

mata · 2017-06-25 15:06:54

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it didn't work too well when i last checked. Whatever options I tried to choose, sometimes it just didn't let me. I'm not sure if it's still happening now. And is quest still 5.7 something?

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

Dark · 2017-06-25 15:30:25

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Sadly it is still quest five.

Try Avast maties, that one I know is quite usable, you can just click on the hotspots and pretend it's a gamebook.

Most of the ones I've tried have worked typing in the actual commands it seems.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

Damien C. Pendleton · 2017-06-25 19:37:30

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Hi,
I am well aware of this site and would highly recommend it. In fact I am currently in the process of helping to make the desktop version of Quest more accessible. If I can't do that then it may be that I make a derivative that is accessible that can still work with the Quest format. Yay for open source software.

Dark · 2017-06-25 23:50:56

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Glad to hear that Damien, since One thing I am wondering about currently is about saving.
I did find a save button or command in some games, but it doesn't seem to save between sessions, I.e. if I hit save and add the page to my favourites I don't seem to be able to resume later, where as I gather if I downloaded the games files and ran them myself I would probably be okay.

So even for none game creators having quest will be a good thing I think.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

mata · 2017-06-26 19:03:17

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Awesome work there man! It's sure something to try.
Speaking of text game making, I wonder if anyone have ever tried working with choice script? It's a lot of fun, and not too complicated even for those without coding knowledge.

Why do ghost hunters have to hunt ghosts? Well, there's a fear of being ghosted out there. They may need therapy as well as their ghost hunting kit.

2024 Note on Registrations

text adventures co.uk

Posts: 13

#1 Topic by Dark 2017-06-24 17:49:48

#2 Reply by Dakonna 2017-06-24 17:55:44

#3 Reply by Orin 2017-06-25 07:03:02

#4 Reply by mata 2017-06-25 07:52:27

#5 Reply by SLJ 2017-06-25 10:37:43

#6 Reply by Dark 2017-06-25 11:07:01

#7 Reply by SLJ 2017-06-25 11:33:54

#8 Reply by Dark 2017-06-25 12:23:02

#9 Reply by mata 2017-06-25 15:06:54

#10 Reply by Dark 2017-06-25 15:30:25

#11 Reply by Damien C. Pendleton 2017-06-25 19:37:30

#12 Reply by Dark 2017-06-25 23:50:56

#13 Reply by mata 2017-06-26 19:03:17

Posts: 13