Interactive Fiction Links
Here are some links to other sites with information on TADS and Interactive Fiction in general. There are a lot of IF-related sites on the web, so this is hardly an exhaustive list; but some of the sites listed here are major IF hubs that will point you to many other interesting places.
Jump to: TADS links - General links - Other systems
Eric Eve's TADS 3 Resources Page
Eric Eve is the author of much of the documentation that's included with the TADS 3 system packages. Eric's TADS 3 page offers several additional resources for authors working with TADS 3, including a collection of sample games, quick-reference charts, translations of some well-known Inform example games into TADS 3, and pointers to Eric's own games.
The TADS Page
Neil K. Guy's TADS Page has a wealth of information on TADS that goes well beyond what we offer here, including lots of help for beginners, pointers to the software, on-line documentation, and an especially helpful tip sheet that addresses some of things about TADS that new authors often find most confusing. (Neil's site is also vastly more appealing graphically than this one, so if you're tired of wading through all of the plain text here, Neil's site will be a welcome change.)
MacTADS
Andrew Pontious is in charge of the Macintosh version of the TADS tools. You can visit Andrew's MacTADS page for the latest news and information.
HyperTADS for Macintosh
Iain Merrick and Andrew Pontious created HyperTADS, a full-featured Macintosh version of the HTML TADS Interpreter. You can find details on Iain's HyperTADS page.
PocketTADS
David Batterham created PocketTADS, a TADS interpreter for PocketPC and PocketPC 2002. (PocketPC is also known as Windows CE.) David's PocketTADS page has screenshots and download links.
The IF Archive
The center of the modern IF universe is almost certainly the Interactive Fiction Archive. This site is the distribution hub for freeware and shareware IF games and development systems, as well as items of historical interest, walk-throughs, sample source code for the leading development systems, and more.
An historical note: from its inception many years ago and until the middle of 2001, the IF Archive was hosted at a site called ftp.gmd.de, so in older links pages and newsgroup postings, you might see references to that site or simply to "gmd." The GMD site is no more, but the Archive lives on at ifarchive.org. If you see a URL that starts with "ftp://ftp.gmd.de", you should simply change the prefix to "ftp://ftp.ifarchive.org/", and the rest of the path should continue to work.
Newsgroups
Two Usenet newsgroups are devoted to interactive fiction: rec.arts.int-fiction (also known as "raif" among regulars), which is concerned with the theoretical, practical, and artistic aspects of creating interactive fiction; and rec.games.int-fiction ("rgif"), which is concerned with playing IF. The "arts" group will be of interest mostly to authors; it's the place to go for technical advice with implementation problems, as well as debates over principles of game design. The "games" group is the place to ask for hints about IF games, post reviews, and seek opinions about games.
The int-fiction newsgroups have unusually good signal-to-noise ratios and are generally very helpful and supportive. Newcomers are encouraged to read the "frequently asked question" lists (or "FAQ's") before jumping in with new messages - the FAQ's are posted regularly to the groups, but you can also find the current raif FAQ at http://plover.net/~textfire/raiffaq/.
The Annual IF Competition
The Annual Interactive Fiction Competition is probably the IF community's most anticipated event. Every year, the competition unleashes a flood of new short works of IF, and some of the best works around were created as competition entries. The "comp" is wonderfully democratic - anyone can enter a game, anyone can be a judge - and is for many the high point of the IF year.
Chat/MUD
ifMUD is a "multi-user dungeon" dedicated (more or less) to IF discussion. MUD's typically have text adventure-style user interfaces, so the medium is a natural fit for IF people to get together and socialize on-line.
In addition, there's an IRC channel on irc.freenode.net called #ifdev. It was set up in June, 2004, by big_boy_toddy2@yahoo.com, who hopes it becomes a place to discuss everything related to IF: TADS and other development systems, IF programming, themes, and storylines. To use this chat channel, you'll need a special piece of software called an "IRC client," which you should be able to find with your favorite web search engine by looking for "Macintosh IRC client" (substituting the name of your operating system if you're not using a Macintosh, of course).
Baf's Guide
Baf's Guide to the Interactive Fiction Archive is a terrific reference for players looking for games. This site has an extensive set of summary reviews of freeware games available at the IF Archive. The reviews are brief but numerous and informative, and the games are indexed several different ways for easy searching and browsing. Baf's Guide is a great help to anyone who feels overwhelmed by the sheer number of games on the IF Archive.
Brass Lantern
For years, Stephen Granade's interactive fiction site on About.com was a major information nexus for the IF community. In late 2001, though, About.com succumbed to the same fate as so many other companies sharing its suffix, and had to make huge cutbacks; the IF site was among the casualties. Fortunately, Stephen started a new site of his own: Brass Lantern. The new site has the best features of the former About.com site, plus it's gloriously free of the relentless popups and banner ads that About.com piled on toward the end. Brass Lantern is a great source of IF links, how-to guides, game reviews, and thoughtful commentary on the theory and practice of interactive fiction.
Many people are surprised when they learn that something like TADS exists - a whole programming system just for writing an incredibly obscure kind of computer game. If that's surprising, then here's something positively amazing: TADS is hardly alone. There are literally dozens of other systems for creating text adventures - far too many to list here, so we'll restrict ourselves to a few of the most popular.
For a reasonably complete list of what's available, you can look at the if-archive/programming directory on the IF Archive; at last count, it had over 50 systems available for download. Another wonderful resource is Roger Firth's Cloak of Darkness, which provides annotated source code for each of about a dozen systems, all implementing the same game; it's a great way to get a feel for how the different systems compare and how they fit your personal tastes.
Inform
One of the most popular systems around is Inform. Inform is comparable to TADS in terms of power and flexibility, and has the distinction that it compiles games for the venerable Z-machine interpreters that Infocom used back in the glory days of commercial IF.
Hugo
Another leading IF system is Hugo. Hugo also has capabilities similar to TADS, and emphasizes strong multimedia features and ease-of-use for the game designer.
Alan
Alan is another popular system. Its emphasis is on ease-of-use for the game designer, with a slight trade-off in power and flexibility.