The Inform Beginner's Guide
From IFWiki
The Inform Beginner's Guide, by Roger Firth and Sonja Kesserich, is a tutorial manual aimed directly at Inform novices, especially those with little or no programming experience. This manual, often known as the IBG, is intended to complement the definitive source of information — The Inform Designer's Manual by Graham Nelson.
Note that both books describe Release 6 of Inform; they do not cover Inform 7, which pioneers a radically new approach to IF authorship based on natural language definitions.
Contents
The information is structured as seventeen chapters, and focuses on three games: all short, all playable to completion.
- Chapters 1 and 2: introducing interactive fiction, and downloading the necessary files.
- Chapters 3 to 6: "Heidi" — just about as simple as an IF game can be, but still manages to introduce a range of important concepts.
- Chapters 7 to 10: "William Tell" — a retelling of the famous folk tale, is nearly as brief but roams more widely in its use of Inform's capabilities.
- Chapters 11 to 13: "Captain Fate" — the final game presents a comic-book hero in urgent need of a change.
- Chapters 14 to 17: some formal summaries, plus help with compiling and debugging your games.
In addition, a series of appendices summarise the features of the Inform language and library, and provide a glossary of terms.
Known errors in the manual are listed here.
Availability
The manual is available as a free PDF download. It is also available for purchase in paperback from Lulu.com.
The original publisher of the printed edition of the IBG, in July 2003, was David Cornelson. After a period when the manual was out of print, in March 2006 the role of publisher was taken over by Dan Sanderson.
Revision History
- Edition 1: April 2002 (describes Inform release 6.21, using library release 6/10)
- Edition 2: August 2002 (describes Inform release 6.21, using library release 6/10)
- Edition 3: August 2004 (describes Inform release 6.30, using library release 6/11)
