InformATE

InformATE (Inform Ahora Totalmente en Español -- Inform, Now Totally in Spanish) is a programming language and a design system for interactive fiction in the Spanish language. InformATE is an Inform library, based on Inform v6.30. It was originally created by José Luis Díaz as "Zak McKraken", and is currently maintained by the spanish Inform Community. Games created with InformATE can be compiled with the Inform compiler for both the Z-machine and Glulx.

The library

InformATE not only supports the Spanish language during game play, but also translates Spanish grammar, along with Inform's dictionary, commands, meta-commands, and all of the Z-machine system's messages. In fact, an InformATE piece of code reads (mostly) in Spanish with a few exceptions: some reserved words such as if, else, switch, class, object, with, has and so forth remain in English.

Object Ropa "ropa nueva"
with
   nombre_f 'ropa',
   nombre_fp 'prendas',
   nombre_mp 'vestidos',
   adjetivos 'nueva',
   descripcion
      "Es mi ropa nueva. Es estupenda",
   antes [;
         Desvestir :
            if (localizacion ofclass Localidad_Exterior)
               "¿Y pasar frío? No haré tal cosa...";
            else
               "¿Y si me ve alguien más? Qué verguenza...";
   ],
has femenino prenda;

As seen on the above example, InformATE allows the author to actually code games in Spanish. However, being not just a translation but a complete rework of the original Inform library, InformATE and Inform are completely incompatible with each other, especially for later versions of either library.

InformATE also has a moderate collection of library modules (to be used on NPC interaction and movement, for instance), specially created for InformATE by the Spanish Inform Community.

Games Created

InformATE has been used as the authoring system for over 80 Z-machine games and more than 30 Glulx games, and new games are frequently released.

Documentation

InformATE's main documentation is DocumentatE, a Spanish HTML document largely based on The Inform Designer's Manual (the DM4). It also has a basic tutorial in HTML, La Torre and an incrementally built-up example program, La Casa. Moreover, Grendelkhan published on-line his Taller Creativo, a workshop with basics and practices of adventure craft. The workshop includes an incrementally built-up example program on InformATE.

News

For more information, on InformATE, its documentation, library modules and games created, visit InformATE web page, currently mantained by Eliuk Blau and hosted at CAAD's webpage.

Links

• InformATE webpage (Spanish)
• GIT Public Version Control Repository (Spanish)
• InformATE on WikiCAAD (Spanish)
• WikiCAAD the wiki of the Spanish interactive fiction community. (Spanish)
• CAAD webpage (CAAD), the portal of the Spanish interactive fiction community. (Spanish)