User:Robinjohnson

From IFWiki

I'm Robin Johnson. (There's another IF author called Robin Johnson, who made one game in 1989; after 32 years with no sign they're still interested in IF, I've claimed the main namespace :-)

I write games and engines in Javascript. My engine development started with "Versificator", a standard parser engine which I made back when there wasn't a non-clunky web option for Inform or TADS. I used this for several games including Xyzzy shortlister Aunts and Butlers and Spring Thing winner The Xylophoniad. In 2016 I made the parser-like engine "Versificator 2", which powered my IFComp winning Detectiveland. The two engines later got Jeff-Goldblummed into "Versificator 3", which had the parser interface of the first version with the improved world model and data structures of the second, for Gruesome. I don't expect anyone else will use the Versificator systems.

In 2021 I released (to public beta) Gruescript, a development system for point-and-click parser-likes.

I've also dabbled in Inform 7, and written, as far as I know, its only playable meta-sonnet:

Will's Study is a room. The desk is here.
A hastily handwritten note is on it.
Description is "It's from your friend Shakespeare:
'I've gone to lunch. You'll have to write the sonnet.'"
Composing is an action applying to nothing.
The quill is a thing that is in the study.
Understand "write sonnet" as composing.
Description of the quill is "Old and cruddy".
Instead of composing when the player
does not have the quill, say "You've no quill."
Instead of composing: say "And... done. 'Heya',
says Will, returning. You say, 'Hello, Will!'
Says Shakespeare, 'Thank you for the time you've taken...'";	
End the story saying "'...Francis Bacon.'"