Having been a faithful Atari owner as PCs rose to dominate, I gotta ask what people on this forum think of the future of squiffy.

I'm not asking solely out of curiosity - I've been thinking of a major space trading game, one I wrote in Excel a number of years ago, one with trading about our own solar system. It was a lot of fun but I could see places I could have improved it.

So now I'm thinking of redoing it in squiffy. I'm comfortable with it and have a number of major games out (one of which has a pretty good private following). Also, this site gives me a good platform for players. But if it's drying up and who knows, maybe the squiffy side of things might drop off the site, should I bother with it?

Curious about what people think about squiffy and what it's survival chances are.

Hello, Bluevoss!

This probably isn't exactly what you're fishing for

This probably isn't exactly for what you're fishing

This probably isn't the exact response for which you were fishing, but I do know two things:

1. Quest 6 is currently in development.

Okay . . . So, I know one thing! (Hehehe.)

...but I've also heard that Quest 6 will not have a gamebook mode. So, Squiffy will be the de facto gamebook authoring system on this site.

...and I assume that 'they' assume the site will be around for a while (along with Squiffy), otherwise:

• Quest 6 probably wouldn't be in development
• I wouldn't have read that Quest 6 won't have a gamebook mode because people can just use Squiffy

Having said all that, I'm thinking you're probably talking about the liveliness of the site?

The only way I know how to judge that is by the forum, which is not very lively. Maybe that only means fewer authors are currently needing help?

If you're wondering if CYOA games are less in-demand, I'm of no help at all, because:

• I'm more of a parser person
• I don't really know anyone else who plays Interactive Fiction

PS

I'm not much help. I know. But I'm on a break, and I thought maybe the info concerning Quest 6 might be a little relevant.

Also, I'm not a robot. I can click on all the chimneys. Can robots click on all the chimneys? I think not!

I can't even get the traffic lights.

I appreciate this. So tell me, even though Quest does not support CYOA games, does it allow for a fully randomized set up? In other words, could you easily write a dungeon crawl that randomizes the dungeon? Or is it always going to be areas pointing at other areas in a fixed and static relationship?

I tend to write games with replayibility in them. In essence, I don't want to write a came I can't enjoy over and over.

Maybe I'll stick with squiffy or see what else is out there. It's just that I've got years invested on this platform.

I can't even get the traffic lights.

Oh, man!

The traffic lights and the crosswalks kick my butt. Sometimes, I give up trying to post stuff!

could you easily write a dungeon crawl that randomizes the dungeon? Or is it always going to be areas pointing at other areas in a fixed and static relationship?

Err . . .

I'm pretty sure you can. The Pixie is the author of Quest 6, and he already has a dungeon-crawler in Quest 5. So, I'm betting he probably made Quest 6 capable of handling all that and more.

Also, Quest 6 is pure JS. So, you should be able to make it do whatever you like.

Maybe I'll stick with squiffy or see what else is out there. It's just that I've got years invested on this platform.

I haven't heard any plans to drop Squiffy, but that doesn't really mean anything. I don't "work here", or anything. I just bother The Pixie and manowar quite frequently and pick up little pieces of information here and there. I'm pretty sure I read (somewhere in all the Quest 6 documentation) that it wasn't going to do gamebooks because we already have Squiffy.

Now, if we're wondering if Squiffy will continue to be maintained or something like that, it's on GitHub. So, I'm thinking the worst case scenario would be some of us pushing our own updates to that repo. This is total conjecture, though. Plus, to be repetitive, and to be repetitive, I haven't seen any sign that Squiffy might be going the way of the dodo.

Me? I'm pretty sure I'm about to use Squiffy to make a HELP "section" in the Quest 6 game I'm working on on which I am currently working.

I did something similar with Twine in an Inform 7 game before.

Has there been a decrease in Squiffy usage?

(I really only check out the Squiffy forum when the title of a thread jumps out and grabs my attention.)

PS

Oh! It hit me with the cursed traffic lights this time! (It's listening to us!)

Why doesn't it give us better Captchas, like maybe bikini girls at the beach, or hamburgers in a drive through?

Why doesn't it give us better Captchas, like maybe bikini girls at the beach, or hamburgers in a drive through?

I've said the exact same thing!

(Great minds think alike.)