Let me save you some time, ahem, "write it in html!"
Well, yes, that would probably work great. Unfortunately, I'm not fluent in html at the moment, and part of my problem is limited free time to pursue all this. I've really enjoyed working with quest, and I love playing and writing IF. However, I do have limited free time these days, and I would like to be able to say that if I'm putting this much work into a quality game, I might be getting SOMETHING back.
So, I want to publish games for kongregate (they share ad-profits), but to make best use of that the games need to be in certain languages compatible with their API. It's a short list, and the simplest one is html. Even straight javascript seems to pose some problems. As it is, I put up Day Of Honor in an iframe, and it works, but I can't participate in the core features of their site that way (letting players earn badges, compare scores, etc.), and I can't really make it exclusive either (their profit sharing percentage is versatile, and you get more for exclusive titles).
I've been hunting around for a program like Quest, Inform, etc. that would produce a game in html format, and so far the only thing I've found is ZTAB, which appears to have original been written in french. It uses the term "facts" to refer to what I believe are rooms and items. It's not as user friendly as Quest. Also, it claims to be able to export its games as HTML, RTF, PDF, EPUB, Advelh, Twine, Quest, or Ren'Py, which just feels...suspicious.
So, any suggestions? Have I overlooked something obvious?
Am I a complete sell-out? All comments welcome; my pride is now dead.
I've been considering Squiffy. The only problem is that it's really designed only for gamebooks, as I understand it. I was hoping to make a sequel to Day Of Honor, and I wanted to maintain consistency of it being an actual text-input style adventure. However, I'm also considering remaking it altogether as a longer piece. If need be, I may just "reboot" the series as gamebooks. I prefer actual text-adventures, but ... I'm considering it. It would certainly solve the html problem, and I'm confident I'd enjoy using Squiffy.
Actually Quest 6 might do what you need which Alex has committed to ship, alongside the new owners.
That depends. Do you mean "an HTML file" as in single, stand-alone web page, or can it be a minisite made of several files? If the former, then your options are Twine, Texture or Adventure Prompt (disclosure: the latter is my own, very limited, system). You'll need that in order to host games on Philome.la, for instance. But if your game can be made of several files, as acceptable on itch.io, Game Jolt or here on textadventures.co.uk, then you can also use Inform 7, Squiffy, or more recently even Hugo. Not to mention various tools for making visual novels, such as Belle or WebStory Engine. Hope this helps!
Edit: I mention all these other hosting options because, frankly, I have no experience with Kongregate. But if they have trouble with Javascript as you say, then it's a problem, because in plain HTML with no scripting the best you can do is a stateless CYOA game (Textallion might be able to export something like that). But I'll go out on a limb and assume you mean they only let you upload a single, stand-alone HTML5 file, with any scripts inlined, in which case you'll want to look at the former set of authoring tools.
