Should I switch to Inform 7?

I like Adrift for it's ease of use and visual representation of the game but I'm finding it limiting and it seems like it's one of the least popular formats for AIF these days. I've been looking at Inform 7 and it looks full featured and relatively easy to learn but I have ZERO programming experience. Am I biting off more than I can chew? With work/life stuff etc I don't have a ton of time to work on AIF stuff anyways and I worry that learning a new programming language will make it even harder to get stuff done.

That being said though, Inform is probably my 2nd favorite format to play AIF in and I'd be much more satisfied with my work if it was in Inform than Adrift so maybe it'd be worth it? There's also the work being done by Fictitious Frode (https://informedaif.wordpress.com) and Green Double Aught (http://doubleaughtgames.blogspot.com) which looks promising even though I don't quite understand what I'd do with it yet.

Progress!

So, I started the game over from scratch and made a bit of progress beyond what I had already. So far I've gotten the character descriptions and the room descriptions done which not counting the sex scenes is the bulk of the writing. Slow going, but things have been busy here in my personal life (Civilization 6 was released) but now that I've got things back on a solid base the pace should pick up.

Unbelievable.

So, I was in the midst of working on the game and suddenly, my computer crashed. No big deal, I had saved recently. So after the restart I start up Adrift again and... my game is suddenly password protected. The game I had never password protected. I tried my regular passwords, thinking maybe I had set it and forgotten but, nope. No luck. And when I try to open the game with the runner, it says "this is not an ADRIFT game" so my guess is it's corrupted & totally shot.

I'm totally stumped at what to do, I can't think of any way to break the password protection or bypass it in some way. It's not like the game was 95% finished and I lost EVERYTHING but still! A few weeks worth of progress is gone. Not really sure on how I'll continue forward, having to redo all of the basics, character and room descriptions, etc really saps the motivation.

Progress Update

I've started working more on The Gym game, after reading the feedback that seemed to be what most people were interested in so I'll invest my time into that.  I'm going to try to post weekly progress blogs to keep people updated and to hold myself more accountable for actually working on the thing!

So what I've got so far:

• Map layout completed and all rooms sketched in
• All characters created and described
• Basic plot sketched out

Doesn't seem like much, and it isn't but It's a start.

Drawing Board

After finishing First Date I had planned on jumping right in to the full gym game (I'm trying to think of a ribald pun name for the gym but I'm not coming up with anything!) but I think I'm going to branch out a bit and do something different just to keep things fresh. There's a few ideas on the burner:
(All working titles btw)

• Lust on the Orient Express
• Set in the 1920's, you play as a suave con artist out to scam the wealthy women on the train out of their glittering jewels... and their vintage underwear that I'll have to do some research on.
• Thargwulf and Sorceress of Yharn
• Campy Conan the Barbarian style thing, escape from the dungeons of Ghazaradun and pillage the tower of Prince Urzalan! And maybe pillage the princess as well while you're at it!
• Fairview Heights
• Set in the 1950's, you play a young man who has recently moved to a quant suburb to set up a business as a handyman. There's plenty of bored housewives who need help with the plumbing, and maybe a certain Hollywood starlet has moved in to avoid paparazzi?
• The Gym
• Picking up the story a few weeks after your somewhat disastrous first date with Katherine where you realized that she was your boss, you and a total jock meathead idiot coworker are up for a promotion. Can you help out enough gym members (and staff!) to prove your worth? And hopefully continue where you left off with Katherine?
• Voyeur Neighbor
• After you moved in next to two gorgeous college girls you found yourself unable to resist spying on them whenever you could. Your guilt started to lift however once you realized that the opened blinds, and topless sunbathing in the backyard was done on purpose and for your benefit...

So that's what I've got so far! Some of them will end up being shorter while a few might end up being longer.  Any interest in one of these more than the others?

AIF Minifest

I recently participated in the Minifest over at http://adultinteractivefiction.blogspot.com, and my entry First Date is finished and up on the site! I had a lot of fun working on it, it didn't come out 100% how I imagined it (writing a realistic conversation system is a lot harder than I thought!) but I'm pretty proud of it overall. It's a sort of intro to a larger game I'm working on featuring the same characters from the First Date set in an athletic gym. I've just started work on that and finishing up First Date definitely gave me some good experience in writing & programming AIF

It is finished!

I've finally finished the tiny game I was working on, with the fantastic title of Summer Vacation. Again, it was more just a test of ADRIFT (I'd much prefer to use a better language but at this point I don't see myself being able to put in the time to learn it.) and my discipline, to see if I could actually finish a game. It actually would have been perfect for the AIF Writing Salon over at http://adultinteractivefiction.blogspot.com but it was 90% finished when that was announced, so I think I'll do something different for that, maybe something a bit more ambitious.

Anyways, it's just a simple game, only two charactesr, and very light on puzzles. I'm not sure if it's any good, but I enjoyed writing it and learning ADRIFT. It's simple enough that I don't feel it needs beta testing, but if anyone finds any big problems, I'll fix it!

You can find it on the aifarchives yahoo group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/aifarchive/files/Adrift%20Games/
or at http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=37320434638487353031

New Game? New Author!

Hello, I'm brand new in the world of AIF & I'm 95% finished with my first game.  It's VERY simple, very puzzle light & only features two characters. It was intended to be a test to myself, to see if I could follow through, learn the programming and finish a small game, before I started on something bigger. I've succeeded at that, but this approach also has some problems in that after finished maybe 75% of the game in a couple weeks, the last 20% has taken me like two months. Once I figured out HOW to do it, actually doing it became a chore. It's too simple to hold my interest really, so soon I'll just bash out the last bit and put it up. It's simple and small enough that I feel it doesn't really warrant the usual beta testing, so maybe after I get some feedback I'll fix it up and rerelease an expanded version.

At this point it's called "Summer Break" (boring!) and you play as a young man who's just finished high school that meets a very interesting new neighbor. It's written in ADRIFT 5.0 (I'd like to learn something more robust someday, but at this point ADRIFT meets my needs & matches my programming skill level.)