Inform is a programming language for creating interactive fiction, using natural language syntax. Using natural language and drawing on ideas from linguistics and from literate programming, Inform is widely used as a medium for literary writing, as a prototyping tool in the games industry, and in education, both at school and university level (where Inform is often assigned material for courses on digital narrative). It has several times ranked in the top 100 most influential programming languages according to the TIOBE index. Created in April 2006, it was open-sourced in April 2022.
News items appear below, and a copy of the Inform language documentation is also on this website. Other useful resources on Inform include:
- The latest release of Inform. Apps for MacOS, Windows and Linux are available from this link.
- Proposals for evolution of Inform.
- The source code for Inform at GitHub.
- The source code published as a literate program.
- The bug tracker at Jira is likely to migrate to GitHub Issues in the nearish future, but it’s there now. The old Mantis bug tracker has closed, but all data from it was carried over.
- Inform topics are frequently aired at the Interactive Fiction Community Forum.
- In particular, the very useful Inform 7 documentation and resources post is there.
- More than 1000 stories written with Inform are listed at the Interactive Fiction Database.
- The Inform project supports the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation.
- The Interactive Fiction Wiki is vastly useful.
- IFComp, an annual event founded in 1995, and the more informal Spring Thing, founded 2002, have become part of our calendar.
- The Narrascope conferences bring industry, academia and independent writers together.
- Many Inform authors also write with Twine, and vice versa.
- Lastly, Emily Short’s Interactive Storytelling contains some of the best writing about the genre today, and also hosts many more links.
Note: The Inform 7 website is migrating to be served by Github Pages rather than Dreamhost, as at present. The pages here are under construction for now and may exhibit all kinds of glitches.
Posts
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Narrascope 2022 talk
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Narrascope 2020 talk
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Opening Inform (Narrascope 2019 talk)
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Assessing Inform (London 2018 talk)
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