text-engine

text-engine has been updated to version 3.0.

There are several new features, but the one I'm most excited about is the new command-replay save system. Game saves are now just a list of commands entered by the player, and loading a save instantly plays back every command. This makes developing games with text-engine way more fun! Iterating goes like this:

1. Play your game until you encounter something you want to change, then save.
2. Make the change.
3. Load the save to see your change instantly.

Additionally, players can now save their game state to disk in a simple, readable (and editable!) text file to load back up at any time. This is also great for developers, because if someone encounters a bug in your game, they can send you their save file so you can reproduce it effortlessly.

In order to support this, text-engine now expects your disk to be a function returning an object rather than just an object. However, the old disk format is still supported, and happily, migration is a breeze.

Since the save system has changed, you should check the updated notes on the system and verify your game is compatible before upgrading to text-engine 3.

Here's a list of the major changes:

• Switched to command-replay save system.
• Added support for saving to/loading from files.
• Added getItem function which searches player inventory and the current room.
• Improved performance.
• Adding handling for more variations of commands. Players can now type "characters" (vs. "char") to list characters in the room, "inventory" (vs. "inv") to list items in inventory, and e.g. "go n" (vs. "go north" or "n") to move in a cardinal direction.
• Modern CSS now responds to browser zoom level.

text-engine has been updated to version 2.0, and it includes a ton of new features! A new demo has been added showing off what you can do, so be sure to try it out.

New for writers & developers

• Characters
• Conversations
• Markdown-like styling (italic, bold, underline)
• Objects can have multiple names
• Objects names can now include spaces & capital letters
• New onLook, onTalk callbacks
• New block property for blocked exits
• Custom commands & removable commands
• println accepts optional CSS class name
• println accepts optional array to randomize output
• Several new global utility functions
• Engine functionality can be overridden for customization
• New template disk to make creating a new disk quick and easy (plus a couple of other new example disks)

New for players:

• Save/load games!
• Auto-complete (press tab)
• Direction shortcuts (e.g. "north" or just "n")
• ITEMS command lists items in room; USE command lists useable items
• When listing exits, show the names of any rooms the player has already been to
• Various bug fixes & improvements

I hope you'll try it out!