This is the first post in a new blog here on AlanIF. We will be writing about development of Interactive Fiction using the Alan system. Alan is a very mature system, started in the mid-80's actually, and has been going through a few generations since then. It was considered one of the top tier IF systems a while back, but since the advent of Inform7 most of the tier I systems, including Alan, has fallen a bit behind in popularity.

Alan is still focused on easing the burdon of authoring IF, and the last few years the development of Alan has been going towards a version 3, a version that is getting closer every day. With the aid of a brand new, much more flexible, inheritance system, Anssi Rässainen has created a fantastically complete library that is absolutely on par with the library for any other system.

This blog will hopefully give you some hints on how Alan can be a great tool for creating great IF!

To start out I have collected all news articles on this site back to the beginning of time, so you'll have something to read until the next post!

What They Say

"All those weirdly arranged parentheses, and semi-colons and strange curlicues hanging out in the middle of blank lines. Impossible. But when I looked at Alan I saw the light or, at least, English."

Eric Mayer