"Welcome" by Ryan Veeder

Please Read This First

or the beginning and end at least

"Welcome" was written in the Inform 7 programming language without the use of quotation marks! (It was beta-tested Robert Eggleston, Sarah Willson, Jason Love, and Carl Muckenhoupt.)

Inform 7 source code uses phrases in quotation marks to denote text that will be reproduced for the player. Code might look like this:

Dining Hall is a room. "You are in a luxurious dining hall. Everything is made of gold or crystal or silk."

The golden fork is in Dining Hall. "One golden fork sticks out to you."

The description of the golden fork is "This fork is exquisite. You are salivating over it."

Instead of taking the golden fork, say "Hey, that fork is worth more than your car! Put it back." instead.

That source code would compile into a game that could go like this:

Dining Hall
You are in a luxurious dining hall. Everything is made of gold or crystal or silk.

One golden fork sticks out to you.

>LOOK AT FORK
This fork is exquisite. You are salivating over it.

>TAKE FORK
Hey, that fork is worth more than your car! Put it back.

The author uses these phrases in quotation marks to describe the world to the player, to lead the player through the story, and to provide feedback so the player can solve puzzles and accomplish tasks.

Because this game's code doesn't use quotation marks, it must rely on Inform 7's built-in methods of presenting text and standard responses to actions. Code like this is allowed:

Dining Hall is a room.

The golden fork is in Dining Hall.

And the gameplay it yields looks more like this:

Dining Hall
You can see a golden fork here.

>LOOK AT FORK
You see nothing special about the golden fork.

It's very difficult to make an entire game without any quotation marks, and probably impossible to make what you would call a "good game," but I thought it would be a fun challenge.

A few more minor points:

I didn't use any extensions, because that wouldn't be very interesting.
I could also work around the constraint with "say" phrases, like:
```
When play begins:
     say character number 8 in printed name of Dining Hall;
     say character number 2 in printed name of Dining Hall;
     say paragraph break;
```
But that wouldn't be very interesting either. So I decided to forbid myself from using "say" as well.
The first line of an Inform 7 source text is usually the title, which must appear within quotation marks. If no title is given, the default name of a game is "Welcome."
I could have explained all of this within the game, but that would require using quotation marks!

The point that I'm belaboring is this: The limitation that I imposed on myself made this game a bit difficult to design, but it will also make the game difficult to play. All my techniques for making fair puzzles are denied to me! So you might find the game difficult or unfun. You will probably find it less difficult and more fun if you are able to leverage some extra familiarity with Inform 7.

But it's okay if you don't like it.