FrobTADS – Authoring System to Create Your Own Interactive Fiction

FrobTADS is a full version of TADS for Unix, Linux, and Mac OS X.

TADS is a free authoring system for writing your own Interactive Fiction (IF). It offers a complete set of programming tools for creating high-quality IF.

TADS is a programming language and a virtual machine. It’s a C-like object oriented programming language for authoring Interactive Fiction (similar to the Infocom or Legend Entertainment games, like “Zork”). It offers a complete set of programming tools for creating high-quality IF. Games written in TADS are compiled to a platform-independent format that can be played on any computer for which a suitable virtual machine exists.

FrobTADS is a text-only interpreter that runs in a terminal window. If you want a full multimedia interpreter with full support for fonts and colors, images, sound, and all the other multimedia TADS features, I recommend a different open source package called QTads.

FrobTADS is not written from scratch; it uses Mike Roberts’ portable reference implementations of the two TADS virtual machines; the T2 VM (written in C) and T3 VM (written in C++). FrobTADS hooks into that code by providing a portable implementation of the TADS I/O API.

You need a TADS interpreter to play a TADS game file, which typically has an extension of “.gam” or “.t3”.

Features include:

• Complete system with compilers for both TADS 2 and 3A, together with a text-only TADS interpreter.
• Supports the latest features of TADS 3 including:
  • Coloured text and backgrounds;
  • TADS 3 banner windows;
  • Timed input. It provides correct timing with timed operations (with millisecond precision).
• Input like in Frotz; cursor keys, insert, delete, etc., as opposed to Emacs-like input.
• Can run games that use HTML. Users won’t see any graphics nor hear sounds and music, but the games will play fine.
• Highly portable code. The software runs on a wide range of operating systems  including Linux (all distributions), Mac OS X, various BSDs, old and modern Solaris, BeOS and Windows.

Website: www.tads.org
Support: Documentation, Blog, GitHub
Developer: Nikos Chantziaras
License: TADS 3 Freeware Source Code License

FrobTADS is written in C++. Learn C++ with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

Return to Write Interactive Fiction

Explore Linux
	Best Free and Open Source Software - A huge collection of recommended free and open source software covering every major category.
	In-depth Linux Software Reviews - Detailed assessments of Linux software covering features, usability and overall quality.
	The Big List of Active Linux Distros - An extensive collection of actively developed Linux distributions.
	Open Source Alternatives - Alternatives to software and services from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Autodesk, Oracle and others.
	Essential Linux System Tools - Indispensable utilities for monitoring, maintaining and managing Linux systems.
	Linux Productivity Tools - Useful utilities for improving productivity and streamlining everyday tasks.
	Alternatives to Popular CLI Tools - Modern alternatives to familiar command-line utilities supplied with Linux systems.
	Awesome Free Linux Game Tools - Tools, utilities and companion software that improve gaming on Linux.
	Machine Learning on Linux - Machine learning and deep learning software, self-hosted applications and practical tools.
	Saving Money with Linux - Practical ways to reduce electricity consumption and lower computing costs with Linux.
	Linux Candy - Fun, entertaining and sometimes delightfully quirky software from the lighter side of Linux.