Gargoyle – Cross-Platform Interactive Fiction Player

Gargoyle is an IF player that supports all the major interactive fiction formats.

Gargoyle is focused on typography. The default fonts for Gargoyle are Bitstream Charter and Luxi Mono. They come provided with the software.

Gargoyle can use any TrueType, OpenType or Postscript font file.

Features include:

• Subpixel font rendering for LCD screens.
• Unhinted anti-aliased fonts: beautiful, the way they were designed.
• Adjustable gamma correction: tune the rendering for your screen.
• Floating point text layout for even spacing.
• Kerning for even more even spacing.
• Smart quotes and other punctuation formatting.
• Ligatures for ‘fi’ and ‘fl’.
• Plenty o’ margins.
• Plenty o’ line spacing.
• Integrated scrollback.
• Use any TrueType, OpenType or Postscript font file you want.
• Formats supported:
  • AdvSys – an object-oriented, LISP-like authoring system for IF, created by David Betz in 1986.
  • Agility
  • Alan 2 and 3 – consists of a programming language and a set of tools to support working in that language to create games.
  • Bocfel – an interpreter for the Z-machine.
  • Frotz – an interpreter for Infocom games and other Z-machine games.
  • GeasGit
  • Glulxe – a 32-bit portable virtual machine intended for writing and playing interactive fiction.
  • Hugo – Hugo Interactive Fiction Development System.
  • JACL – an interpreted computer language originally designed for creating interactive fiction.
  • Level 9
  • Magnetic
  • Nitfol – offers strict error-checking.
  • Scare
  • Scottfree – the Scott Adams compiler, sac, allows you create adventure games in a straightforward syntax, and compiles them into the format that was used in the classic Scott Adams adventures – and which is therefore now understood by scottfree and various other interpreters for those old games.
  • TADS 2 and 3 – Text Adventure Development System.

There haven’t been any new releases of Gargoyle for the past few years. This is a project that is definitely worth further development, to keep it working with the latest releases of the popular IF authoring systems.

Website: ccxvii.net/gargoyle
Support: GitHub code repository, Mailing List
Developer: Ben Cressey (originally developed by Tor Andersson)
License: GNU General Public License v2.0

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