QTads – Multimedia Interpreter for Tads Games

QTads is an open source, cross-platform, multimedia interpreter for Text Adventure Development System (TADS) games, compatible with HTML TADS. Both TADS versions in use today (TADS 2 and TADS 3) are supported.

The software is based on Mike Roberts’ portable reference implementation of TADS (the T2 VM (written in C) and T3 VM (written in C++).

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”). 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. It offers a complete set of programming tools for creating high-quality IF. QTads provides the virtual machine part, it runs Tads VM executables — hence why it’s referred to as an interpreter.

Features include:

• Supports both TADS 2 and TADS 3 games. TADS 3 employs a more general-purpose virtual machine, where the command-parsing is done by the game code itself, akin to Inform.
• Multimedia capabilities – multimedia features and HTML content are fully supported.
• History search.
• Configurable – configure the main game font, fixed-width font, serified font, sans-serif font, script font and typewriter font. Users can set the colours for the central window, banner window, as well as hyperlinks. There’s also the option of preventing games from displaying graphics, playing music, sound effects, and hyperlinks.
• Soft scrolling option.
• “Game  Information” metadata viewer supports and displays cover art images.
• Full text justification.
• Supports digital sound fade-in, fade-out and cross-fades.
• Support for multiple user configurations, which you can switch between at runtime.
• Full Unicode support for TADS 3 and HTML TADS games.
• Cross-platform support – runs on Linux, Windows and OS X operating systems.

Website: realnc.github.io/qtads
Support: TADS, GitHub code repository
Developer: Nikos Chantziaras and many contributors
License: Dual-licensed – HTML TADS Freeware Source Code License, or GNU General Public License v2

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

Return to Write Interactive Fiction

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