Quest lets you make interactive story games. There is a fully featured scripting language behind the scenes, which you can dip in and out of as required. You can use variables and functions, and encapsulate functionality using object types to share scripts between objects. You can create and share libraries of advanced functionality.
v5.2 [May 13, 2012]
- a few bug fixes
- exit links now immediately move the player (unless they have more than one verb) – thanks to James Gregory for suggesting and implementing this
- the Editor will now not save invalid expressions (with mismatching brackets or quotes) to prevent a problem where this would cause the game file to become unloadable
- Gamebook mode. This lets you create “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style games in Quest, in addition to text adventure games.
- Two-object verbs. It’s now much easier to set up commands like “hit nail with hammer” or “light candle with match”, using two-object verbs.
- Inventory and container limits. he concept of a “limited container” has been extended, so you can now limit by volume of objects as well as number. For example, a bag might be able to hold 20 apples but only one bowling ball, and it’s now easy to set that up. When an object is a limited container, you can specify the maximum volume that a container can hold. For objects that you might put inside a limited container, on the Inventory tab you can specify their volume.
These limits have also been extended to the player’s inventory. Select the player object, and you can specify the maximum number of items that are allowed in the inventory, as well as the maximum volume.
- Multiple switch case expressions. When using the “switch” script command, you can now specify multiple cases separated by commas.
- Customisable room descriptions. On the game editor, Options tab, you can now specify the order of elements in the generated room description. So you can now move the exits list after the description, for example.
- Health and score. It’s now easier to have health and/or score on-screen, as you can now simply turn these on from the game options without having to set up the status attributes yourself.
- There are new script commands for increasing and decreasing health and score. Also, when health is enabled, the object options tab has a new “Health” section which lets you specify that an object can be eaten. If the object can be eaten, it can add or subtract health points from the player.
- First time scripts. It’s now easier to run a script just once, the first time something happens – such as the first time the player speaks to a character, uses an object, etc. Previously you would have to create flags for this, but you can now simply add a “First time” script command which handles it all for you.
- Easier introduction scripts.
- Hide/show objects. Previously, if you wanted an object to appear mid-game, you would have to move it from another room – maybe a dummy room used for the sole purpose of containing objects that aren’t “there” at the start of the game. In Quest 5.2, you can now hide and show objects – in a similar way to how this worked in Quest 4.x and earlier. There are new script commands for making an object visible or invisible, and there is a new checkbox on the object setup tab so you can make an object hidden at the start of the game.
- When playing a game, game output is saved, so that when you re-load it later, you can see all the text that was there before
- When you double-click an .aslx file in Explorer, Quest opens in Editor mode (.quest files still launch the game)
- The ListExclude function can now exclude multiple items
- When playing a game online, as long as your browser window stays open, your game session should no longer time out
- When play-testing a game from the Editor, you can now exit back from the Player into the Editor by hitting the Escape key
- Better handling of JavaScript errors in desktop Player – now prints error messages in-line with the game output instead of pop-up windows
- New Esperanto translation and updated Spanish translation
- New word-wrap option in the Code View
- Reduced memory usage
- More helpful error messages when the wrong number of parameters are passed to a function
- Warn before exiting Quest if files are still downloading in the game browser, and added “Delete downloaded file” to context menu
Great platform for gamers who want to have access to all their favorite Electronic Arts games in one place
