Interactive Fiction on the Sony Reader?

[DaveNB]

Anyone remember those old "Choose Your Own Adventure" books from when you were a kid? I was wondering if the Sony Reader (and other eBook readers) could be used to display this type of Interactive Fiction? Might be fun, especially if our existing tools (ie. Calibre's html2lrf tool) could be used to compile existing HTML based Interactive Fiction works into hyperlinked lrf's.

I did a quick google search and came across this web site:
http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home
That recreates a HTML based version of the original RPG/D&D like Interactive Fiction books from the Lone Wolf series.

They have self contained HTML files available for download, I grabbed one as a test (the first book "Flight from the Dark") and ran it through html2lrf, it looks OK but most of the graphics/pictures are missing and many of the links are broken.

I then tried saving the single page html version (no pictures or graphics) and ran the same conversion and this seems to work better (no pictures in this version though). Most of the links now work but the numbered sections run together (need to be separated by page breaks so you don't spoil the plot/surprises by reading a later section before you're supposed to).

Anyone else have any luck converting other Interactive Fiction for use on the Sony Reader? Graphics would be a nice touch. Maybe someone could get the version with graphics to convert well to lrf, or a cleaner/better conversion by massaging the source files a bit?

A program called Tweebox (http://gimcrackd.com/etc/src/#Twee) can be used to compile/create your own Interactive Fiction works, but it relies on some Web 2.0 type stuff and doesn't create plain HTML stories. TADS (http://www.tads.org/html_vs_text.htm) is another system that you might be able to use to create some simple html based stories (but I haven't tried yet). Anyone tried either or is anyone familiar with what kind of output they create that might be usable (ie XTML readily convertible to plain HTML)?

This is a journey down memory lane for me. I have fond memories of spending hours reading these "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as a child.

Dave

Note: The terms of their license do not allow you to redistribute a copy for any reason so I shall respect this by not posting my converted lrf version (which is imperfect anyways). You may however download/view a copy for yourself and presumptively do a conversion for your own use as long as you don't distribute it.

[igorsk]

Check out this.

[DaveNB]

Pretty cool. I wonder if there are any other attempts to make other IF works play back/display on the Sony Reader?

The Alice in Wonderland attempt looks to be hand coded HTML--very time consuming and a labor of love to make large works.

Dave

[acidzebra]

Originally Posted by DaveNB

The Alice in Wonderland attempt looks to be hand coded HTML--very time consuming and a labor of love to make large works

Which is why I haven't gotten any further than chapter one
(Also I am lazy)

One limitation of the reader is that as far as I know you can't have real variables to store information within a LRF file - which is crucial for maintaining an inventory and making more involved plot twists. So any plot fork will force you to code every chapter from then on at least twice until the fork resolves.

I've been looking into an interpreter which can manage these forks (and which writes out plain HTML optimised for the Sony screen) but I haven't gotten far with it.