Dialog

Dialog is a domain-specific language for creating works of interactive fiction. It is heavily inspired by Inform 7 (Graham Nelson et al. 2006) and Prolog (Alain Colmerauer et al. 1972).

An optimizing compiler, dialogc, translates high-level Dialog code into Z-code, a platform-independent runtime format originally created by Infocom in 1979.

Since Dialog version 0d/01 there's an interactive debugger, and since version 0g/01 there's a separate backend for the Å-machine story format.

The main discussion is happening at the intfiction.org forum, in the Dialog category.

Manual

The Dialog Manual will tell you everything about the latest version.

Brief notes for each new release appear in this forum thread.

Download

The release archive includes:

• Full source code for the Dialog compiler.
• Pre-built executable files for Linux (i386 and x86_64) and Windows.
• The latest version of the Dialog standard library, and the standard debugging extension.
• A copy of the manual.

The compiler is distributed under a 2-clause BSD license.

IFID Generator

For reasons outlined in the Treaty of Babel, the Dialog compiler may bug you about declaring a story-specific IFID. To generate the required declaration, simply click the button below.

Notable works

This is what Cloak of Darkness looks like in Dialog.

My IFComp 2018 game Tethered is the first published Dialog game.