PunyInform is a lightweight library for the Inform 6 language to produce text adventures compatible with 8 bit systems like the C64. I had a look myself recently, it's quite impressive.


PunyJam produced several games, all starting from the same initial room description. Check them out!

Must be nice playing them on an original C64. Quite fascinating what they manage to pull off considering the hardware limitations, at least the Captain Cutter game seems surprisingly functional.

Well, not that surprising. Most Infocom games ran on the C64!

These days, it's a matter of trading off manual optimization versus writing convenience. Modern compilers and libraries offer a lot of conveniences both for the writer (and the player). Though the more you take, the less likely it is to fit into old systems.

PunyInform has stripped a number of things out of the standard Inform library, but also optimized a lot. Also, it makes some things optional and in some cases, it does let the author either take the "automated" or the "manual" way. Then, if you choose to let the game auto-detect something, it may turn… slow. If you try to handle manually as author, you run the risk of mis-setting a flag somewhere.

With enough care on author side, a lot is possible! I don't even think those PunyJam games are showing off the best possible. Look at the game details page – the question asked is "how many hours did you spend writing?"