TADS - the Text Adventure Development System - is a language designed specifically with building text adventures and interactive fiction.

History

TADS was originally released in 1987 by a company called High Energy Software, as a 'try before you buy' or shareware package.

In 1996, Michael J. Roberts (the author) announced that High Energy Software was effectively shutting down, but that TADS would continue as a freeware product.

What It Can Do

TADS is a complete object-orientated programming language, designed specifically for producing text-based adventure games, and features one of the most developed and complete parsers in adventure games.

Most of the base objects found in adventure games (concepts for rooms, items, verbs, and so on) are already pre-defined, allowing a simple game to be constructed with little programming effort or knowledge, while more complex games can be built - overriding actions that are already pre-defined.

More recent versions of the system allow usage of images and sounds - bringing the capabilities beyond those of a basic 'text-adventure', but to a multisensory environment. Such a system can be used to build illustrated and atmospheric games.

Official Website

More information can be found at http://www.tads.org/