TADS Screen Shots

Here are some pictures of TADS being used to create and play games on various platforms. TADS lets you write and play games on many platforms; we have some examples here from Windows, DOS, Macintosh, Linux, and Amiga. Click on a thumbnail image to show the image at full size.

As you'll see below, numerous people have created versions of TADS for different systems. I'm extremely grateful for all their work - I could never have made TADS reach so many systems on my own. One thing to note is that game compatibility should never be a problem, even with all these different versions, because all of these systems use the identical core "virtual machine" engine.

HTML TADS for Windows, showing the Game Chest, which is a convenient way of organizing your TADS games. Game Chest lets you add links to your favorite games, giving each game a full name and description so that you don't have to remember filenames or directories. When you want to start a game, just click on the name - no need to hunt through your hard disk for the file.

HyperTADS for Macintosh, running Neil K. Guy's Six Stories. HyperTADS is the Mac version of HTML TADS. These screenshots are from Neil K. Guy's award-winning 1999 Annual IF Competition Entry Six Stories, which shows off the multimedia features of HyperTADS. In addition to HyperTADS, the full suite of TADS tools, including the compiler and debugger, are available on the Macintosh, as well as a text-only version of the interpreter. Thanks to Neil K. Guy for these screenshots.

FrobTADS, running Iain Merrick's Forever Always on Linux, and Eric Eve's The Quest of the Golden Banana on BeOS. FrobTADS is Nikos Chantziaras's 2005 rewrite of the Unix character-mode interpreter, featuring more features, greater portability, and an easier install than the old TADS for Unix. It can run TADS 2 and TADS 3 games. Thanks to Nikos for the Linux image, and Sophie Fruehling for the BeOS screenshot.

QTads for Linux, running Return to Ditch Day, and for Mac OS X, running Ivan Cockrum's Sunset over Savannah. QTads is Nikos Chantziaras's text-only GUI version of TADS for Unix, and plays TADS 2 and TADS 3 games. ("Text-only GUI" isn't an oxymoron - it basically means that the application uses the OS GUI features, but only supports the plain text features of TADS itself.) QTads is available on many Unix systems - it runs anywhere there's a Qt library, including Mac OS X. In fact, it's currently the only GUI interpreter specifically for OS X (the other Mac interpreters were designed for OS 9, so they can only run on OS X using the OS 9 compatibility environment). Thanks to Nikos Chantziaras for the screenshots.

PocketTADS, running Katana by Matt Rohde. PocketTADS, by David Batterham, brings TADS to hand-helds running PocketPC (also known as Windows CE) and PocketPC 2002. Thanks to David Batterham for the screen image.

TADS for Linux (in a Linux console window), running Deep Space Drifter. TADS runs on many Unix and Linux systems, and the source code is available and highly portable to new Unix variants. Currently, the developer tools (compiler and debugger) and text-only interpreters are available, but multimedia (HTML TADS) versions are not yet implemented on Unix platforms. Thanks to Michael Burschik for this screenshot.

TADS for BeOS, running Deep Space Drifter. This screen shows BeOS with its Amiga "decor" in BeOS R5. Thanks to Big Boy Toddy for the screenshot.

HTML TADS for Windows, running Deep Space Drifter. The Windows HTML interpreter is capable of running any TADS game, whether the game is a graphical game or a traditional all-text game. Deep Space Drifter is text-only.

Amiga TADS, running Ian Finley's Kaged, which took first place in the 6th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition; and Deep Space Drifter on the Amiga. Kaged uses graphics and music on HTML-enabled version of TADS, but (like almost all TADS games that use multimedia effects) is still fully playable on a text-only interpreter like Amiga TADS. Thanks to Ally for the Amiga screenshots.

HTML TADS for Windows again, showing the interpreter's Options dialog. The Windows HTML interpreter lets you customize a large number of look and feel settings.

HTML TADS for Windows, running The Golden Skull, Neil K. Guy's sample game for HTML TADS. The Golden Skull demonstrates some of the multimedia features of HTML TADS, including graphics, digitized sound, hyperlink commands, and text coloring.

TADS for MS-DOS (in a DOS box on Windows ME), running Deep Space Drifter. TADS lets you run the same game on any TADS interpreter; each interpreter provides a user interface customized to its operating system environment, so games automatically adapt to the local look and feel. You can even run games originally designed for HTML TADS on any interpreter; on a text-only system like DOS, the interpreter will simply omit the game's multimedia features.

TADS Workbench for Windows. Workbench is an integrated development environment in which you compile and debug your game. Workbench also has a game creation "wizard," which lets you create the skeleton of a new game project with a few mouse clicks. The Workbench debugger has the features you'd expect from a professional source debugger - it lets you set breakpoints, step through your source code line by line, examine variables and expressions, store new values in variables, stop when a given expression has a given value, and more. Workbench is integrated with HTML TADS, so you can use it to debug both traditional text-only games and games that take full advantage of HTML TADS's multimedia features.

Other Platforms. TADS runs on even more platforms than the ones listed here. If you have screen shots of TADS running on any system we haven't already listed above, please send them to us and we'll post them here.

HTML TADS for Windows, showing the Game Chest, which is a convenient way of organizing your TADS games. Game Chest lets you add links to your favorite games, giving each game a full name and description so that you don't have to remember filenames or directories. When you want to start a game, just click on the name - no need to hunt through your hard disk for the file.	HyperTADS for Macintosh, running Neil K. Guy's Six Stories. HyperTADS is the Mac version of HTML TADS. These screenshots are from Neil K. Guy's award-winning 1999 Annual IF Competition Entry Six Stories, which shows off the multimedia features of HyperTADS. In addition to HyperTADS, the full suite of TADS tools, including the compiler and debugger, are available on the Macintosh, as well as a text-only version of the interpreter. Thanks to Neil K. Guy for these screenshots.
FrobTADS, running Iain Merrick's Forever Always on Linux, and Eric Eve's The Quest of the Golden Banana on BeOS. FrobTADS is Nikos Chantziaras's 2005 rewrite of the Unix character-mode interpreter, featuring more features, greater portability, and an easier install than the old TADS for Unix. It can run TADS 2 and TADS 3 games. Thanks to Nikos for the Linux image, and Sophie Fruehling for the BeOS screenshot.	QTads for Linux, running Return to Ditch Day, and for Mac OS X, running Ivan Cockrum's Sunset over Savannah. QTads is Nikos Chantziaras's text-only GUI version of TADS for Unix, and plays TADS 2 and TADS 3 games. ("Text-only GUI" isn't an oxymoron - it basically means that the application uses the OS GUI features, but only supports the plain text features of TADS itself.) QTads is available on many Unix systems - it runs anywhere there's a Qt library, including Mac OS X. In fact, it's currently the only GUI interpreter specifically for OS X (the other Mac interpreters were designed for OS 9, so they can only run on OS X using the OS 9 compatibility environment). Thanks to Nikos Chantziaras for the screenshots.
PocketTADS, running Katana by Matt Rohde. PocketTADS, by David Batterham, brings TADS to hand-helds running PocketPC (also known as Windows CE) and PocketPC 2002. Thanks to David Batterham for the screen image.	TADS for Linux (in a Linux console window), running Deep Space Drifter. TADS runs on many Unix and Linux systems, and the source code is available and highly portable to new Unix variants. Currently, the developer tools (compiler and debugger) and text-only interpreters are available, but multimedia (HTML TADS) versions are not yet implemented on Unix platforms. Thanks to Michael Burschik for this screenshot.
TADS for BeOS, running Deep Space Drifter. This screen shows BeOS with its Amiga "decor" in BeOS R5. Thanks to Big Boy Toddy for the screenshot.	*HTML TADS for Windows, running Deep Space Drifter.* The Windows HTML interpreter is capable of running any TADS game, whether the game is a graphical game or a traditional all-text game. Deep Space Drifter is text-only.
Amiga TADS, running Ian Finley's Kaged, which took first place in the 6th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition; and Deep Space Drifter on the Amiga. Kaged uses graphics and music on HTML-enabled version of TADS, but (like almost all TADS games that use multimedia effects) is still fully playable on a text-only interpreter like Amiga TADS. Thanks to Ally for the Amiga screenshots.	HTML TADS for Windows again, showing the interpreter's Options dialog. The Windows HTML interpreter lets you customize a large number of look and feel settings.
HTML TADS for Windows, running The Golden Skull, Neil K. Guy's sample game for HTML TADS. The Golden Skull demonstrates some of the multimedia features of HTML TADS, including graphics, digitized sound, hyperlink commands, and text coloring.	TADS for MS-DOS (in a DOS box on Windows ME), running Deep Space Drifter. TADS lets you run the same game on any TADS interpreter; each interpreter provides a user interface customized to its operating system environment, so games automatically adapt to the local look and feel. You can even run games originally designed for HTML TADS on any interpreter; on a text-only system like DOS, the interpreter will simply omit the game's multimedia features.
TADS Workbench for Windows. Workbench is an integrated development environment in which you compile and debug your game. Workbench also has a game creation "wizard," which lets you create the skeleton of a new game project with a few mouse clicks. The Workbench debugger has the features you'd expect from a professional source debugger - it lets you set breakpoints, step through your source code line by line, examine variables and expressions, store new values in variables, stop when a given expression has a given value, and more. Workbench is integrated with HTML TADS, so you can use it to debug both traditional text-only games and games that take full advantage of HTML TADS's multimedia features.	Other Platforms. TADS runs on even more platforms than the ones listed here. If you have screen shots of TADS running on any system we haven't already listed above, please send them to us and we'll post them here.