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Inform 7

Natural-language design system for interactive fiction

Game Servers ★ 1.7k stars Medium setup Artistic-2.0

Inform 7 is a design system for creating interactive fiction using natural-language source text. The compiler and core tools are open source, allowing authors to build and self-host text adventure games.

Official siteSource code

Key features

  • Natural-language game design
  • Interactive fiction compiler
  • Open-source toolchain
  • Rich world modeling

Strengths

  • Released under the Artistic-2.0 license
  • Active community (1.7k GitHub stars)
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM

Is Inform 7 secure?

OSV.dev has no published security advisories for Inform 7's repository. No known vulnerabilities is not proof of security: it means none have been publicly catalogued.

Source: OSV.dev, checked 2026-10-14. How this is measured.

Inform 7 replaces

Self-hosted TADS alternatives

Health badge

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SelfHostIndex: 58 · fair

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