JIFFEEgames.com

JIFFEE is under active development, but it is an experiment in progress and it is not yet ready for beta release. Most of it is tested and works fine, but a few parts are still missing or incomplete, and even the architecture is still subject to change.

What is JIFFEE?

JIFFEE (JavaScript Interactive Fiction Framework for Education and Entertainment) is a tool for creating Interactive Fiction. Interactive Fiction is a form of computer game that has been around for decades - in fact it was one of the first types of computer games. Sometimes Interactive Fiction games are called "text adventures" because they are based on the idea that the computer says something to you (the player) using text instead of graphics, and then you reply in the same way, i.e. by calmly typing regular words or sentences instead of by frantically clicking or waving a controller. Although anyone can use JIFFEE, it was designed with particular attention to the needs of teachers.

How can JIFFEE help me in the classroom?

If you are an educator looking for tools to help your students develop their language comprehension skills, then JIFFEE was designed for you. It can be especially useful for foreign-language and second-language instruction, at any level from elementary through high school or college. Adding JIFFEE-based games to your toolkit of instructional techniques provides you with several advantages:

Playing a game may help keep students motivated and focused, especially if it is a well-written and engaging game.
Because Interactive Fiction games are entirely based on text, students get lots of practice reading the target language. Depending on your situation this could be their primary language, or it could be a second or a foreign language.
The usual need to play a game many times before finally learning how to win it automatically provides the repetition necessary for reinforcement of vocabulary and grammar.
Many IF games require you to solve puzzles in order to win the game. This requires reading for detail and encourages students to look up and learn any words they don't yet know — because if they don't, they could miss a crucial clue.
In addition to the obvious language skills, playing IF can also provide good practice in logical analysis, organization, and even teamwork.
JIFFEE is designed to make it easy to create your own computer games, even if you don't have the time or the inclination to learn programming, so you can create games that are uniquely suited to your own curriculum. There is also a web site where you and other teachers can easily publish and share your work.
All that is needed to play a JIFFEE game is a web browser, so students can easily play the games outside of class on a home or library computer or even on a modern mobile phone (e.g. the Apple iPhone or any Android phone like the T-Mobile G1).
The only tool you need to create a JIFFEE game is a simple text editor, and one of those is already present on nearly every PC, so if you are fortunate enough to have one or two highly motivated parents they could help out by writing games tailored to your requirements.

For more details about the educational use of this tool, see JIFFEE in the Classroom. (To be fair, there are other authoring systems for Interactive Fiction which also provide many of these advantages, especially if you only care about English. The Links page gives pointers to the most popular ones.)

Since the best way to learn what IF games look like is to play one, you might also want to check out Games Written in JIFFEE for a few examples of games that you can play right in your browser.

How does JIFFEE compare to other IF authoring systems?

Like virtually every other IF authoring tool, JIFFEE is intended to make it as easy as possible to get started and is free for anyone to use, but it also has a few unusual characteristics which distinguish it from most existing authoring systems:

JIFFEE supports writing games that can be played in different languages. (This refers to human languages like English, Spanish, and Chinese; not programming languages.) It can be very hard to retrofit that feature into an existing system, but JIFFEE was designed right from the beginning to support the necessary internationalization and localization of both input and output.
JIFFEE is based on an existing well-established language (JavaScript), so it can take advantage of the extensive tools, documentation, and online support that are already available. You do not have to know any JavaScript to start using JIFFEE, but if you do happen to be a programmer then JIFFEE seamlessly and efficiently puts the full power of a general-purpose programming language at your disposal.
Any game written with JIFFEE can be posted on the Internet, and then anyone with a web browser (even on a mobile phone) can play it by simply clicking on a link to it. While the introduction of Parchment has made a similar one-click-to-play capability available to many other authoring systems as well, JIFFEE supports it natively without an extra layer of interpretation overhead.

If you are already familiar with Interactive Fiction and you want to try your hand at writing games using JIFFEE, see Authoring Games with JIFFEE.

If you are interested in the design of IF systems in general and JIFFEE in particular, you can find plenty of detail in JIFFEE Framework Design.

How do I navigate this web site?

At the top of each page on this web site there is a thick horizontal blue bar. This is the navigation menu, and it contains a link to each of the major sections of the site. If you hold your mouse over any of these links for a second or two, a more detailed description will pop up.

The last link in the navigation menu points to the "Sitemap," which provides direct access to every page on the web site.

JIFFEE and JIFFEEgames.com copyright © 2007-2010 by Michael S. Kenniston. All rights reserved.
This page was last updated on 2010-01-01.
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