
IFP is a plugin scheme for playing several different types of Interactive
Fiction game files in a single unified game interpreter.

It automatically determines how to play the game from the data in the game
file, and handles all of the different game files seamlessly.  IFP has plugins
for the following formats:

    Z-machine, TADS, HUGO, Alan, Glulx, AGT, AdvSys, Level 9, Magnetic
    Scrolls, Adrift, Quest, and Blorb

For Blorb files, IFP recognizes ZCOD (Z-machine) and GLUL (Glulx) types.

IFP directly handles compressed, gzipped, or bzipped game files, and game
files, compressed or otherwise, in zip, tar, cpio or ar archives.  It also
handles URL references to game files, compressed game files, or game archives.

For details on building IFP, please see the file INSTALLING.  For details on
how to link interpreters to IFP to create plugins, please see USING.  For
notes on running games with IFP, please see RUNNING.  For details on IFP
internals, please see INTERNALS.  The file Xglk.defs contains a few X resource
definitions that help to improve the general look of xglk.
 
IFP contains third-party resources and games:

 Andrew Plotkin's xglk, glkterm, cheapglk, and Glulx; Evin Robertson's Nitfol
 Z-machine interpreter; Thomas Nilsson's Alan2 interpreter; Thomas Nilsson's
 Alan3 interpreter; Kent Tessman's Hugo interpreter; Michael J. Roberts' TADS
 interpreters; Robert Masenten's AGiliTy AGT interpreter; David Betz and
 Michael Chen's Advsys interpreter; Glen Summers' Level9 interpreter; Niclas
 Karlsson's Magnetic Scrolls interpreter; Iain Merrick's Git interpreter
 for Glulx; Stefan Jokisch's Frotz interpreter; Tor Andersson's Glk interfaces
 for TADS and Frotz; Mark J. Tilford's Geas interpreter for Quest; Tor
 Andersson's Gargoyle Glk library; Evin Robertson's Gtkglk library.

 A Change In The Weather, Copyright 1995-6 by Andrew Plotkin; Bugged, Copyright
 by Anssi Raisanen; Adventure (The Interactive Original), by Will Crowther and
 Don Woods, reconstructed by Donald Ekman, David M. Baggett, and Graham Nelson;
 Spur, Copyright 1995-1997 by Kent Tessman; Toonesia, Copyright 1995 by Jacob
 Weinstein; Cosmoserve, Copyright 1991 by Judith Pintar and MadHatter
 Productions; Busted, Copyright 1993 by Jon Drukman, Scumbag Software, Inc;
 Lords of Time, Copyright Level 9 Computing; To Hell in a Hamper, Copyright
 2003 by J.J. Guest; Enter the Dark, Copyright by Peter R Shushmaruk; Eric's
 Gift, Copyright 2002 by Joao Mendes; I Saved Elvis from Communist Alien Jerks,
 Copyright 2003 by Robert Sedler.

If you are an owner of one of the above and object to its inclusion in IFP,
please let me know.

Thanks to David Griffith, Matthew Krauss, Bob Newell, and Curt Siffert for
their feedback, helpful comments, and ideas, following the first Alpha release
of IFP, and to Gregory W. Kulczycki for regular builds of IFP for Mandrake
Linux.

Simon Baldwin, simon_baldwin@yahoo.com
