An Interactive Fiction Design System

Current release: Version 3.1.03 - 5Jan06

Hugo is a complete design system for developing interactive fiction. It has been used for creating classic text adventure games in the Infocom tradition, for developing commercial games, and for prototyping other applications. In addition to an extremely sophisticated full-sentence-cognizant interface, Hugo also allows a developer to incorporate graphics and video (which are optional for those who lack either the hardware or inclination to view them) as well as sound effects, music, and mouse control.

The complete Hugo system consists of several parts, the most important of which are the Hugo Compiler and the Hugo Engine—the former takes text-format source code and turns it into a playable format understood by the latter. The Hugo language itself is an easy to learn, highly object-oriented language which encompasses the best elements of elegance, simplicity, clarity, and power of modern programming languages. Also included is the Hugo Library: a collection of common routines, objects, etc. that are responsible for managing many of the "physical universe" aspects of the game. (And the sophisticated Hugo Debugger allows a Hugo programmer to examine every aspect of a game at runtime.)

Hugo and all its supporting players can be found at the Interactive Fiction Archive. It is currently available for Windows, Macintosh, Linux/Unix, Palm and Pocket PC handhelds, BeOS, DOS, and more. The Hugo source code is available, and porting to other platforms is encouraged.

For some of the games available for Hugo, click here.

You can download Hugo now.