Android: Browsing IFDB, finding Interactive Fiction, downloading

Wake Reality's vision has been to encourage Android app developers to make independent apps for browsing, organizing, and downloading Interactive Fiction stories.  We want to reiterate this desire.

We have put attention on the existing open source app Incant - which we have updated to Android Studio 2.3 development environment on GitHub with added launcher capability to Thunderword - which could also be extended to launch and organize stories for any of the other apps (Text Fiction, Son of Hunky Punk, Twisty, etc).

Someone could also make a new fresh app, Material Design or whatever. We encourage and invite it.  Thunderstrike on GitHub also has sample code - it can take only 10 lines of Java code to tell Thunderword to start a story.

Thunderword app ++ Alan 2, Alan 3 interpreters on Android!

New alpha testing release published on Google Play. Alan 3 beta2 compatibility, same as desktop and Amazon Kindle Gargoyle. Name your files .acd, .a3c, place them on your /sdcard public storage and rebuild the database. The new control panel choice "[ Useful A ]" has an easy macro pick to rebuild the search database. It should find .acd or .a3c files anywhere on your public /sdcard paths.

Thunderword app ++ TADS 2, TADS 3 interpreters on Android!

New alpha testing release published on Google Play. The TADS 3 story "Look Around the Corner" (IFDB link) is now included with Thunderword for demonstration and testing! Name your files .gam, .t2 or .t3 and rebuild the database. The new control panel choice "[ Useful A ]" has an easy macro pick to rebuild the search database. It should find .gam or .t3 files anywhere on your public /sdcard paths. More coming!

Thunderword [experimental] app updated - Hugo interpreter on Android

New alpha release put up on Google Play. The Hugo story "The Hugo Clock" opens fine in preliminary testing! Name files .hex or .hugo and rebuild the database. The new control panel choice "[ Useful A ]" has an easy macro pick to rebuild the search database. It should find .hex or .hugo files anywhere on your public /sdcard paths.

Keyboards for parser Interactive Fiction in Thunderword

Firefox on desktop PC access Thunderword on Android

Screen shot of a desktop PC running Firefox web browser - accessing the integrated Thunderword web server.  This can be used as an alternate to Bluetooth and USB keyboard solutions that Android offers.  Wake Reality is also working to integrate Onyxbits' excellent telnet solution.  You will be able to use any device that can connect over TCP/IP via telnet or web browser to act as a 'remote keyboard'.  This could be your desktop PC, another mobile phone or tablet, etc.  We are also working on some ideas for better on-screen keyboards for version 2 of Thunderword, later this year.

P.S. This keyboard solution works well enough to play Tetris for Z-Machine (Andrew Plotkin's freefall.z5 on IFDB).

April 2, 2017 target date for Thunderword beta release

Thunderword should be usable enough on or before April 2, 2017.  A few things are planned as far as the transition from 'alpha' to a 'beta' stage:

1. Two apps will be put on the Google Play store, one named "Thunderword [experimental]" (the current one in alpha), and a second called "Thunderword" without any addition to the name. They will have differences in their icon and can both be installed on the same Android device.

2. The main app, "Thunderword", will be set to be an open beta test that anyone can join.

3. An enhanced version of the popular "Text Fiction" app by Onyxbits, named "Text Fiction for Thunderword" will be released on the Google Play store in open beta test. The enhanced variation will offer the player the choice of using the built-in Z-machine interpreter ("stock" Text Fiction's Zplet) or to use Thunderword's various interpreter. It can be installed on the same device as the original "Text Fiction" app and should not interfere.

More frequent development updates will be pushed to the "Thunderword [experimental]" app - and it may include newer Glk interpreter engines depending on player interest.

All three apps will be free of charge on Google Play and advertisement-free (with the exception that listing or featuring certain interactive fiction stories, download sites, and partner apps to download and work with Thunderword is a form of "promoting" products). There will be no in-app purchases or Google/Adsense/AdMob advertising like you see on a lot of "free" Android games. 

Glux on Android is no April Fools joke, despite the wide beta opening date ;)

P.S. For support, "what is broken", how-to, etc. free discussion - I created a new discussion forum here: groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/int-fiction-android Thank you!