Glimmr (GLulx Image and MultiMedia Resources) is a framework of extensions for the Inform 7 interactive fiction authoring system.

Inform 7 can compile to the Glulx virtual machine, which supports complex windowed layouts, graphics, sound, mouse input, and more. Glimmr is intended to make these features—particularly graphics and mouse input—easily accessible to Inform 7 game authors.

In its simplest form, Glimmr supplies commands for drawing images files (PNG or JPEG), simple primitives (rectangles, boxes, lines), arbitrary bitmap images, and painted text. Through additional extensions, Glimmr also provides a full system for managing display of complex, dynamic compositions in a graphics window. These might include maps that progressively reveal themselves as the player moves through them, card games, etc. Glimmr Canvas Animation also provides a fully featured framework for creating multicomponent animations.

Games created with Glimmr will be best when played using the following Glulx VM interpreters:

• Gargoyle (Linux, Windows, Mac OS X)
• Zoom (Mac OS X, *nix)
• Windows Git (Windows)

Check out the Glimmr blog for more information, news, and occasional tutorials.

November 22, 2011: Glimmr Canvas Editor is now available!