In the next chapter we'll start developing a game that will occupy us for the remainder of this Guide (apart from the odd explanatory digression or two). But before we embark on The Further Adventures of Heidi we'll start with a very simple two-room game (the goldskull example familiar to TADS 2 users) that provides an overview of how a TADS 3 program fits together. When you are reading later sections, which go into more detail, it may be helpful to have an idea of where the details fit into the general structure of a game. This chapter should help provide that overview (but readers with some experience of other TADS-like languages who find the going a bit too slow might like to skip this chapter and go straight to the next).
The basic requirements for starting out are the TADS 3 Author's Kit and a text editor. If all else fails you can use Notepad (or I suppose a really determined UNIX user could use vi), but you may like to consider downloading one of the many free programming editors available on the internet. Information about programming editors that can be used for writing Interactive Fiction may be found at http://www.firthworks.com/roger/editors/index.html. Among those listed there, I found have Imaginate, Source Edit and Crimson Editor all work well; the first of these is particular useful for working with a multi-source-file TADS 3 project. There is, however, no reason why your tastes should conform to mine, so use whatever you feel comfortable with.