Text adventures

Discussion, Reviews & High-scores

Moderator: Moderators

TNT
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:46 am

Post by TNT »

orion70 wrote:
TNT wrote:It's time to write the script which converts raw story files into D64 files :)
How exactly will the whole thing work? Will the Z machine be loaded before the story, then the disk will be swapped, and the story loaded in chunks of information from a "story disk"?
There is enough free sectors on tracks 17 and 16 for the interpreter, so you don't need to swap disks except when saving and restoring. Beta versions use separate prg for interpreter and D64 for data because only the first changes.
TNT
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:46 am

Post by TNT »

TNT wrote:
TNT wrote:Small setback. I tried Seastalker yesterday and couldn't get past "Is this correct" after entering my name as it wouldn't accept neither "y", "yes", "n" nor "no" as valid answer.
I just found the reason - dictionary starts at $72xx in memory and spans over $80xx. Dictionary scan should skip $8000-$9fff and continue at $a000 and then wrap back to $0400, but it doesn't.
Moving the interpreter into BLK5 was surprisingly easy. Now virtual memory uses $1300 - $7fff and $0400 - $0dff. You may remember that cursor trashes a byte at $1300... well, that doesn't matter as it only trashes the high bit and clears the it on exit, and the first byte of story file is version number which never has bit 7 set :)

Image

With minor changes (getting rid of self-modifying code) it would be possible to possible to make cartridge ROM version, but I see no real advantages in that as the interpreter would still require 24+3K memory expansion.

edit: Seastalker still needs some fixing, sonar doesn't like narrow screen. This one might be easier to fix with story file patch.
Image
TNT
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:46 am

Post by TNT »

TNT wrote:edit: Seastalker still needs some fixing, sonar doesn't like narrow screen. This one might be easier to fix with story file patch.
Image

The sonar status (sonar & depth warnings below the real status line) need to be patched too, it assumes at least 32 chars wide screen. I can easily shorten the normal status but how the heck am I going to fit "@@=SEACAT Oooo=MONSTER #=DANGER" into 22 chars?
carlsson
Class of '6502
Posts: 5516
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2004 1:41 am

Post by carlsson »

Would either of these four strings make sense?

@@=SEA Oooo=MON #=DANG
@=SEACA O=MONST #=DANG
@=SEACAT O=MONST #=DGR
@=SC Oooo=MSTR #=DANGR
Anders Carlsson

Image Image Image Image Image
User avatar
Kweepa
Vic 20 Scientist
Posts: 1314
Joined: Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:11 pm
Location: Austin, Texas
Occupation: Game maker

Post by Kweepa »

How about:
@SEACAT OoMONSTR #DNGR
Presumably it's not possible to put a line feed in the middle?

It's a shame to have to put so much work into Seastalker, since it's not a very good Infocom game. (With apologies to the authors!)
TNT
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:46 am

Post by TNT »

Thanks for the suggestions. One thing that occured to me that I could use the monster's name at that point, saving two bytes without having to shorten it. Likewise, I could use another name for SeaCat. And no, it's not possible to put in linefeed without patching yet another location.

Seastalker is the only V3 game using split screen, so getting it to work correctly means I can debug that part of code before V4/V5 commands. I've found one bug already, bottom window is one row too tall so it overwrites the last line of sonar in Seastalker.

PS: I sent 24 D64 images to beta testers yesterday, so that's the reason if some members disappear from Denial for a while ;)
carlsson
Class of '6502
Posts: 5516
Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2004 1:41 am

Post by carlsson »

Oh, it sounds naughty. Something like the Bermuda Triangle of Commodore computing.
Anders Carlsson

Image Image Image Image Image
TNT
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:46 am

Post by TNT »

Bermuda Triangle? More likely is that they get eaten by a grue... or something even worse...
Image
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

Is it hard to work with a screen size bigger than 22x23? I was playing around with the VIC registers a few weeks ago, but doing that required to manually POKE (or STA) values manually into screen color memory (37888 & up).
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
TNT
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:46 am

Post by TNT »

Ghislain wrote:Is it hard to work with a screen size bigger than 22x23?
I've posted some code here.
User avatar
Pedro Lambrini
Vic 20 Scientist
Posts: 1132
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:36 am

Post by Pedro Lambrini »

Any news on the development of this, TNT? Just wondering (and so is Orion!! :P).

:)
"...That of the Eastern tribe being like a multitude of colours as if a rainbow had settled upon its brow..." Daniels 1:3
TNT
Vic 20 Hobbyist
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 5:46 am

Post by TNT »

I'm in the middle of PC upgrade, struggling to find time for setting the new one the way I like (damn manufacturers don't provide device drivers if you downgrade from Vista :evil:) and trying to paint the house between rainy days. The good thing is that I moved the Z-machine stuff over to the new PC today, so it's theoretically possible to continue work if time permits.
User avatar
Pedro Lambrini
Vic 20 Scientist
Posts: 1132
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 11:36 am

Post by Pedro Lambrini »

Good to see you're still interested even if RL gets in the way. Good luck with the new PC (and the painting!) :)
"...That of the Eastern tribe being like a multitude of colours as if a rainbow had settled upon its brow..." Daniels 1:3
User avatar
orion70
VICtalian
Posts: 4337
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:45 am
Location: Piacenza, Italy
Occupation: Biologist

Post by orion70 »

Thank you very much TNT - as you read here, there's a bunch of us waiting for news from our (unofficial) Infocom guru... :D

Some links to keep focused on this wonderful world of text adventures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infocom
http://mit.edu/6.933/www/Fall2000/infocom/
http://infodoc.plover.net/
http://infocom.elsewhere.org/gallery/

:wink:
User avatar
ral-clan
plays wooden flutes
Posts: 3702
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2006 2:01 pm
Location: Canada

Post by ral-clan »

I'm sorry too. I was beta testing this for TNT back in May and then Real Life got in the way for me too. Went away for a five week work term with no internet and still haven't turned on the VIC since!
Post Reply