Yoho - Scott Adams interpreter

Discussion, Reviews & High-scores

Moderator: Moderators

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

Yoho - Scott Adams interpreter

Post by Kweepa »

Hello!
I wrote an interpreter for the Scott Adams adventure series over the weekend.
Vic + 24k required :)
yoho.jpg
Status at the top:
howay.jpg
https://github.com/Kweepa/Yoho/blob/master/yoho.d64
https://github.com/Kweepa/Yoho/blob/master/howay.d64
YohoHoway.zip
(153.18 KiB) Downloaded 68 times
All Brian Howarth Mysterious adventures are on howay.d64 too!

Steve
Last edited by Kweepa on Sun Apr 09, 2023 12:15 pm, edited 10 times in total.
User avatar
orion70
VICtalian
Posts: 4337
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:45 am
Location: Piacenza, Italy
Occupation: Biologist

Post by orion70 »

I was away for a couple of days, came back, and what I find is...
VOILA'! Another precious gem from a fellow Denialer :D

Thank you Kweepa, all those historic adventures for the VIC (and not only the first five), and no more 22 columns. Can save games too! You give me the opportunity to replay Strange Odissey, long after I did it for the last time, in the late 1980s, on a Plus-4 cartridge. So, thanks again for bringing back sweet memories on my friendly VIC.

Do you think other adventures can/will be implemented? I'm eagerly thinking about the Questprobe series of course :mrgreen: .

I guess we'll need SA's hintbook here! (13.9 Mb)
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 »

Yeah, if there aren't any major problems with 1-9, I can make a second disk with the rest. As long as the game data fits in 13k (and they are generally about 10k) it should be good. These games are impressively data driven!

Also, I can add a proper selection 'menu' with game names :)

(It's very difficult for me to refrain from touching up the text - fixing typos, adding punctuation and (in)definite articles, etc. Particularly when there's a typo in the title of the game!)
User avatar
orion70
VICtalian
Posts: 4337
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:45 am
Location: Piacenza, Italy
Occupation: Biologist

Post by orion70 »

Yep Claymore castle, isn't it? :)
Please, leave everything as it was: philology is important in our hobby!
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 »

I was thinking of 'The Count'. The intro text says
"Welcome to ADVEWNTURE: 5 `THE COUNT`."
Not quite the title, but close.

It's my logophilia that makes me want to fix things! But don't worry - I'll leave it as is :)
User avatar
orion70
VICtalian
Posts: 4337
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:45 am
Location: Piacenza, Italy
Occupation: Biologist

Post by orion70 »

What really surprises me is that nobody here seems to like text adventures enough to appreciate this effort :? .
User avatar
joshuadenmark
Big Mover
Posts: 1217
Joined: Sat Oct 23, 2010 11:32 am
Location: Fr-Havn, Denmark
Occupation: Service engineer

Post by joshuadenmark »

I love text adventures <3

Huge Thank You Kweepa for this :D
Kind regards, Peter.
____________________________________________________
In need of a wiki logon - PM me
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

Kweepa wrote:Yeah, if there aren't any major problems with 1-9, I can make a second disk with the rest. As long as the game data fits in 13k (and they are generally about 10k) it should be good. These games are impressively data driven!

Also, I can add a proper selection 'menu' with game names :)

(It's very difficult for me to refrain from touching up the text - fixing typos, adding punctuation and (in)definite articles, etc. Particularly when there's a typo in the title of the game!)
Thank you for making this!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when I start adventure 5 (the Count) it says that I've lost and the "game is now over".

And do you plan on implementing the rest of the Scott Adams games catalog? ie:

http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-arc ... zcode.html

You could probably even implement Brian Howarth's mysterious adventure line since they use the same game engine.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
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 »

Huh, I thought I tested 'The Count'. Guess something changed. Thanks for the info!
As I said above, I was planning to convert all 17 Scott Adams adventures. They should all fit on one disk now, with my latest changes.
Not sure about the Brian Howarth games - they might be too big (haven't checked the db sizes).
User avatar
vicist
Vic 20 Afficionado
Posts: 352
Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 5:26 am
Location: Sheffield, UK

Post by vicist »

Must give these text adventures another try.
I was never much good at them in the 80's so have tended to avoid them.
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

Kweepa wrote:Huh, I thought I tested 'The Count'. Guess something changed. Thanks for the info!
As I said above, I was planning to convert all 17 Scott Adams adventures. They should all fit on one disk now, with my latest changes.
Not sure about the Brian Howarth games - they might be too big (haven't checked the db sizes).
So you'll include the Hulk and Spider-Man games as well?

And for us rabid OCD completists, maybe you can include the "sample" 3-treasure version of AdventureLand? :)

I looked at the files on http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-arc ... zcode.html and saw that the Brian Howarth game files were about the same size as the ones in the Scott Adams collection.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
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 »

Ghislain wrote: So you'll include the Hulk and Spider-Man games as well?
Yup!
Ghislain wrote: And for us rabid OCD completists, maybe you can include the "sample" 3-treasure version of AdventureLand? :)
If there's room on the disk. It's pretty tight. I got the data files down to about 9k each. Then the exe is 20k (but it can probably be compressed). So 17*9 + 20 = 173k.
I looked at the files on http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-arc ... zcode.html and saw that the Brian Howarth game files were about the same size as the ones in the Scott Adams collection.
Awesome. These games can go on a separate disk.
User avatar
orion70
VICtalian
Posts: 4337
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2006 4:45 am
Location: Piacenza, Italy
Occupation: Biologist

Post by orion70 »

Kweepa wrote:
Ghislain wrote: So you'll include the Hulk and Spider-Man games as well?
Yup!
SLURP! :D
User avatar
Ghislain
Realms of Quest
Posts: 1279
Joined: Sun Aug 08, 2004 12:54 am

Post by Ghislain »

Kweepa wrote:
Ghislain wrote: So you'll include the Hulk and Spider-Man games as well?
Yup!
Awesome!

...

If there's room on the disk. It's pretty tight. I got the data files down to about 9k each. Then the exe is 20k (but it can probably be compressed). So 17*9 + 20 = 173k.

...

Awesome. These games can go on a separate disk.
Here's an idea just in case that you won't be able to fit all 17 games on one disk side:

The disk has only 166KB because 4K is reserved for the directory, so you might not even be able to fit all 17 of them. Maybe you can just put 16 of the games on side 1 and place one of them on side 2 alongside the 'sample' version of AdventureLand as well as Brian Howarth's 11 'Mysterious Adventures'. With that, you can then call it the Scott Adams VIC-20 Collection Side 2. I think the most appropriate game to move from side 1 to side 2 would be Return to Pirate's Isle:

http://yois.if-legends.org/vault.php?id=891

...since it was only made for the TI/99, and is sometimes excluded from those listings of Scott Adams games. Side 1 would be the main Scott Adams games, and side 2 would be rarities and apocrypha.

I wonder if there are inform (z5) files for the third game of the Questprobe series, Fantastic Four? They exist for the Hulk and Spider-Man, however. Maybe something can be extracted from the C64 or DOS disk images.

I suppose that a z5 file of the Fantastic Four does not exist because other fans of interactive fiction have probably already tried to make one out of what was available. I can only presume that the game engine for FF was quite different from the previous games and that it would be very difficult to produce an Inform-compatible game data file from it.

And there's also the holy grail of the missing/vapourware/prototype Scott Adams game, X-Men which can't be found at all on the internet:

http://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C1552/X-Men.html

Sorry, if I come off as an obsessive and I recognize some of my ruminations are outside of your purview. I only mention them to add to the discussion. I was also quite passionate about the Scott Adams games back in the day.

I always wondered if the rest of the Scott Adams series would ever appear on the VIC-20 and now thanks to you, they have.
"A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him." -- Ezra Pound
User avatar
tokra
Vic 20 Scientist
Posts: 1120
Joined: Tue Apr 27, 2010 5:32 pm
Location: Scheessel, Germany

Post by tokra »

Very nice! I love the proportional font introduced with Cometfall. Would love to see this released separately so other games can use it as well.

One question: Whate does "YOHO" stand for?

Don't forget to put this and Oregon Trail into the "Software Release of 2013"-thread. Hopefully DOOM will still be added this year as well :wink:
Post Reply