The Innuh's pyramid

[DarwinNE]

Name: Innuh's pyramid
Author: A. Torrelli, M. Severi, DarwinNE (D. Bucci)
Released: September 18th, 2018 (first public beta)
Genre: Text adventure
Requirements: VIC-20+16K RAM, PAL or NTSC
Development system: Textwrangler + ca65 + gcc + VICE xVIC + real PAL machine

Description: The Innuh's pyramid was built three thousand years ago, somewhere in the desert.
Ancient tales say it is full of treasures, but nobody who dared to try to
reveal its secrets could come back to tell his adventure.

I'll be your eyes and ears.
Your goal is to find all the treasures hidden in the pyramid.

Download and source code: https://github.com/DarwinNE/innuhs_pyramid

Dear all, I translated an Italian text adventure in C (I published a Java version many years ago). It was originally developed on TI99/4A by Aristide Torrelli and published in the Italian magazine MCmicrocomputer 33, sett. 1984. I based myself on the ZX Spectrum version by Manlio Severi, (MCmicrocomputer 35, nov. 1984) for the C language version that I could compile with both Cc65 and gcc.

Executables are available for the VIC-20 + 16K RAM and for the C128 and the adventure is available in Italian language as well as in an English translation that I prepared a few days ago.

The parser is a little improved over the original version, but remains quite basic. It should be able to recognize phrases such as:

> take the torch
> give the torch

and that's all. In the C128 version, the description of the different places are a little more elaborate, but only the short version is available for the VIC-20 as it would not fit in the available memory and the screen is too small to accomodate long descriptions.

This is a beta preliminary release.

I would be very happy if someone can play this game on the VIC-20 and report bugs here so that I can correct them (both on the English and Italian versions of the game). If you spot typos and you want to suggest grammar improvements, I'll be very happy too

Good luck, you'll need it!

[Kweepa]

Seems like a fun little game! Thanks!

Spoilers:

Rather a tough start - I'm still not sure of the rules for finding the way to open the door, and the desert layout is confusing.
Then I think the only way to fix the lightsource is with 'change', which took me ages to find.
I'm stuck running around the upper floor of the pyramid, with nothing obvious to do.
But the puzzles I've solved aren't unfair so far - except for the hunt the verb, they are rather too easy.


"Bugs":

Word wrap would be nice!
Get, drop, and examine would be nice additions.
"Uhu?" Is confusing -> change it to "What?"
Not sure if there's a way to get a room redescribed without leaving and coming back.
In front of the pyramid, it says "I'm" in the desert, but in front of "you". Change to "me".

[DarwinNE]

Seems like a fun little game! Thanks!

My pleasure! It has been great fun working on this one and btw I could contact yesterday the original author of the typein program that was amused by the fact that this little game is still played today.

Spoilers:

Rather a tough start - I'm still not sure of the rules for finding the way to open the door, and the desert layout is confusing. ->
Then I think the only way to fix the lightsource is with 'change', which took me ages to find. ->
I'm stuck running around the upper floor of the pyramid, with nothing obvious to do. -> Do you need any hint?
But the puzzles I've solved aren't unfair so far - except for the hunt the verb, they are rather too easy.


"Bugs":

Word wrap would be nice! -> I know, it is difficult to implement while keeping the same source for the C128 with 80 cols. I'll think something.
Get, drop, and examine would be nice additions. -> I agree, I changed some words and added what you suggest
"Uhu?" Is confusing -> change it to "What?" -> I agree, done that!
Not sure if there's a way to get a room redescribed without leaving and coming back. -> I added "look around" and you can also type "*"
In front of the pyramid, it says "I'm" in the desert, but in front of "you". Change to "me". -> done!


I worked a little on the parser this evening and in the current version it should be much more flexible. Let me know if there are other bugs I can correct (btw, the VIC-20 memory is almost full!). The version on GitHub is updated. When the game will be stable enough, I think I will create a "release" page.

[Kweepa]

Sure, I'll take a hint, please
I think if you give it a shot you could make the word wrapping work for both platforms - I think it's just based on spacing in the strings currently, but I'd recommend printing the string a word at a time and adding a line feed if the word won't fit. You'd need to keep track of the current cursor X. (In my adventures, I split strings into words just before trying to print them.)

[DarwinNE]

Sure, I'll take a hint, please

If I understood correctly where you are stuck, look for the sapphire set in the wall and...

[Kweepa]

Aha, thanks!
I hadn't looked at the portable sapphire

Some more corrections:

bringing downstairs -> leading downstairs

I cracked and looked through the english strings on github:
Nut goddess -> goddess Nut
cant't -> can't
armoury is sometimes spelled armory, sometimes armoury. armory is American english. You choose!
should Anubi be Anubis?
mummy is sometimes written mommy... has a very different feel!
I break my neck -> I broke my neck
two thousands years -> two thousand years
Don's make jokes -> Don't make jokes
There are a few other things that sound a little foreign, but I'll put it down to the Egyptian guide

[DarwinNE]

Hi Kweepa!

Thanks for your advices and corrections, they are very useful.
I adopted the "process word by word" technique you suggested: it is slightly complicated by the presence of the text decorations, but it works as a charm. Indeed, reading the descriptions is much more pleasing now, I was not expecting such a difference. I just committed the new version to the github repository.


mummy is sometimes written mommy... has a very different feel! -> LOL!!! I see that!!!

...
There are a few other things that sound a little foreign, but I'll put it down to the Egyptian guide -> I agree! A few days ago I thought that this may be a side effect of my translation that would fit the game, after all.


BTW, I think this is a release candidate for version 1.0

[Kweepa]

The word wrap worked flawlessly. Very nice!
I was able to complete the game without a problem now
One bug: I wasn't able to drop the girder, except where it was needed.

[DarwinNE]

Hi Kweepa,
thank you very much for your feedback. I could fix that bug and I found a couple of odd behaviors that I fixed, too.
I could compile versions for the C64, PET and Plus4 too

Version 1.0 is out: https://github.com/DarwinNE/innuhs_pyramid/releases

[ral-clan]

Thank you for giving our beloved platform another text adventure! It's my favourite genre.

[DarwinNE]

My pleasure!