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Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

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Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#81

Post by ThorinJacobs »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #46
jerf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an extremely difficult game. In theory, I know the answer to all the puzzles, however, there are so many ways to lose without realizing it that I've never managed to string together a single play session in which I do it correctly. Though I've also long since stopped trying. :) For instance, there are subareas where you must collect various tools. Many of these are themselves rather fragile affairs, easy to rui…

Frankly, this sounds like terribly punishing game design. Why did so many players put up with it? Was there really nothing better?

This was deliberate on Douglas Adams' part [0]. It's all part of the joke. Other notable sections are where the game actively lies to you about being able to access a particular room (you need to try to enter several times in a row), and then sulks when you call it out and lies about the contents of the room.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_th...

Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#82

Post by djsumdog »

jerf wrote: post #43
bredren wrote: post #37

Hitchhikers Guide was one of the first PC games I ever got. I had no idea it was a “text adventure.” Nor did I understand it was based on a book. My dad got it for me used from The Computer Club in downtown Lake Oswego, Oregon. I picked it out largely due to the green guy on the front of the box. I remember being delighted by all the weird stuff it came with, including a small packet of fuzz, and other artifacts from…

It is an extremely difficult game. In theory, I know the answer to all the puzzles, however, there are so many ways to lose without realizing it that I've never managed to string together a single play session in which I do it correctly. Though I've also long since stopped trying. :) For instance, there are subareas where you must collect various tools. Many of these are themselves rather fragile affairs, easy to rui…

This is really the problem with the entire early genre of adventure games. The later Sierra titles were terrible about this. You pretty much needed the hint book to beat many of them. Even after they dropped text for point-n-click, the puzzles were still hard and not really intuitive.

The later LucasArts games were better at this (I bit The Dig without any hints; think I needed one or two for Full Throttle).

The modern era of adventure games really got this right with the puzzles being more direct and the game being more about story telling. The Walking Dead, Heavy Rain and The Wolf Among Us are great examples of this genre done right. Too bad it didn't save Telltale Games, although Quantic Dream's will hopefully be around after their third console release.

Indie games in this genre have been hit or miss. Broken Age started off amazing (good story, puzzles, didn't need hints) but the 2nd part went back to the old adventure game ways with impossible puzzles. Atmospheric games are fared better: Virginia and Far Lone Sail are two great adventure-ish games that are really good storytelling as game.

Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#84

Post by FabHK »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #46
jerf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an extremely difficult game. In theory, I know the answer to all the puzzles, however, there are so many ways to lose without realizing it that I've never managed to string together a single play session in which I do it correctly. Though I've also long since stopped trying. :) For instance, there are subareas where you must collect various tools. Many of these are themselves rather fragile affairs, easy to rui…

Frankly, this sounds like terribly punishing game design. Why did so many players put up with it? Was there really nothing better?

Part of the answer might be that the game had to be small (fit on one floppy disk, say), which limited complexity (or rather, the complexity came from intricate connections and puzzles, rather than much "content").

Imagine the game had been easy, fair, and providing guidance, as today's casual games - you'd have played through it in an hour and a half. And for that you had gone to the mall and paid quite a sum!

So, the games were harder, and you had months of fun (for some value of fun...) playing the same thing again and again, until you made progress.

Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#85

Post by FabHK »

mrkstu wrote: post #53
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, this sounds like terribly punishing game design. Why did so many players put up with it? Was there really nothing better?

It was kind of the point. His other Infocom game was called Bureacrary, so you can see the theme developing... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureaucracy_(video_game)

An infamous scene in Bureaucracy was when you had to order some food in a diner, and you'd spend 10 minutes on that (How do you want the burger, rare, medium, or well done? With fries or onion rings? Small, medium, or large? Coke or Fanta? Regular or light? etc. etc., really drawn out), and then the waiter comes back and explains that the computer crashed and you had to go through the whole tedious process again...

Come to think of it, why did we put up with it?? :-)

Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#87

Post by icedchai »

Graham24 wrote: post #23

"Zork I is a 1980 interactive fiction game" Surely, these were called Adventure Games at the time. I never recall them being called that.

When I played these in the 80's, we just called them "text adventures." The box did say Interactive Fiction... Nobody called them that.

Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#88

Post by derekp7 »

djsumdog wrote: post #82
jerf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an extremely difficult game. In theory, I know the answer to all the puzzles, however, there are so many ways to lose without realizing it that I've never managed to string together a single play session in which I do it correctly. Though I've also long since stopped trying. :) For instance, there are subareas where you must collect various tools. Many of these are themselves rather fragile affairs, easy to rui…

This is really the problem with the entire early genre of adventure games. The later Sierra titles were terrible about this. You pretty much needed the hint book to beat many of them. Even after they dropped text for point-n-click, the puzzles were still hard and not really intuitive. The later LucasArts games were better at this (I bit The Dig without any hints; think I needed one or two for Full Throttle). The mode…

I think the best of the Sierra games was the original Kings Quest, as all the puzzles were based on various fairy tales. Also, some display glitches helped such as items that you could move would be drawn on the screen last.

The worst section of a Sierra game was in Leisure Suit Larry, where the official way of getting money is to save the game state every time you win at the casino. If you lose a round, then restore the game state. To me this was "breaking the fourth wall".

Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#89

Post by chrisbrandow »

This is a codebase I’ve long been interested in seeing. I just always assumed it would be inscrutable assembler, though I should have known better given the game’s lineage.

Boy, this brings me way back to playing Zork on a 20 lb amber-screen ibm “portable”.

Re: Source code for Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, and other Infocom games

#90

Post by themodelplumber »

chatmasta wrote: post #41
philipodonnell wrote: post #21

> In general, Infocom games were created by taking previous Infocom source code, copying the directory, and making changes until the game worked the way the current Implementor needed. Structure, therefore, tended to follow from game to game and may or may not accurately reflect the actual function of the code. Some things never change... EDIT: this is how I do most of my personal projects!

And developer sense of humor about code quality remains the same... https://github.com/historicalsource/zork/blob/70d16c9c817bc1...

That word "issue" used in the context of a printed magazine... seems like you don't hear it used much anymore.
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