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Is there any good modern analogue to Infocom games that I can plan on my iPhone slowly?
Even the most inefficient ZIL interpreter will spend most of its time in a stall loop.
So, are these playable online over gh-pages? It would be so cool if the gh-pages contained an interpreter that loaded the source from github.
This is the correct link, not the one on the HN post: https://github.com/historicalsource?tab=repositories As a zipfile because someone is bound to get that repo taken down. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S1CgtZNEKS8VITqTAWAkeyO0LBf...
Is that some kind of angle bracket lisp? Can anyone shed more light of zil files?
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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…
> If you wrote down an objective standard to measure an adventure or text game by There is such a standard, devised by Andrew Plotkin (edit: in 1996). Quite a few games have been rated on it. http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Cruelty_scale
It's been a while since I played it and had detailed memories of all the solutions and details, but I think there's a solid case to be made for Evil on the extended scale, and I wouldn't be surprised it could qualify for Hell, I just don't recall enough to be sure. I am not saying this merely to slur the game; I am referring to the objective characteristics of the game. (It definitely does not qualify for the "Ninth Circle"; it is beatable with a walkthrough, though, as I said earlier, it's still a bit of a challenge because you need to be very details-oriented, as does the walkthrough author.)
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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 in-game puzzle hint was far from helpful. I played the game for a year before getting a hint book. Reading the solution left a sour taste in my mouth for the whole game.
I played all the KQ games and don't remember a single puzzle that convoluted in any of the others. I believe they nerfed that puzzle in later releases of the game.
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?
> Turn on computer
"You turn on the computer, after 3 minutes a glowing green block slowly flashes on the screen in front of you"
> Wait
"You wait a while. A glowing green block slowly flashes on the screen in front of you."
...
I hope you had a mimeographed sheet of paper that would tell you to type "CLOAD VISICALC"
Infocom games played a key role in my learning to be a programmer, sysadmin, hardware geek, network guru, etc. It is all about exploring what these machines can do. I remember poking around Infocom games with a hex editor looking for clues.