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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

#171

Post by derekp7 »

ballenf wrote: post #99
derekp7 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 original King's Quest had a puzzle which required writing down the alphabet forwards and backwards to encode Rumplestitskin as the secret word needed to get the magic beans. (You could "win" the game without the beans but you'd miss out on a really cool portion of the game and your score was far from the max.) The in-game puzzle hint was far from helpful. I played the game for a year before getting a hint book. R…

If I recall correctly, in the PCjr version of the game it was spelling the name backwards instead of doing a caesar cipher on it. That is the only puzzle that caught me for a while until one day sitting in a math class (in 1986 or something like that) where it finally clicked.

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

#172

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#173

Post by tobbebex »

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...

Indeed, it even has a Y2K bug in it!

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

#174

Post by notahacker »

jerf wrote: post #97
schoen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

Ah, yes, thank you. HHGttG rates a "Cruel" on this scale: http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_... 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 s…

HHG2G is beyond cruel. Even the simple bits were designed to irritate, like a couple of bits where you have to repeat an action until the text prompt admits the original description was a lie... (and yet at the other end of the scale, a couple of puzzles which would be quite confusing in normal games are trivially simple if you remember what happened in the books)

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

#176

Post by moomin »

drewolbrich wrote: post #132
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…

My only memory of the HGTTG puzzles was that early on in the game, you would have an opportunity to feed a sandwich to a dog, but at that point, there was no obvious motivation to do so. However, if you didn't do that, then much later on in the game, you would die aboard a miniaturized fleet of spaceships that would be devoured by the still-hungry dog.

I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle.

http://hhgproject.org/entries/carelesstalk.html

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

#177

Post by moomin »

philsnow wrote: post #149
djsumdog wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kings Quest V had TONS of instances where if you didn't react to a situation immediately, you'd lose an item that would be required later and you wouldn't realize it until you got stuck. (Throwing the fish at the bear or that shiny thing in the nest before the bird picks you up). KQ6 and 7 were setup so it was impossible to get stuck, but 5 was not. KQ3 had that annoying path you had to transverse and time limits unt…

The Monkey Island games were all set up to not allow fail states, so I was reasonably confident that my 8 and 10 year old kids could muddle through. I had to come to their rescue a couple times since they didn't get the headhunters pamphlet puzzle because it's based on a pun, but other than that they loved the first game and I'm confident they'll be able to do the sequels.

I remember that puzzle from first time around. I literally tried every object because I couldn’t figure it out.

Then I groaned when I realised what they’d done.

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

#178

Post by DonHopkins »

I wrote some comments on the Wikipedia Zork talk page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AZork#Link_to_the_origin...

Link to the original Zork source code in MDL

I suggest linking to the original Zork source code in MDL which is available here:

http://retro.co.za/adventure/zork-mdl/

Is it OK to link to that source code from Wikipedia? I don't know who officially owns it, though. It was never a commercial product, and was developed at MIT. As the Zork article mentions, the Zork source code was leaked way back in 1977, so the cat's been out of the bag for a long time. A link to the actual source code would be a nice thing to cite in that section.

It is fascinating to read, and really beautiful code, quite understandable even if you don't know MDL, and practically a form of literature.

I played the original Zork on MIT-DM and also the Infocom versions of course. Reading the source code is like seeing the behind-the-scenes underground rooms and passages at Disneyland!

While I was playing Zork, I found a bug. First some context: when you're battling the troll, you can give things to him, and he eats them! Sometimes he drops his axe, and you can pick it up and kill him with it. He blocks the exits until you kill him.

So I tried "give axe to troll," and he ate his own axe, then cowered in terror: "The troll, disarmed, cowers in terror, pleading for his life in the guttural tongue of the trolls."

Not satisfied with that, I tried "give troll to troll", and he devoured himself: "The troll, who is remarkably coordinated, catches the troll and not having the most discriminating tastes, gleefully eats it."

...Except that I still could not get out of the exit, because every time I tried, it said "The troll fends you off with a menacing gesture."

I figured there must be a troll flag that wasn't getting cleared when the troll devoured itself. And sure enough, I found it in the code, and it's called "TROLL-FLAG!-FLAG"!

Here is an excerpt of the MDL troll code, where you can see the bug, where it should clear the troll flag when the troll devours itself, but doesn't (well that's how I would fix it!):

               
                      
                             >>)
                            ()>
                       >
                             
                             )
                            (
                      >)>)
                     (
                      )
                     (
                      )>)
              (>
               )>>
Xardox (talk) 02:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

You can give something that you don't have? I was under the impression that it wouldn't work. Double sharp (talk) 13:17, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

You can give anything that's in the room or your inventory to the troll. So if his axe falls on the floor, "give axe to troll" will work without having to pick it up first, which is supposed to work. But even before he drops the axe you can go "give axe to troll" and he'll eat it while he's holding it, since it's transitively in the room. That's the first thing I did, that made me think of typing "give troll to troll"! Xardox (talk) 03:32, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

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

#179

Post by moomin »

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…

Okay, I’m going to be all hipster on everyone here but seriously has no-one ever heard the original radio series?

The original and better than a) the books b) the TV series and c) the movie.

They’ve all got their moments (except the TV series, that’s kind of a waste of time).

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

#180

Post by chkuendig »

vectorEQ wrote: post #8

https://bitbucket.org/jmcgrew/zilf/wiki/Home could zilf compile it? (i am not familiar with this language at all...)

It does, at least Zork runs, see http://blog.zarfhome.com/2019/04/all-of-infocoms-game-source... and https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/pull/38990
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