Space Derelict! (type-in)

Games for Spectrum, C64, Amstrad, Amiga, Apple ][ and the rest of the 8-bit and 16-bit platforms. Pleas for help, puzzles, bug reports etc.

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Garry
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Re: Space Derelict! (type-in)

#16 Post by Garry » Mon Feb 07, 2022 3:30 pm

I finished it, thanks to Jim's hint regarding THINK OPEN when there was nothing to open. I didn't find any further game breaking bugs. (There were bugs, just not game breaking.) I did a bit of a search and couldn't find a downloadable version of the Apple book. There are a few printed versions around and Jason Scott said he bought a copy, so I'm surprised that it's not on the Internet Archive.

Regarding Graham Nelson's comment on it being a "turgid" book, doesn't that apply to most of the "how to write adventure" books of the time?

At any rate, another one bites the dust. I'll get a map and solution written up in the next day or two.

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jgerrie
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Re: Space Derelict! (type-in)

#17 Post by jgerrie » Tue Feb 08, 2022 12:45 am

Yep, the bugs were not of the game breaking type, just annoyances that spoil an otherwise neat little game. For example, you could press the green button to open the door into the ship without having pressed the black button to close the outer door without triggering explosive decompression. He set a variable AL=1 for when the outer airlock door is closed, but didn't use it again. I changed that. Now its black before green and you're keen, green before black you ain't coming back. I know the ship has air because there are footprints in dust on the floor and things aren't floating in a vacuum, etc.

The book was a little turgid, but having written some turgid pedantic books myself I'm not going to criticize. The code was very bloated though. Multiple repeated IFs for everything, including the handling of every movement. Crazy. I've seen games with 3 times as many rooms and messages but the same byte count because not all of it was eaten up by program commands (so many IFs). Still, a neat premise that actually works out well for a little 8-bit BASIC adventure of the time period. I think I've fixed most of its annoyances in my version. Thanks for the suggestion Strident and the debugging tips Garry. Now I might take a crack at his 5 person poker game in the second half of the book, unless you folks have any suggestions for other IF programs that need to be brought back to life from digital oblivion.

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auraes
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Re: Space Derelict! (type-in)

#18 Post by auraes » Thu Feb 10, 2022 6:35 pm

Garry wrote:
Sat Feb 05, 2022 4:04 am
Does anyone have a reference for a quick start to the Model 4? I want to know the bare minimum needed to create a self booting disk that will auto run a BASIC game, i.e. what disk format to use, what DOS to use, what system files to include and how to auto run a BASIC program.
There is a TRS-80 Model 4 z-machine game interpreter under development. Maybe the developer can help you with the Model 4.
https://gitlab.com/sijnstra1/m4zvm

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Garry
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Re: Space Derelict! (type-in)

#19 Post by Garry » Fri Feb 11, 2022 4:12 am

Maybe the developer can help you with the Model 4.
Good idea. I know Shawn. He's a fellow Aussie and I've tested one of his games. He's given me a few pointers to get started with the Model 4 autoboot.

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