Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

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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Denk
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Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#1 Post by Denk » Tue Oct 11, 2022 12:16 am

Hi,

Last year I got permission from Dorothy to distribute her games as z-code games, so IF players could play her games without knowledge of emulators.

It is quite easy to convert the quill games with UnQuill by John Elliott. However, it takes bit more time to convert the startup menus manually to inform. They contain instructions, hints etc.

I did it first for "The Great Aussie Adventure" but never got around to upload it anywhere. So I might as well attach it here in case anyone is interested. I might do some more if there is any interest.

Take a look at the screenshot below to get an idea of how the manually converted menu will look.

I was also thinking that the Z-code versions could be attached as a "fixed game" to the corresponding database entry?
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Strident
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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#2 Post by Strident » Tue Oct 11, 2022 6:36 am

It wouldn't be appropriate to host them as "fixed games". There's nothing wrong with the originals and that's still the best way to play them to get the proper experience.

Have you seen auraes' zQuill project, by the way? https://gitlab.com/auraes/zquill

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Garry
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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#3 Post by Garry » Tue Oct 11, 2022 8:18 am

Interesting. I had thought about doing something like this myself.

If it was me, I'd skip the menus and jump straight into the game. Without seeing the content of each menu item, I think they could all be incorporated within the game itself. For example, 'About the Adventure' could be in the prologue at the start of the game or in ABOUT. 'Instructions' could be in HELP. 'Help' could also be in HELP, unless it's hints, then it could be in HINT. 'More Adventures' is no longer appropriate, but could be included in the epilogue at the end of the game. 'About this conversion' could be in ABOUT.

Is it a pure port or enhanced?

I noticed that it's a z8 file. That sounds like you did it in Inform 7. If it was me (again), I'd have done it in PunyInform and compiled to z3 and z5 so that I could use the Puddle build tools to deploy to the maximum number of platforms.

I agree with Gareth that it's not really a "fixed game", so the IF Archive is probably the best place to host it.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#4 Post by Denk » Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:16 pm

Strident wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 6:36 am
It wouldn't be appropriate to host them as "fixed games". There's nothing wrong with the originals and that's still the best way to play them to get the proper experience.

Have you seen auraes' zQuill project, by the way? https://gitlab.com/auraes/zquill
As both you and Garry replied, "fixed games" is not an appropriate solution so I will think of something else.

Thank you for the link to ZQuill. I don't speak French so I put it through Google Translate. I wonder what the purpose is of using ZQuill instead of UnQuill(?)

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#5 Post by Denk » Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:25 pm

Garry wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 8:18 am
Interesting. I had thought about doing something like this myself.

If it was me, I'd skip the menus and jump straight into the game. Without seeing the content of each menu item, I think they could all be incorporated within the game itself. For example, 'About the Adventure' could be in the prologue at the start of the game or in ABOUT. 'Instructions' could be in HELP. 'Help' could also be in HELP, unless it's hints, then it could be in HINT. 'More Adventures' is no longer appropriate, but could be included in the epilogue at the end of the game. 'About this conversion' could be in ABOUT.

Is it a pure port or enhanced?

I noticed that it's a z8 file. That sounds like you did it in Inform 7. If it was me (again), I'd have done it in PunyInform and compiled to z3 and z5 so that I could use the Puddle build tools to deploy to the maximum number of platforms.

I agree with Gareth that it's not really a "fixed game", so the IF Archive is probably the best place to host it.
You are right, I used Inform 7. I haven't much experience with Inform 6 so I wouldn't know how to modify the UnQuilled versions. Otherwise you are right, that I could include the menus and the two parts in one single z5. At the moment there are two z5-files (each part) and a z8-file for menus. That isn't elegant but what I am capable right now.

It is a pure automatic port but I played through the UnQuilled versions to test that the game works as the original (except for colors) before I will release them.

With your Inform 6 and Puddle knowledge you could probably do it much better, but for now, I might as well release what I have.

I would like to be more in control than the IF Archive and I already have a Github page so I probably put them there. It would be nice if I knew how to make z5-files playable online, then I could make them playable on itch.io too.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#6 Post by Strident » Tue Oct 11, 2022 6:04 pm

Denk wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:16 pm
I wonder what the purpose is of using ZQuill instead of UnQuill(?)
unQuill is a great tool, for dissembling games, but it makes really bloated z-code files that aren't really suited for playing on retro systems. I can't speak for auraes, but I think the intention was to produce "proper" z-code versions of the games that perform better than the ones auto-generated from unQuill.

Iirc, the automatically generated z-code output from unQuill is not suitable for playing through Ozmoo, or usable on retro systems because of the way it uses the memory. You're not making proper z-code games that way.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#7 Post by Denk » Tue Oct 11, 2022 6:18 pm

Strident wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 6:04 pm
Iirc, the automatically generated z-code output from unQuill is not suitable for playing through Ozmoo, or usable on retro systems because of the way it uses the memory. You're not making proper z-code games that way.
Makes sense. Ideally, someone will make versions suitable for retro platforms. However, except for colors, the UnQuilled version played perfectly well with a Windows Z-code interpreter which was my main concern. The player should choose a mono-spaced font though for the best experience.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#8 Post by Garry » Wed Oct 12, 2022 1:26 am

Denk wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:25 pm
I would like to be more in control than the IF Archive and I already have a Github page so I probably put them there. It would be nice if I knew how to make z5-files playable online, then I could make them playable on itch.io too.
Most people use github for the source code, but you could put both source code and compiled story file (z3, z5, z8) there and perhaps copy just the story file to the IF Archive.

I've started putting my z5 games on itch.io using Parchment so you can play them online. It's a bit clunky to get it working properly and I still haven't mastered some aspects of it, but it works well. My last three games ('Carpathian Vampire', 'Kenny Koala's Bushfire Survival Plan' and 'Alchemist's Gold') are playable online. You can get to them from my home page at https://warrigal.itch.io/. If you do host them at itch.io, you can put all the instructions on the game page and just a brief summary in the game. That's what I do.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#9 Post by auraes » Thu Apr 20, 2023 10:32 am

Hi all, it's been a long time !
Denk wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:16 pm
I wonder what the purpose is of using ZQuill instead of UnQuill(?)
I think Strident answered well. There is also a pedagogical interest in being able to access the source code of the game, and the interpreter, in a fairly readable way.
Denk wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:16 pm
UnQuilled version played perfectly well with a Windows Z-code interpreter which was my main concern.
I don't agree with that. UnQuill has some difficulties to decode text messages, there are often too many line feeds; there are also some bugs in the interpretation of the Quill behaviour (at least for the C version of the interpreter; I don't know if they are also in the zcode interpreter too).

I recently worked on the C version (cQuill) of my interpreter, I will surely update the zcode version (zQuill). The C version of Land of the Giants, by Dorothy Millard, now conforms to the original (except for the colors, because I only used the standard C library). I don't know if it compiles on Windows with MinGW (I don't have one at hand). I put a binary for the DOS version in the appropriate folder.
You can find it on my GitLab repository.

PS, I will have to change my pig face !

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#10 Post by Denk » Thu Apr 20, 2023 5:47 pm

auraes wrote:
Thu Apr 20, 2023 10:32 am
Denk wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:16 pm
UnQuilled version played perfectly well with a Windows Z-code interpreter which was my main concern.
I don't agree with that. UnQuill has some difficulties to decode text messages, there are often too many line feeds; there are also some bugs in the interpretation of the Quill behaviour (at least for the C version of the interpreter; I don't know if they are also in the zcode interpreter too).
I'm sure you are right as you have looked a lot into this topic I understand. What I meant was that to me the specific game "The Great Aussie Adventure" appeared to play perfect but of course if I started looking for minor discrepancies I might have found some.

I hope to look into zQuill at a later stage. Are there any English instructions for it? I could only see the French readme.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#11 Post by auraes » Fri Apr 21, 2023 8:18 am

Denk wrote:
Tue Oct 11, 2022 5:16 pm
I hope to look into zQuill at a later stage. Are there any English instructions for it? I could only see the French readme.
Don't waste time with this.
You have to decompile the games with UnQuill and then convert them. The conversion is easy to script except for the messages; it's very tedious: you have to take them one by one by hand, and check that they are displayed as on the original.
The best would be to make a new zcode interpreter.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#12 Post by Denk » Wed Apr 26, 2023 12:40 pm

ok, will stick to UnQuill then. Thanks

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#13 Post by auraes » Fri Apr 28, 2023 9:09 am

You can already fix a bug in iqrun.inf, by replacing the value 20 with 13 in the following code:

Code: Select all

			if (r == 0) 
			{
				if (QuillVerb < 20) 
				{
					SysMess(7); ! Can't go that way
					PutChar(13);
				}
				else
				{
					SysMess(8); ! Can't do that
					PutChar(13);
				}
			}
There was also a bug with automatic verbs: autog autodrop, etc. it was not displaying the right message for the C version; I'll look into it if I have time.

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#14 Post by auraes » Tue May 02, 2023 1:06 pm

I recovered the bug I had identified with the wear and autow action. If you try to wear something you are already wearing, it does not display the right system message: 28, "I don't have it." instead of the 29, "I'm already wearing it.".
In the file iqproc.h, add:

Code: Select all

 if (ObjectPos->ob == 253) { SysMess(26+d);PutChar(13); rtrue; }

Code: Select all

[WearObj ob d;
        if (options->0 == 0) d = 0;
        else                 d = 3;
!        if (ob            == 255) { SysMess(8);   PutChar(13); rtrue; }
        if (ObjectPos->ob == 253) { SysMess(26+d);PutChar(13); rtrue; }
        if (ObjectPos->ob ~= 254) { SysMess(25+d);PutChar(13); rtrue; }
        ObjectPos->ob = 253;
        QuillFlags->1 = QuillFlags->1 - 1;
        PutChar(13);
        rfalse;
];

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Re: Z-code versions of Dorothy Millard's games incl. menus

#15 Post by Denk » Tue May 02, 2023 9:51 pm

Thanks, it would be good to fix those. However, I never really used Inform 6 (except PunyInform briefly). As far as I remember, UnQuill gave me automatically a z-code file which is what I have published. However, I played through the z-code version and did not notice any bugs so it is very much playable. At the moment, this project has very little priority but I hope to get back to it some time. If anyone wants to contribute, feel free and I can upload files similar to those for The Great Aussie Adventure here: https://github.com/kpeamon/DorothyMillardGames

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