is Colossal Cave Adventure easy to port to INTV?

[vprette]

by benefit of the new 240K carts available for intv, I was thinking about a port of the classic text adventure to intv... is there any source sample available to handle text based command lines? is this kind of interaction easy to make on intv?

 

the source of the game is free for dowload in languace C and fortran

Edited January 24, 2012 by vprette

[intvnut]

Valter,

 

There is code out there for reading the ECS's keyboard, but that would also limit you to folks with an ECS. That said, you could probably assign common verbs to the controller keypad, and build a sort of menu around the disc/action buttons to allow play on an unexpanded unit.

 

I don't think traditional (as in "no graphics") text adventures were nearly that large, though. I remember loading them from tape on my TI-99/4A, and it had only 16K total RAM. (I'm not counting the 256 bytes of 'scratch' where the CPU stored its 'registers'.) When you subtract out the portion used for video display, there was probably no more than 14K available for the text adventure, tops.

 

That said, you could collect several text adventures in one cartridge. If they averaged 8K each, and you had, say, a 16K interpreter, you could get around 28 of them in one cartridge, perhaps more with compression.

[Tempest]

The Intellivision's built in font would be TERRIBLE for text adventre games. You'd really need to use your own font for something like that.

[+Gemintronic]

You could use the menu interface from the Sega Master System version of Kings Quest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=889zezfyKcQ

 

Of course, half the fun in CC was spending hours trying and failing to input the right commands..

Edited January 24, 2012 by theloon

[vprette]

Valter,

 

There is code out there for reading the ECS's keyboard, but that would also limit you to folks with an ECS. That said, you could probably assign common verbs to the controller keypad, and build a sort of menu around the disc/action buttons to allow play on an unexpanded unit.

 

I don't think traditional (as in "no graphics") text adventures were nearly that large, though. I remember loading them from tape on my TI-99/4A, and it had only 16K total RAM. (I'm not counting the 256 bytes of 'scratch' where the CPU stored its 'registers'.) When you subtract out the portion used for video display, there was probably no more than 14K available for the text adventure, tops.

 

That said, you could collect several text adventures in one cartridge. If they averaged 8K each, and you had, say, a 16K interpreter, you could get around 28 of them in one cartridge, perhaps more with compression.

 

compression? I know nothing about

 

a game for ECS is a good idea anyway.... could have a collector value....... so I would choose this as easier solution....

a minimum of graphic for 5-6 locations would be good anyway... so I'm thinking about Colossal Cave, also because Zork is still license of activision

do you have any intv code I can start with to make a try?

[GroovyBee]

In my opinion the Inty isn't suitable for text adventures because it can't display a 40 column text mode.

[vprette]

if I'n not wrong, there are 11 commands to use in Colossal, so that could be done by the keypad..

but than you need to tape name of stuff..

Edited January 24, 2012 by vprette

[1980gamer]

How many homebrew carts sell for intellivision?

Stonix sold 250 copies. Does everyone that wants one, have one? I actually have 2

 

Of the people that buy intellivision homebrew games.... How many have an ESC? I would think most of us do.

 

I think the active community could and would by ESC homebrew games. Maybe a poll of how many of us have an ESC would help. I have a few around here.

 

The TI cassette games had a 12K limit, But the Adventure command module held program code and the tapes were mostly just data.

However based on the loading time... The games I remember ( Pirates Adventure, The Count etc. ) did not take very long to load, so much less than 12K would be my guess.

 

The TutorVision doubled the display to 40 columns, Can the exec be bypassed to do the same? Maybe this was a hardware change? But I think I read it was software?

 

With the controller....1-9 with clear and enter gives you your 11 commands. The 0 brings up a manual text entry "window"?

 

Left and Right overlays... Left as above, Right, 1 is A,B or C. 2 is D,E or F etc. cell phone texting style. No ECS required!

 

I have not played a text adventure for MANY years, but I think it is a cool project anyway.

[vprette]

How many homebrew carts sell for intellivision?

Stonix sold 250 copies. Does everyone that wants one, have one? I actually have 2

 

Of the people that buy intellivision homebrew games.... How many have an ESC? I would think most of us do.

 

I think the active community could and would by ESC homebrew games. Maybe a poll of how many of us have an ESC would help. I have a few around here.

 

The TI cassette games had a 12K limit, But the Adventure command module held program code and the tapes were mostly just data.

However based on the loading time... The games I remember ( Pirates Adventure, The Count etc. ) did not take very long to load, so much less than 12K would be my guess.

 

The TutorVision doubled the display to 40 columns, Can the exec be bypassed to do the same? Maybe this was a hardware change? But I think I read it was software?

 

With the controller....1-9 with clear and enter gives you your 11 commands. The 0 brings up a manual text entry "window"?

 

Left and Right overlays... Left as above, Right, 1 is A,B or C. 2 is D,E or F etc. cell phone texting style. No ECS required!

 

I have not played a text adventure for MANY years, but I think it is a cool project anyway.

 

ok, I posted a poll here as you suggested

 

at the moment I would be more interested in ECS development, since I have very poor experience in development and studying this code could open for more text adventure releases

Edited January 26, 2012 by vprette

[+DZ-Jay]

Like GroovyBee, I also do not think text adventures are suitable for the Intellivision.

 

If you are thinking of porting classic, old-school games, you'd be better off choosing something like the old Sierra graphic adventures, such as King's Quest, Space Quest, or dare I say... Leisure Suite Larry.

 

In those games, text input was limited to "verb noun" constructs, but the story developed graphically, by the actions of the characters and the environments. Plus you got to move your avatar around with a controller, like a regular video game.

 

Alternatively, you could use the SGI user interface of the later versions of Sierra adventures, where the "verbs" were represented by icons on a menu, and you just "pointed-and-clicked" the item you wanted to operate on. Sort of like the SCUMM interface of LucasArts (Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, etc.), but simpler.

 

For bonus points you could imement both! That way, people with the ECS can enter more complex commands than the point-and-click SGI interface would allow on the normal version.

 

dZ.

[vprette]

Valter,

 

There is code out there for reading the ECS's keyboard, but that would also limit you to folks with an ECS. That said, you could probably assign common verbs to the controller keypad, and build a sort of menu around the disc/action buttons to allow play on an unexpanded unit.

 

I don't think traditional (as in "no graphics") text adventures were nearly that large, though. I remember loading them from tape on my TI-99/4A, and it had only 16K total RAM. (I'm not counting the 256 bytes of 'scratch' where the CPU stored its 'registers'.) When you subtract out the portion used for video display, there was probably no more than 14K available for the text adventure, tops.

 

That said, you could collect several text adventures in one cartridge. If they averaged 8K each, and you had, say, a 16K interpreter, you could get around 28 of them in one cartridge, perhaps more with compression.

 

my next tedious question: is jzintv emulating ECS? I mean when testing an ECS source I can use the PC keyboard just like it was the ECS keyboard?

[intvnut]

Valter,

 

There is code out there for reading the ECS's keyboard, but that would also limit you to folks with an ECS. That said, you could probably assign common verbs to the controller keypad, and build a sort of menu around the disc/action buttons to allow play on an unexpanded unit.

 

I don't think traditional (as in "no graphics") text adventures were nearly that large, though. I remember loading them from tape on my TI-99/4A, and it had only 16K total RAM. (I'm not counting the 256 bytes of 'scratch' where the CPU stored its 'registers'.) When you subtract out the portion used for video display, there was probably no more than 14K available for the text adventure, tops.

 

That said, you could collect several text adventures in one cartridge. If they averaged 8K each, and you had, say, a 16K interpreter, you could get around 28 of them in one cartridge, perhaps more with compression.

 

my next tedious question: is jzintv emulating ECS? I mean when testing an ECS source I can use the PC keyboard just like it was the ECS keyboard?

 

Of course!

 

The -s1 flag enables ECS. F7 maps the PC keyboard to the ECS's keyboard. F5 maps the PC keyboard back to the hand controllers.