New Infocom style adventure - The Locked Room

[Shift838]

I have coded a few adventures for use on the Ti-99/4A and Geneve 9640 computers and wanted to get them other vintage computer systems.  Decided to try my hand at Infocom Style adventures.

 

I have ported my Locked Room riddle adventure to work on the ST and other computers using an Infocom interpreter.

 

Below is the link to download the atr disk image if you want to check it out.

 

click HERE to download the disk image for Atari 600/800/1200/XE/etc

 

I have quite a few in mind to code (new ones).  I have permission from Scott Adams to code any sequels to his originals and I am current working on Pyramid of Doom II.

[+Larry]

Requires Basic?  And does not autorun (on Altirra)?  When I tried it without Basic, I got "Internal Error 2590."  I got it to load/run by typing "DOS."  Can you provide a few details on how to correctly launch it?

[Shift838]

6 hours ago, Larry said:

Requires Basic?  And does not autorun (on Altirra)?  When I tried it without Basic, I got "Internal Error 2590."  I got it to load/run by typing "DOS."  Can you provide a few details on how to correctly launch it?

it loads in Altirra.  I am using 4.10.  My setup is:

 

Base System : NSTC 800XL (64k)

OS Firmware: AltirraOS 3.34

Altira Basic 1.58

Mounted the disk image in Drive 1 and booted up, it auto loads..

 

 

 

 

[+Larry]

Thanks.  I'll try it with the Altirra OS and Altirra Basic.

[+DrVenkman]

7 hours ago, Larry said:

Requires Basic?  And does not autorun (on Altirra)?  When I tried it without Basic, I got "Internal Error 2590."  I got it to load/run by typing "DOS."  Can you provide a few details on how to correctly launch it?

Ditto. Doesn't run for me in Altirra configured with a Altirra OS, Atari XL/XE OS, 1200XL or even a 48K 800 w/OSb.

[+Larry]

I substituted the Altirra 3.34 XL OS and Altirra Basic 1.58.  Still doesn't run here.  But as before, if I type DOS, it loads and executes the game.

[Shift838]

9 hours ago, Larry said:

Thanks.  I'll try it with the Altirra OS and Altirra Basic.

I have reached out to the developer of the script i am using to get it onto a ATR disk image.  I have been able to reproduce your results with specific systems in Altirra 4.10.

 

Below is what I have found:

AltirraOS 3.34 for 400/800            Works
AltirraOS 3.34 for 65C816             'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'
AltirraOS 3.34 for XL/XE/XEGS       'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'
Atari 1200XL OS rev. 10                'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'
Atari 1200XL OS rev. 11                'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'
Atari 400/800 OS-A NTSC             Black screen, no boot
Atari 400/800 OS-A PAL                Works
Atari 400/800 OS-B NTSC              Works
Atari 400/800 OS-B NTSC (patched)     Works
Atari 400/800 OS-B PAL                 Works
Atari XL/XE OS ver.1                      'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'
Atari XL/XE OS ver.2                      'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'
Atari XL/XE OS ver.3                      'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'
Atari XL/XE/XEGS OS ver.4             'INTERNAL ERROR #2590's

 

 

[drpeter]

5 hours ago, Shift838 said:

I have reached out to the developer of the script i am using to get it onto a ATR disk image.  I have been able to reproduce your results with specific systems in Altirra 4.10.

As far as I can tell, INTERNAL ERROR #2590 occurs whenever booting with no BASIC enabled- either because a system with BASIC inbuilt (such as XL/XE) has BASIC disabled, and/or because no BASIC cartridge is inserted to a system without inbuilt BASIC.

 

Any system with BASIC inserted/enabled boots to the READY prompt, after which DOS runs the program- for me, on Altirra 4.10 -test14, that includes the setup you mentioned (

Base System : NSTC 800XL (64k)

OS Firmware: AltirraOS 3.34

Altira Basic 1.58)

 

EDIT: interestingly, runs even with 16K RAM! (this despite at least one version of Infocom's Zork I stating that 48K & 810/1050 was required)
EDIT2: I've since found an image of an earlier version of Zork I stating 32K & 810 required

EDIT3: As one might expect, the original Infocom disks were also intended to be booted without BASIC

Edited May 28, 2023 by drpeter

[EdwardianDuck]

It's written in Inform6+PunyInform (same as my WIP game) so it doesn't need BASIC. If it runs with BASIC* present fair enough, but I think it will run more smoothly if RAM is present instead. It really should just boot into the game if the image creation process is equivalent to what is outlined in the Puddle Build tools. For an Atari, this is basically append the .Z3 file to the interpreter file, pad it with zeros to the exact size of an ATR then call the file nameofgame.atr. There's no DOS or file structure as such.

 

I played a few moves before the game crashed and I was returned to the READY prompt. This reinforces my thought that there is something amiss with the ATR.

 

Great minds think alike, two of the three aims are the same ones I came up with.

 

While I don't want to be critical of anyone's efforts, I did notice a few issues before it crashed. I'm pointing these out in the spirit of trying to help.

 

Firstly, the introduction mentions a stream, which is not implemented / understood, possibly this could be cheap scenery?

 

Secondly, if you try to open the locked door, you get a custom message followed by the library default (without an intervening space). My guess is that you're printing the first message in a BEFORE routine, but not returning RTRUE to prevent the default action running.

 

Thirdly, the EXAMINE text for the key should change once you've taken it. Once the door is unlocked the key disappears, but is still part of the piano description.

 

After unlocking the door I was unable to open it. Not sure if this is a bug or I need to do something else first, but as I was trying a few things, the game crashed and I gave up. The default library message suggests that the door no longer has the openable attribute, but of course I can't be sure.

 

* I just checked, my game will run with BASIC present, but it's not needed or recommended.

 

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

When I say "my game runs with BASIC enabled" I mean it starts up, I didn't play through the whole thing again.

[EdwardianDuck]

I did manage to complete the game (in nine moves!) and noticed some other cosmetic issues. Mostly descriptions which reference objects which have earlier been taken, adjectives which describe objects not being understood (for example "wooden door", but "wooden" is not understood by the game). Also OPEN PIANO gives a message about the window.

 

I was unable to crash the game this time, so perhaps I did something strange first time round.

 

All in all it's a fun little game, but I do think it would benefit from a bit more testing and it feels a bit underimplemented, there's too many things which are referenced but not implemented for my personal taste.

 

Hopefully this helps.

Jeremy

[EdwardianDuck]

I found the .Z3 on your FTP site and built a .ATR using the process I described earlier. This boots straight into the game as expected. The files differ starting from byte 7189, which is after the interpreter (length 7184) so perhaps the build process is modifying the appended .Z3 in some way.

 

I'm happy to post my build of the .ATR here if you're OK with that.

 

Jeremy

[+Larry]

@EdwardianDuck is there any reason that these type programs can't be launched as Atari provided -- load dos (2.5, etc.) and run the program as an Autorun.sys?

 

It also appears from the OP testing that this was prepared as a 400/800 type program. (?)  It executes perfectly for me using the NTSC OS-B with no Basic.

[EdwardianDuck]

To the best of my knowledge, no, because the interpreter being used (whether this is a period correct Infocom interpreter, a modern replacement of a hybrid of both is unclear to me) is effectively the start of a bootable disk to which the game file is appended to form the image. My guess based on no actual knowledge is that this is done to save memory. I imagine it uses the same area of memory as DOS. In theory I imagine someone who is so inclined could port the OZMOO interpreter from the C64 world to the A8 (as has been done for the BBC Micro) and make that a transient program loadable from DOS.

 

I vaguely remember the only Infocom game I had for the A8 in the 1980's (HHGTTG) was a bootable disk like this.

 

Doubtless an actual expert will be along shortly to correct me and explain this correctly.

 

Jeremy

Edited May 28, 2023 by EdwardianDuck

[jindroush]

I did the disassembly of the interpreter some time ago, it's actually quite clever code - but I've never seen it booting from the DOS, always a bootable disk with story file attached. Two side/two disk games worked in a way that "resident" part was on disk 1 and swappable part on disk 2. Also the information about actually running on 16K RAM seems quite impossible to me, as the parser itself would take most of the memory, without any actual space left for the game itself.

[patjomki]

3 hours ago, EdwardianDuck said:

I did manage to complete the game (in nine moves!) and noticed some other cosmetic issues.

[...]it feels a bit underimplemented, there's too many things which are referenced but not implemented for my personal taste.

 

I managed to solve the riddle in seven moves and I also found some mistakes, e.g. when you look at the piano the game says: "It's a beatful grand piano...".

 

This typo is in the c64 version, too.

Edited May 28, 2023 by patjomki

[Ricky Spanish]

1 hour ago, patjomki said:

It's a beatful grand piano

[Shift838]

8 hours ago, EdwardianDuck said:

It's written in Inform6+PunyInform (same as my WIP game) so it doesn't need BASIC. If it runs with BASIC* present fair enough, but I think it will run more smoothly if RAM is present instead. It really should just boot into the game if the image creation process is equivalent to what is outlined in the Puddle Build tools. For an Atari, this is basically append the .Z3 file to the interpreter file, pad it with zeros to the exact size of an ATR then call the file nameofgame.atr. There's no DOS or file structure as such.

 

I played a few moves before the game crashed and I was returned to the READY prompt. This reinforces my thought that there is something amiss with the ATR.

 

Great minds think alike, two of the three aims are the same ones I came up with.

 

While I don't want to be critical of anyone's efforts, I did notice a few issues before it crashed. I'm pointing these out in the spirit of trying to help.

 

Firstly, the introduction mentions a stream, which is not implemented / understood, possibly this could be cheap scenery?

 

Secondly, if you try to open the locked door, you get a custom message followed by the library default (without an intervening space). My guess is that you're printing the first message in a BEFORE routine, but not returning RTRUE to prevent the default action running.

 

Thirdly, the EXAMINE text for the key should change once you've taken it. Once the door is unlocked the key disappears, but is still part of the piano description.

 

After unlocking the door I was unable to open it. Not sure if this is a bug or I need to do something else first, but as I was trying a few things, the game crashed and I gave up. The default library message suggests that the door no longer has the openable attribute, but of course I can't be sure.

 

* I just checked, my game will run with BASIC present, but it's not needed or recommended.

 

Jeremy

Fixed a couple of things.  I don't get any crashes, but never did.

 

I would need to know what you typed before the it crashed..

 

Fixed the spacing and spelling error.

 

As far as opening the door, you can't do that until you have accomplished everything else because once the door is open it leads to your freedom.

[Shift838]

I have received an answer back from the developer of the script used to create a exact duplicate of the infocom disk just with the new game.

 

His quote:

"The early single-disk interpreter, which you used to create the Atari 8-bit disk image of your game, needs to be started from a BASIC prompt. It won't work if you boot it from machine code mode instead, which will result in 'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'. Please make sure that in Altirra under -> SYSTEM you enable this option -> Internal BASIC (boot without option key). When the machine enters BASIC, you type DOS to start the game. "

 

Also please remember any of the machines that do not have built in basic will need a basic cartridge to boot to in order to issue the DOS command to run the game

 

 

 

 

[Shift838]

Use the link at in the first message to download version 2.0 with some fixes.

[FifthPlayer]

25 minutes ago, Shift838 said:

When the machine enters BASIC, you type DOS to start the game. 

 

That's pretty bizarre, to say the least.

[jindroush]

The original Zork1 interpret boots just fine without BASIC, tried that with the story file from here https://ifdb.org/viewgame?id=3h48r59mtw4i9l8e

[Ricky Spanish]

4 minutes ago, FifthPlayer said:

That's pretty bizarre, to say the least.

Very bizarre. 

[+Larry]

From memory:  There are a couple of vectors that need to be changed to get 800 programs to boot/run on an XL.  This doesn't cure all programs, but will fix many.  I have used these before, and have the info written somewhere, but I can't find it.  Does anyone remember these?  I'm pretty sure this info is in Mapping, but can't locate it.

 

 

[EdwardianDuck]

1 hour ago, Shift838 said:

I have received an answer back from the developer of the script used to create a exact duplicate of the infocom disk just with the new game.

 

His quote:

"The early single-disk interpreter, which you used to create the Atari 8-bit disk image of your game, needs to be started from a BASIC prompt. It won't work if you boot it from machine code mode instead, which will result in 'INTERNAL ERROR #2590'. Please make sure that in Altirra under -> SYSTEM you enable this option -> Internal BASIC (boot without option key). When the machine enters BASIC, you type DOS to start the game. "

 

Also please remember any of the machines that do not have built in basic will need a basic cartridge to boot to in order to issue the DOS command to run the game

 

 

 

 

I guess my understanding of how this works is wrong. Sorry about that, I wasn't intending to spread confusion and misinformation. I won't post on this subject again.