A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Any discussions related to the creation of new hardware or software for the ZX80 or ZX81
User avatar
yerzmyey
Posts: 1240
Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 10:11 am
Location: Rubber Planet
Contact:

A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by yerzmyey »

Hi.

I have all the materials for a big and (I hope) interesting text game. The problem is, the game originally is for Spectrum 128, so text alone takes about 72Kb.

Do You think anybody might code it for HDD / ZXpand / FDD? With multiloading parts?

I have the text (obviously fully in nice English), 10 full-screen hi-res illustrations 256x192 monochrome, one STC song for AY/ym2149, as the background song. Pretty big 'though.

Image

Hence my question about multiloading. Our 32Kb of RAM isn't _that_ big amount.

Anyway. Everything is ready - but I can code only

1 PRINT "F*CK"
2 GOTO 1

So... You know.

All the best for You guys,
Yerz
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
sirmorris
Posts: 2811
Joined: Thu May 08, 2008 5:45 pm

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by sirmorris »

Hi Yerz!

This sounds very interesting. I have a lot of projects right now though ... Does the game already exist? I can certainly advise on how to port it.
nollkolltroll
Posts: 325
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2014 8:02 pm
Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by nollkolltroll »

I've had some thoughts about this before and found that both basic and C would be good candidates for such a project.
The clue is to make each location fit in 32kb together with the data needed to stitch everything together.
/Adam
User avatar
Paul
Posts: 1511
Joined: Thu May 27, 2010 8:15 am
Location: Germanys west end

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by Paul »

I will try this.
I can't promise fast delivery but I am interested and want to code this.
With some help of Charlie and you yerz I will manage.
It's feeling good already.
May I ask what game it was on spectrum because I would like to try it out to get a feeling of how it could be.
Kind regards Paul
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.
User avatar
Andy Rea
Posts: 1606
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 2:48 pm
Location: Planet Earth
Contact:

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by Andy Rea »

No reason this shouldn't be possible, i have thought about similar things before... something along the lines of low mem = running code and current game state / database / player condition / current inventory ect.ect. all the things that need to travel across maps/areas/levels and then in higher mem loaded as needed each location / map data ect... or multi locations in a linked list of sorts...

But yeah go for it ...

Regards Andy
what's that Smell.... smells like fresh flux and solder fumes...
Lardo Boffin
Posts: 2160
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2016 2:42 am

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by Lardo Boffin »

If this was written for the 128k Spectrum that used bank switching (of 16k?) so presumably the code and data is already set up for loading in chunks?
ZX80
ZX81 iss 1 (bugged ROM, kludge fix, normal, rebuilt)
TS 1000 iss 3, ZXPand AY and +, ZX8-CCB, ZX-KDLX & ChromaSCART
Tatung 81 + Wespi
TS 1500 & 2000
Spectrum 16k (iss 1 s/n 862)
Spectrum 48ks plus a DIVMMC future and SPECTRA
Shaun_B
Posts: 474
Joined: Wed Apr 22, 2009 10:22 am

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by Shaun_B »

I have written some text adventure engines and found dictionary look up tables to be very useful. I assume something like this will be utilised?

Good luck,

Shaun
User avatar
yerzmyey
Posts: 1240
Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 10:11 am
Location: Rubber Planet
Contact:

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by yerzmyey »

Hey, guys, I do appreciate this very much.

Well, I'm not a coder - Hellboj is coding it on ZX128 - but our arrangement was that I give him an ODT file (document from OpenOffice) and he uses it. It's because we used 2 (or 3?) kind of dash sign and italics and bold font (required in English version, as I've been told from my English translators).
On Spectrum Hellboj will change the italics and bold font into different colours.
On Atari XL and C64 they will simply use the original look of the ODT (but in resolution 320/200, so the letters will be reasonably bigger).
On ZX81 we might use a standard ZX font of course, forget about longer dash signs, as there will be only English version (and they don't use dashes in dialogues), but I don't know how to replace italics and bold font.

The last technical thing I can mention is the "syntax" for the computer. What I mean is: I made two versions. One will be in a book form. So it's just a normal book, no special syntax required. BUT. Hellboj in his ZX version wanted to make kind of "hypertext": when You chose what the protagonist will do next, You have written several possibilities. Hellboj said they will be like "active links in HTML".
Hence an example of the "computer version" text:
"
What next? How was he going to handle what was happening? What attitude was he going to take to these events? He could see two options; admit that he was, in fact, probably insane and [6see a psychiatrist] or recognise that, actually, something bad really was going on and [7try to get some advice from a scientist].
"
1) It means: "see a psychiatrist" and "try to get some advice from a scientist" are ACTIVE LINKS.
2) "6" means that when the player press this link with a cursor sign - he will go to the chapter/paragraph number 6.
"7" means that when the player press this link with a cursor sign - he will go to the chapter/paragraph number 7.
They are information for the computer.

The "book version" doesn't have those, and just using a pure text, like "go to the chapter 6" and something like that.

Of course I can provide both version of the file. I will be sending them in private messages to You guys, because I don't want to spoil the game publishing it prematurely, hahaha.

I made text, music and graphic for the game but I have to admit, as for the text, it's the best thing I have written so far and - surprisingly - I'm very pleased with the result (which is most uncharacteristic for me).

Example of graphic I put there before; the music will be my Berlin-School / Tangerine Dream-like song
http://yerzmyey.i-demo.pl/death_squad/1 ... square.mp3

ZX81 with ZXpand reads BMP files 256/192, so I can provide all 10 illustrations in this format. 1-bit / mono.

ZX81 with ZXpand can play STC music, so I can provide my music exactly in this particular format too. I'm pretty sure the code can be "translated" also into other popular disk-drives of ZX81, anyway that's exactly what people do on Spectrum (it's common to release game for ZX48, ZX128, and additionally for tape, for TR-DOS and even for ZX+3).

OK, I will be sending the private messages today, with the materials.

If anybody more would be interested and didn't get the materials - feel free to PM me of just write here.

Also - once again SOOOOOO GREAT THANX for Your help.
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
User avatar
yerzmyey
Posts: 1240
Joined: Thu May 15, 2008 10:11 am
Location: Rubber Planet
Contact:

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by yerzmyey »

...additionally, the game on ZX Spectrum will look more-less like this (sorry, no words division yet, work in progress) -
Image

and version for Atari XL (maybe also for C64) would like like this:
Image

So, as You can see, I'm not attached to ANY look and I accept everything what a coder requires (if it makes any sense, hahahahaha :) ).

Sorry for the PL versions, for now I have only such screenshots, but of course finally there's also a full English-language version, which is actually 100% ready and very good, I dare to say.

Byezzzzzzzzzzz,
Y

PS: Ah, regarding the question - the game is still "work in progress" on every platform, so for now only the TXT version is fully ready to play.
IN NIHILUM REVERTERIS - a big text-adventure game for ZX81: http://tiny.pl/g2m6m
"MONOCHROME" issue 5 - (Spring 2014) free paper/PDF magazine about ZX81: http://tiny.pl/q2m44
ZX81 COMPETITIONS 2007/2009: http://zx81.republika.pl/
User avatar
mrtinb
Posts: 1906
Joined: Fri Nov 06, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: Denmark
Contact:

Re: A big text-game in English. Anybody would code it?

Post by mrtinb »

yerzmyey wrote: Sat Nov 11, 2017 7:50 pm ZX81 with ZXpand reads BMP files 256/192, so I can provide all 10 illustrations in this format. 1-bit / mono.
As you can see in MAXDEMO - it can display 320x240 with Bodo Wenzel's code.
Martin
https://zx.rtin.be
ZX81, Lambda 8300, Commodore 64, Mac G4 Cube
Post Reply