home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Fresh Fish 8
/
FreshFishVol8-CD1.bin
/
new
/
game
/
role
/
itf
/
amiga.txt
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-10-18
|
21KB
|
465 lines
The InfoTaskForce Infocom Interpreter Version 4.01
==================================================
Amiga Release 1.60 by David Kinder
==================================
Fed up of the rather crude official Infocom interpreters? Annoyed that "The
Lost Treasures of Infocom II" wasn't released for the Amiga? Then read on...
There have been several ports of Infocom interpreters to the Amiga, but none
of this program. The interpreter supports v1, v2, v3 (Zork1 to Stationfall),
v4 (Trinity, Bureaucracy, etc.) and v5 (Sherlock, Beyond Zork, etc.) games.
With this interpreter you can play ALL the games in the 3.5" disk LToI2
package for the IBM PC, by copying the datafiles with CrossDOS or similar,
then just running this interpreter. This program requires AmigaDOS 2.04 or
higher to run.
As far as I am aware, as of Release 1.40, this interpreter supports all the
features of Infocom data files relevant to the Amiga, including the "Undo"
command (in such games as choose to implement it). If you find otherwise,
please let me know.
Infocom Startup
===============
Infocom can be started with a game file by clicking on the Infocom icon and
then shift double clicking on the game file icon. Alternatively, if the game
file's default tool has been set to where Infocom is, double clicking on the
game file icon will load Infocom and run the game.
The following can be added to the ToolTypes field of the Infocom icon (not
game file icons):
ATTRIBUTES - equivalent to the -a command line switch
PRELOAD - equivalent to the -l command line switch
NOPAGING - equivalent to the -p command line switch
TRANSFER - equivalent to the -t command line switch
BZCOLOURS - use "Beyond Zork" colour scheme with the graphics file.
The synonym "BZCOLORS" is also accepted. Equivalent to
the -z command line switch.
If the Infocom icon is double clicked (i.e. no game file selected), Infocom
scans the assignment INFOCOM: (and its sub-directories) for valid Infocom
game files. To speed up scanning, files are ignored unless their name
matches the AmigaDOS pattern (~(#?.#?)|#?.(dat#?|z?)). This means that only
files with no extension, or files ending with .data (Amiga story files) or
.dat (PC story files) or .z3 or .z5 (files produced by the Infocom format
compiler Inform) are scanned.
Using the InfoPrefs editor (see below), further directories to be searched
can be defined, and also directories to be ignored if the scan reaches them.
If Infocom cannot find one of the further directories specified, the
directory will not be searched and no "Please Insert Volume..." requester
will appear. Whether INFOCOM: is searched at all before these other
directories or not, and whether or not a "Please Insert Volume..." requester
appears if INFOCOM: cannot be found can be defined in InfoPrefs.
After searching is complete, a list of all the games found will appear. The
action taken by Infocom on finding multiple copies of the same game can be
altered in InfoPrefs. The default action is to display all games that have
been found. If more than one version of the game is found, the serial number
will be displayed in brackets after the game name. Other available actions
are to only display different versions or only to display the first found
version of each game.
Click on the game you want to play and it will load and run. If you click on
a game while holding down the shift key a requester will appear indicating
the name of the game, its release and serial numbers, and the full path to
the game file. At the bottom of this list is a "Select with File Requester"
gadget. Clicking on this gadget opens a file requester with which you can
select the game to play. This list can also be made to appear by starting
Infocom from the Shell with the -w switch. Note that this must be the only
argument, i.e.
Infocom -w
is the only valid use of this switch.
The "Infocom" Display
=====================
If Infocom opens on its own screen, the screen clones the Workbench screen
to use its size, resolution and fonts (unless selections have been made for
these in InfoPrefs). If possible, the Infocom screen is public, with the
name "Infocom".
Pressing the Help key gives the game currently playing, its author and
difficulty level (where available), and the screen type (public, private,
etc.).
Version 3 games can be played using a proportional font (specified in
InfoPrefs). If no version 3 font is specified, the fixed width window font
will be used.
Left and right margins can be used (set in InfoPrefs) so that the text is
not flush with the screen border. This can be useful to make the text more
readable if you are using a program to give screens black borders. The
status line of most Infocom games will extend across the screen regardless
of the margin settings.
The current line can be edited using backspace, delete, and the left and
right cursor keys. The shifted cursor keys move the cursor to the beginning
and end of the current line, respectively.
Input lines have a history buffer. Use cursor up and down to scroll through
the buffer, and shift cursor up and down to go to the top and bottom of the
buffer, respectively.
File Operations
===============
If asl.library is available, Infocom uses the file requester to prompt for
any file names required. For Save and Restore operations, the default name
is the name of data file, minus any extensions and with ".Save" appended.
If the project icon Icon.Data is present in the same directory as Infocom,
saved game files have this icon when Infocom is started from Workbench.
The Script command causes a window to open. In the window the user can
choose the file to which the script should be sent by either typing it into
the string gadget, or click on the "Req" gadget, which causes a file
requester to open. This allows the script to be sent to a device that does
not appear in the file requester, e.g. PRT:.
Support for Specific Games
==========================
1) "The Lurking Horror"
Sound files are supported, as distributed with the Amiga release. Copy
all the sound files to the subdirectory Sound in the directory containing
the Lurking Horror data file, e.g.
DataFiles/LurkingHorror <- data file
DataFiles/Sound/s#?.dat <- sound files
DataFiles/Sound/s#?.mid
2) "Border Zone"
"Border Zone" implements an internal clock which is constantly running,
regardless of whether you type in commands or not. Thus events take place
without the user doing anything.
3) "Beyond Zork"
Infocom can use the graphics file "Graphics.data", which was part of the
original Amiga release of "Beyond Zork", and was also included in the
Amiga version of "The Lost Treasures of Infocom I". Copy the file to
where the "Beyond Zork" data file is kept. The file may be renamed to
"BeyondZork.gfx". Use of the graphics file requires that the window text
is an 8×8 non-proportional font. If the font does not match these
characteristics, then topaz/8 will be used instead.
If the graphics file is present, the interpreter can use the "Beyond
Zork" colour scheme. This feature is activated by the -z command line
switch or the "BZCOLOUR" icon tooltype, or by InfoPrefs. The colour
scheme can then be changed in the game with the "color" command.
The arrow keys can be used to select items in the startup menus.
The function keys are preloaded with commands, which can be changed from
within the game with the "define" command.
The numeric keypad and the mouse can be used to select a direction. To
use the mouse, click in the map to indicate the direction you wish to
move in.
Special Commands
================
The debugging commands present in some games are supported. These are
#record, #unrecord and #command (#reco, #unre and #comm in version 3 games).
#record prompts for a file name, to which all user input is sent until the
command #unrecord is issued. This recording of the user's actions can be
replayed with #command, which prompts for a file name to play back.
Also, the command "Undo" (present in some version 5 games), which takes back
the player's last move, is supported.
The "Infocom.games"