Fun with Z-Code (aka Inform)
Here is my homage to old Infocom games using Inform.
Okay, I’ve been a fan of adventure games, and specifically Infocom games, for most of my life. I have fond memories of playing great games such as “Planet Fall” and “Zork” when I was in high school on my C64. However, even before playing those games, I was playing and writing games on my ZX81 using a very simple adventure engine.
Now, I found Inform some years ago and ported some old ZX81 games to Z-Code, Infocom’s resurrected virtual machine. Normally you have to have an interpreter to play those games, but browsers are much more powerful now. That, and I wanted something I could potential play on my iPod from a web page.
To that end, there is a great little javascript Z-Code interpreter called Parchment. Even cooler, they have a simple API that you can feed it a link to your Z-Code and it will play it. Well Hot Dog! I have some Z-Code files already, so I gave it a try! And, you know what, it works great in Safari!
If you’re bored and looking for a quick adventure fix, give these two very short games a try:
THE TOMB CAVERNS
CITY OF ALZAN
P.S. Playing through Caverns, I found some more mistakes I missed. (sigh) Since Inform 7 is out, I probably will just give it a spin instead of trying to fix anything. Live a little!
Updated 3/14/2017. I finally got around to fixing Parchment’s links to point to their new home.