[Coco] How I "Ported" Planet of Death to Coco

[Steve Batson]

I've always liked the idea of a Text Adventure Engine, but I haven't
tried using one. I've considered writing my own, but just haven't spent
the time. For Resource constrained systems such as 16K CoCo or what's
normally available to RS-DOS Basic, probably makes more sense to write
something from scratch optimized for the CoCo, same with the MC-10 or
other systems. Obviously, basic would be more portable, but an Assembly
Language engine called from basic could be much more compact
and be faster. Not even sure I'd want to tackle that one.



Besides some Classic Computer Fans, is there even enough interest in Text
Adventures with this world of high res graphics? And I'm not talking about
money, but behind the sense of accomplishment and personal enjoyment, I
wonder how many people of modern systems including phones and tablets
would have an interest in text adventures.
 


> I used the same adventure engine back in the early 80s to
"attempt" to

> write a large adventure in BASIC. I eventually ran out of memory on
my 16k

> Coco 2and abandoned the project.

> I got the "Tower of Mystery" listing from:

>

> "COMPUTE!'s Guide to Adventure Games"

>

> by Gary McGath and published in 1984. I think it was a collection of
their

> articles so the "Tower of Mystery" was probably in
"Compute!" magazine as

> well.

>

> The info in that book was invaluable to me in learning BASIC
programming

> as I had to convert the listing to be compatible with the Coco.

> I have a scan of the book that could be upoloaded.

>

>

> Bill Pierce

> "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens

>

>

> My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3

> https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/

> Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia

> http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

> E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com

>

>

>

>

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

>

From: jimgerrie <jimgerrie at ns.sympatico.ca>

> To: coco <coco at maltedmedia.com>

> Sent: Tue, Apr 14, 2015 10:31 am

> Subject: [Coco] How I "Ported" Planet of Death to Coco

>

>

> Steve,

>

> I don't work from binaries only text source (BASIC,JAVA,C, etc.)

>

> scavenged from the Net or magazines (if you know of any good
prospects

> let me

> know). In the case of POD, someone had ported the original game

> to C so it

> could be run on one of the old TI calculators (or something

> like that). I

> came across it while researching POD. It had all the

> objects, messages,

> locations, and responses nicely typed out in neat

> strings and a numeric table

> of the room motions (luckily in a pretty

> standard format of room numbers for

> N,S,E,W,U,D for every room). I just

> plucked these, and then plunk them into a

> pretty flexible BASIC

> two-word parser engine from Compute magazine (I think),

> called "Tower

> of Mystery "(which Neil Morrison of the Yahoo group sent me
and

> which I

> have tweaked with a 32 character word wrap routine, so it fits

>

> everything neatly onto an MC-10/Coco screen). Then it was just
reading

> and

> watching various walk-throughs to tweak the "Tower of Mystery

> engine to

> provide the right responses to all the verb object

> combinations needed.

>

> I

> forgot to mention, another ZX derived game of mine is FESQUEST
(which

> is a

> homage to the Coco Fest Chicago events). It is a rehash of a port

> to the

> MC-10 of "Pit with Monsters" by Jim Enness for either the
ZX81

> or Spectrum

> (can't recall which), which I typed in from a Brit computer

> mag many years

> ago.

>

> If you look at my

> http://faculty.cbu.ca/jgerrie/Home/jgames.html

>

>

> programs marked with * are completely new programs. Ones marked with
+

> are

> either remakes (drawing inspiration from or possibly code as in
the

> above

> case) or more straightforward ports of BASIC source modified to

> run on the

> MC-10 (and then later further modified to work in Color

> BASIC for the Coco

> and Dragon).

>

> --

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>

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--

Steve Batson

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