"Roadside Adventure," a 10k TADS game

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Inspired by Dave Bernazzani's Moonglow, a 10k Z3 game,
and curious was to whether anything similar could be done
in TADS 2... I did. It's a 10k TADS 2 .GAM, exactly the
same size as Moonglow.

You could get it here, if you have an unzipper:
http://nodesiege.tripod.com/if/
The actual file is at
http://nodesiege.tripod.com/tads10k.zip
although I'm not sure if Tripod lets me link like that.

Of course I relied on the TADS 2 parser, which made things
easier.

But to put it in perspective, if you compile adv.t and std.t (the
libraries that come with TADS 2), it's already 50k before
you've made any rooms.

By the way, the game is a parody. I hope no one is annoyed
by it!

Kevin Venzke

 

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> Inspired by Dave Bernazzani's Moonglow, a 10k Z3 game,

Can I quote this for my wife... she won't believe that I've inspired
_anyone_ 😉

> You could get it here, if you have an unzipper:
> http://nodesiege.tripod.com/if/
> The actual file is at
> http://nodesiege.tripod.com/tads10k.zip
> although I'm not sure if Tripod lets me link like that.

Phenomenal job! Congratulations Kevin. I've only played it a bit, but you've
not only got what appears to be a larger map than Moonglow, but you've got
an NPC and managed to squeeze in ABOUT text! The 2nd and 3rd 10K
Miniventures are coming soon (CATSEYE and THE CELL are tentative titles).
If you are agreeable, I'd love to add this to the Miniventure page after you
get some feedback on it. I don't think the Miniventures would need to be
Inform specific (I use a stripped down 6K version of the library called
"microform" as my library for the Miniventures). I've also got a game
(tentatively called SHRUNK) with a custom parser that I hope to work into an
8 room 3 puzzle game (30 or so dictionary words) that will fit in 5K.

--
Dave Bernazzani
Join the Commodore 32 Inform minigame contest:
http://www.gis.net/~daveber/minform/c32.htm

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

"Dave Bernazzani" <dber@gis.net> wrote in message
news:2ta2qkF1tejagU1@uni-berlin.de...
> > Inspired by Dave Bernazzani's Moonglow, a 10k Z3 game,
>
> Can I quote this for my wife... she won't believe that I've inspired
> _anyone_ 😉

Sure, and I will tell my acquaintances that someone intends to quote me.

> Phenomenal job! Congratulations Kevin. I've only played it a bit, but
you've
> not only got what +appears+ to be a larger map than Moonglow, but you've
got
> an NPC and managed to squeeze in ABOUT text! The 2nd and 3rd 10K

Key word "appears," I think --
All in all I think the NPC is comparable to Moonglow's. Chatters, but is
less interactive.

> Miniventures are coming soon (CATSEYE and THE CELL are tentative titles).
> If you are agreeable, I'd love to add this to the Miniventure page after
you
> get some feedback on it.

I'm agreeable, unless it turns out that it is loathed. I've already put up
a
new version since you replied, FYI.

> I don't think the Miniventures would need to be
> Inform specific (I use a stripped down 6K version of the library called
> "microform" as my library for the Miniventures). I've also got a game
> (tentatively called SHRUNK) with a custom parser that I hope to work into
an
> 8 room 3 puzzle game (30 or so dictionary words) that will fit in 5K.

Hmm, so is the 6k library the source size, or compiled size? I'm trying to
imagine that Moonglow's specifics fit into 4k compiled; I guess that must
be possible.

Kevin Venzke

 

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"Kevin Venzke" wrote:
> Key word "appears," I think --
> All in all I think the NPC is comparable to Moonglow's.
> Chatters, but is less interactive.

The alien only moves between 2 areas and does react to a couple things you
give him but little else. However, I suspect you coded your NPC as I did
(more of a simple object that reacts to a few things rather than an entity
with orders/life properties) so perhaps they are comparable.

> Hmm, so is the 6k library the source size, or compiled size?
> I'm trying to imagine that Moonglow's specifics fit into
> 4k compiled; I guess that must be possible.

The compiled library with 1 room and 1 object is a shade under 6K. Moonglow
with all the internals adds another 4K of compiled code to the mix.

The size of the sources are substantially larger and are as follows:

MOONGLOW.INF is 13K
PARSER is 34K
VERBLIB is 7K
GRAMMAR is 2K

So the 56K of sources (including comments and such - though not many)
compiles down to just 10K of actual Z-code. Using the 6K compiled library
(PARSER, VERBLIB and GRAMMAR), that leaves just 4K for the actual specifics
of the adventure. But the 6K library does quite a bit of heavy lifting in
terms of object and verb manipulation - the MOONGLOW.INF file is still very
Inform-like and object oriented. In fact, I believe it will still compile
using the full version of Inform with the stock libraries (only it would be
much, much larger).

I'll grab the new version of Roadside Adventure.

--
Dave Bernazzani
Join the Commodore 32 Inform minigame contest:
http://www.gis.net/~daveber/minform/c32.htm

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

"Kevin Venzke" wrote:
> Key word "appears," I think --
> All in all I think the NPC is comparable to Moonglow's.
> Chatters, but is less interactive.

The alien only moves between 2 areas and does react to a couple things you
give him but little else. However, I suspect you coded your NPC as I did
(more of a simple object that reacts to a few things rather than an entity
with orders/life properties) so perhaps they are comparable.

> Hmm, so is the 6k library the source size, or compiled size?
> I'm trying to imagine that Moonglow's specifics fit into
> 4k compiled; I guess that must be possible.

The compiled library with 1 room and 1 object is a shade under 6K. Moonglow
with all the internals adds another 4K of compiled code to the mix.

The size of the sources are substantially larger and are as follows:

MOONGLOW.INF is 13K
PARSER is 34K
VERBLIB is 7K
GRAMMAR is 2K

So the 56K of sources (including comments and such - though not many)
compiles down to just 10K of actual Z-code. Using the 6K compiled library
(PARSER, VERBLIB and GRAMMAR), that leaves just 4K for the actual specifics
of the adventure. But the 6K library does quite a bit of heavy lifting in
terms of object and verb manipulation - the MOONGLOW.INF file is still very
Inform-like and object oriented. In fact, I believe it will still compile
using the full version of Inform with the stock libraries (only it would be
much, much larger).

I'll grab the new version of Roadside Adventure.

--
Dave Bernazzani
Join the Commodore 32 Inform minigame contest:
http://www.gis.net/~daveber/minform/c32.htm