I promise, I meant mercenary In this context ā¦ āmercenaryā describes an attitude rather than a profession. Itās decidedly non-formal ā¦ it just means the kind of person whoāll try to exploit any situation for monetary gain (used for contrast: the context usually presumes that most folk would be charitable under the circumstances described). Often, it carries faint connotations of pragmatism or cynicism.
Calling a person āmercantileā would pretty much always be a literal description of the way they make their living. It isnāt used (at least in my experience) to describe a personality.
Just to finish my part in this thread, I have capitulated and bought an iPod Touch. It is the best thing I could have done, and after a chat with the maintainer of iFrotz Iām reporting every issue I can find to make it even better.
My only regret is that, in buying the gadget, I am supporting Apple and its policies, some of which I abhor - especially the one that goes āwe control every aspect of everything that goes into our products, and you, the user, who has shelled out money for us and now have ownership of said gadget, have zero say in the matterā.
I didnāt spot the PM until you prompted me to look! I usually get an email notification.
I agree it would be nice for there to be a Quest interpreter app, but thatās unlikely to happen soon, for a number of reasons.
First is the question of how this would be done technically. I could re-write two Quest interpreters in Obj-C (one for Quest 1-4, one for Quest 5). Or I could shell out for a copy of MonoTouch and hope to convert the existing C# code. This would probably not be straightforward, as Quest 5 depends on FLEE to compile and run expressions, and I donāt think this works under MonoTouch due to restrictions on emitting code at run-time.
Secondly, there is the App Store restriction that disallows apps from downloading code. I think Frotz gets around this by including a lot of games with it, and perhaps you can use iTunes to transfer Z-code files across? Either way, not a great user experience.
I think the āone game at a timeā approach works reasonably well. It means that each game can be individually converted and submitted as an app, which means when you go to the App Store you know youāre getting a game that has been tested to work well on a mobile device. You only need to download the games you want, and you donāt need to worry about transferring game files.
Not with itunes, but you can put Frotz into a āserverā mode and then upload files from another machine on the same network.
Itās certainly not ideal, but it allows people to play games and a bunch of the Inform canon is pre-installed. So it works well. Naturally I think that single-game apps are an excellent supplement to this strategy.
Including the file manager app I use, which is brilliant. Itās also a way to get around Appleās silly restrictions. If Quest - or indeed, any app - could do this, the whole problem would be solved. I just have my entire ZCode/Glulx collection in folders in my iPod, use FileApp to browse, and open the filed in iFrotz, which then conveniently adds them to its internal playlist. It is a DREAM of a setup, and I heartily reccomend it to any designer.
I am curious, however, as to why a separate Quest 4 interpreter would be necessary, if Quest 5 (on Windows at least) also plays Quest 4 games.
That is true, and it means only the best games - or the ones that are worth it - will see light of day as an app. But thatās about the only advantage I see over a system that will automatically play a Quest game created by others (or me!) on a mobile environment without the hassle of contacting you. Especially if I then update my game - how much easier it is to just run it, as opposed to having you APP-ify it again?
Because Quest 5 has two interpreters - one is called LegacyASL and handles games written for Quest 1-4, and the other is called WorldModel and handles games written for Quest 5. So all Iām saying is that to write a Quest interpreter for iOS would require writing two lots of code (presuming one wanted it to handle all games) as there are really two different systems to handle.
This may become more streamlined - I can imagine a self-service option, which would convert games and maybe send the result to Phonegap Build, then send you the finished app. This is probably less work for me than creating a new intepreter app - Phonegap Build has an API, so all it requires will be a bit more testing of the Quest-to-JS converter (usually something breaks and I have to fix the converter, which is why this isnāt automated yet).
This little sentence has been bothering me since it was written, and I can now refute: I certainly can get places in Counterfeit Monkey, the game Iām playing right now, in five-minute segments (combined with longer segments, naturally). I can now speak from experience. Iām in early stages still, I know, but I have no difficulty turning the necessary concentration on/off when I play the game. Plus, I actually solved a puzzle while I wasnāt playing the game, which has always been one of the most exciting features of adventure games, textual and graphical.