The Illustrator is a separate program, but because you’re unQuilling a final game you’re seeing that data too. If you’re producing a GUI that’s going to generate a Quill database then you don’t necessarily need to think about that.
The revised “version C” of the Spectrum Quill would be important to support, though, because that is the release that achieves parity with the other platforms; which were developed later. So, it has really important CondActs like AUTOG, AUTOD etc. And customisable system messages!
Supporting only “version A” of the Quill would be incredibly (incredibly) limiting.
Again, good to know thanks! I incorrectly Assumed that since Quill on most other platforms were referred to as “Version A-something”, that they would be equivalent to “Version A” on the ZX Spectrum.
Another question:
What is a good somewhat universal file format for saving and loading Quill games (excluding the BBC versions)? Are there any reasonable text-based formats? Is the game data saved by Quill/AdventureWriter the best way to do it even today?
There is no universal file format for Quill games. The closest there is to a common text file format is the unQuill output. There aren’t easy ways of transferring content from one platform to another.
There isn’t really much interest in cross-platform Quill development these days. If people want a cross-platform system that uses the Gilsoft-family adventure language then DAAD tends to be the system of choice, simply because you can target all the supported platforms with a single source file and compile/test on each platform almost instantly (using Uto’s tools).
Thanks! I tried making my own file formats a couple of times (sometimes based on JSON) but it often ends up being a bad idea. I did like the unPAWS output the most of the things I’ve seen.
Maybe I just shouldn’t bother with Quill after all, when later more useful software exists for more mature game engines of the Gilsoft pedigree
It’s been a good excuse to look into the Quill technical details though, and I find myself being impressed with the system.
Having a cross-platform tool would be really interesting but the audience would be fairly limited. We don’t even have decompilers for Quill on machines such as the Atari… which is a shame as there are some interesting exclusive games for some of the lesser known Quill platforms.
I’m just thankful for the great work the Spanish community have done over the years. My tool of choice these days is inPAWs, which allows me to work on a single source text file that I can instantly send across to a Spectrum emulator running the PAW and test my code. So much quicker than using the original database editor and it also has the advantage of being able to generate a CP/M game, without too much extra work. Once I’ve got a PAWed adventure then I can easily adapt it to run under DAAD and access all those extra platforms.
I could use a more modern system, like Inform, but I’m only making games for my own amusement (and only for me to play really) so I’m happy using the same adventure writing language that I was over thirty years ago.
