Because (as you note with Inform, and can also be noted with Umdum), it doesn’t say which system was made to create the games. It says which system you need to play them.
I assume. (Not being a comp organiser in any way.)
This should now work ok. Please let me know if you spot anything else.
Re the Quest 5 game in the IFComp: is it possible to change the default colour and font? I couldn’t find an option for it in game.
The display is bugged in the version of ADRIFT 5 I tested the game with (though hopefully this has since been fixed) which sounds like the problem you ran into here. The main reason I’d prefer online play being disabled is because the game was written with ADRIFT 4 and, when played online, it’s automatically updated to ADRIFT 5, and this introduces several bugs. The game can still be finished, but you’ll run into error messages and you’ll also see the letter “S” displayed three times on either of the location description. Not to mention the font going haywire in the second location.
If you download the latest version of the ADRIFT 4 Runner from the main site - adrift.co/files/ADRIFT40r.zip - you should be able to play the game just fine.
This is down to the browser not displaying certain fonts correctly. If you use Chrome it seems to display fine.
I’ve specifically asked the maintainer of Quest 5 for that option. I would assume he thought it was too low priority. I beg to disagree, and am glad to see the issue raised - customization of text is of the utmost importance in IF.
Done. See if it’s better now.
Because TADS games originally needed different interpreters to run them, and I thought that ADRIFT 5 was backwards-compatible with 4, which appears not to be the case. I’ll fix that next year.
David, I’ve disabled online play for your game.
From what I understand, Adrift 5 aims to be fully backwards compatible - with version 4 and even 3.90 (and if I had my way, 3.80, but I should be realistic). But it’s a slow process in that the major bugs have been either tracked or squashed… and what’s left is almost a game-per-game comparison to see everything that, in THAT particular game, SHOULD work but doesn’t. Add to that the fact that every single major version of Adrift has NOT been backwards compatible…
I mean, I accidently found out that 3.90 games played on 5 seem to lose their “examine me” responses. How’s that for arbitrary and hard to track.
Unfortunately, the game that got into the major comp seemed to hit a major unidentified bug…
Mind you, Campbell specifically created a thread where he asked comp participants about their bugs so that comp games would have the highest priority in bugfixing. It’s not for lack of effort. Just bad luck.
Ah oh. Thanks for the information.
ooooh. OK, thanks. In retrospect that seems so obvious.
My game was written with ADRIFT 4 but I tested it with ADRIFT 5 and ran into errors which didn’t exist if you played it with ADRIFT 4. Some of these issues were fixed in a new release but others were introduced and with the IFComp deadline looming and ADRIFT 5 still a work in progress, I thought it best if people didn’t play it with ADRIFT 5 at all. I even included a note in the READ ME file indicating that people are better off playing my game in ADRIFT 4, but unfortunately when you select online play you don’t see the READ ME and the game is automatically converted to ADRIFT 5. I never knew that online play would be enabled because the ADRIFT WebRunner is a very new feature and as such there was no option to test my game with it beforehand to see how well it played.
According to a reply I got on the Quest forum - axeuk.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2681 - the only way to change the default colour and font in Quest is to change the settings in Internet Explorer because Quest uses IE to display text. Talk about a convoluted way of doing something! Unfortunately it only works with IE8 and as I use IE9 (well, actually I use Firefox but I have IE9 installed) I can’t test it to see how it works.
To the Quest developer: I’d really suggest an easier option of changing the defaults. Even if I was using IE8, I’d be reluctant to go messing around with the fonts just to play an IF game. Every other system lets me change the defaults as and when I see fit. Why does Quest have to be different?
As I said in my reply, the feature will be added in the next version. The IE setting change is just a workaround that may work for some people.
I’d love to have had the time to implement this option along with many other suggested features for the v5.0 release but the reality of software development is that you have to prioritise certain features above others or you never ship anything.
I’ve now posted a patch to the Quest forums which lets you override the game colours: axeuk.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.p … 681#p19013