Yes, drat the copy protection, a lot of which isn’t screenreader-friendly at all. Although I wonder if in some instances it would be possible to have the relevant information inserted directly into the game in a consultable form—the ID card in Lurking Horror, the info wheel in Sorcerer, ETC.
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I wouldn’t be a huge fan of modifying the source code of existing games, although I might play a complete remake.
Would importing earlier games into Inform (or whatever) and exporting them in a later Z-machine format (like z5 or z8) not add several quality of life features without needing to change the source code?
You can’t import any Z-code game into Inform. If it was written in Inform, you may be able to decompile it into (typically ugly and unreadable) Inform source code form again. Infocom’s games were not written in Inform.
I thought at least some of the early games had been reverse engineered when testing the Z-machine export?
In any case, the games would need to be imported into some type of software for editing that would presumably also be able to export in a later version of Z-code.
We have access to the full original ZIL source code for all Infocom games. I think the easiest path would be to modify that code to work with later Z-code versions and recompile the games.
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@fredrik is right, now that all the original source code for the Infocom games exist and there’s a compiler that can compile it (Zilf). There would be no reason to decompile them to Inform and then recompile them.
To modify a z3 to z5 you need to make some changes to the parser-code because of the different size of the object tables. Fortunately Infocom have already made a blueprint for this in their “Lost Treasures of Infocom” releases. There’s already a couple of games that exists in the two different versions.
Personally I don’t think it’s worth it becasuse the InvisiClues already exists as seperate files and OOPS and UNDO are features I never use when playing in a modern environment. I use SAVE/RESTORE a lot and multiple instances of the interpreter instead.
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As was briefly discussed in this thread, one of the best reasons to modify the Infocom games would be to make them accessible for visually impaired people, by completely rewriting blockers like the Royal Puzzle in Zork 3, or at least make them skippable.
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I would definitely be in favor of adding some kind of secret password to auto-solve inaccessible puzzles like that one. Infocom already made use of this technique to a certain extent, I know there are a couple of versions of LGOP where typing a keyword will jump you to the other side of a particularly nasty maze.
I have this very same idea with every game that Renga in Blue reviews in the All Adventures proyect 
But I think of them more like remasters. Modding already good games seems like a brilliant idea to me.
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Didn’t re-read the entire thread to check if this has been brought up already, so please don’t lapidate me if it has - with relatively little effort it should be possible to add an alternative ending to Infidel. Turning the final statue gives you the full 400 out of 400 points so you don’t have to open the sarcophagus and die, but you could walk out and take the treasure home that you have so far. Berlyn has not implemented such an ending. Would that be something? Sounds to me like al lyou need to do is set a flag for turning the last statue and check that flag when e.g. re-entering the camp.
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Then you die of thirst in camp because everybody has left.
Are you a better person for not having opened the sarcophagus? No, I don’t think so.
this an interesting philosophical question. a pivot point is probably whether the games are video gamey game games or capital-a Art
that’s matter of personal perspective, and the answer is probably “a bit of both”
Since the bump is Infidel-related: I don’t think Infidel with a different ending is Infidel anymore. A happy ending is thematically inconsistent, it doesn’t make any sense. The protag is still a lying, culturally insensitive thief. It’s more than just a technical problem to solve, it’s a question of craft.
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Or, arguably, you could say that it’s even more Infidel! In the real world the bad guy wins a lot of the time. How many examples do we have in society where the borderline psychopathic capitalists in business end up being the CEO’s. Just look at Activision at the moment! Even if Bobby K resigns he’ll likely walk away with a multi-million dollar “golden parachute”.
I think an ending where you walk away richer, encounter no ramifications for your actions and sleep well at night is extremely plausible and interesting.
Adam
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I wonder. Is it a widely-held belief that IF is art? If so, are artistic choices important?
The technical aspect of IF blurs this a bit. Technology advances, tools evolve. There are likely many opportunities to refine functional code without compromising or altering another’s artistic vision. Similarly, QOL enhancements (G or AGAIN) are possible without fundamentally changing the experience of the text.
Speaking out of my own limited experience in another artistic community: changing part of someone’s art to suit personal taste would be poorly received. The idea was always that if you could do better, write your own thing.
I was lead editor on two poetry manuscripts, and I always had to resist the urge to turn the book into something I wanted. The goal was to help the author realize their vision. Not mine. That’s not IF, though, and artistic intent may not bear the same weight in this discussion.
I want to distinguish between altering an existing work (i.e., happy Infidel) and authoring new works of fan fiction, parody, or tribute (another discussion).
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You’ll have to argue it, I’m afraid. :) Without the tragedy-of-the-protagonist ending, the game is just another treasure hunt with a rather nice, original-for-the-time language puzzle. Wouldn’t call that Infidel.
You’re about forty years late asking that, you know.
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Ha! If I don’t know that it’s art, then I’ve put on a pretty elaborate and time-consuming ruse. I wondered if perhaps I had assumed too much in my initial post and felt recentering my thoughts around art would be productive.
It would be interesting to someday discuss the concept of canonicity in IF. Not a top 50 best (some canonical works in other genres are awful to read) but works that shape audiences and creators alike. Because you’re right, Infidel has a cool gimmick and that Infocom quality and polish, but it’s singular because of the “bad ending.” Whether it’s good or not is a matter of taste (I think it is), but I would say it’s important.
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If the capitalists and CEOs are bad guys, what are the Communists ?
Just wondering…
For Drew: QoL enchancement as implementing abbreviations can be implemented in the interpreter, and Frotz implements these abbreviations.
an interesting QoL question: z3 undo can be implemented at the 'terp level ? on paper, is basically keeping the prior machine state, and intercepting the undo command and acting accordingly, working similarily to the save emulated machine state/snapshot of an emulator.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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At least in the version of Frotz I’m using, you can press Alt-U to undo, even in version 3 games.
LOL, really I don’t know (or I actually overlooked it…) Perhaps I’m a too serious adventurer !!
(In coding, I use my beloved debug item: the Ring of Impdom (that is, an item loaded with debug routines… This allow keeping only the debug routines needed, albeit the bigger .z3 WIP around is still in 64K aerea, but allow access to custom routines (like, tracing the location of NPC…)
oh, side note… reading now more carefully man frotz, there’s a slew of overlooked things on debugging… -o -O and -h and -w, the latter pair allow checking how the text will be shown on 8-bit machines’s screen…
> EXAMINE CAREFULLY FROTZ
You found some little hidden details !
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
And then we have the proper nature of IF history, where changing and expanding upon previous works define our art. cof cof Colossal Cave Adventure cof cof
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