I’d like to announce that I have released “Mystery House (Remodeled)”, a ground-up rebuild of the original classic for the Pico-8. This attempts to be a bug-complete build, which you can read more about on the itch.io page or in the more detailed notes on the GitHub repository.
All graphics were redrawn from scratch using a bespoke drawing program I created for this project called “Versawriter-8”. This was necessary because the Apple 2 hi-res graphics far exceed the capabilities of the Pico-8, and because I wanted to submerge myself in the process that created the original.
Logic bugs and such were revealed by the work of J. Aycock and K. Bittner in “Inspecting the Foundation of Mystery House” so you can be sure there are some weird bugs in my implementation as well (intentionally so). The ultimate goal is for bugs to manifest themselves as a natural side effect of an accurate implementation of the original logic. This has been mostly successful, including a weird drawing bug with the gun, but still has a short way to go.
A more detailed blog that will appeal more directly to the IF community is in the works. That is where I will catalog my findings in more detail, including why certain classes of bugs happen. Another blog post, targeted more toward the Pico-8 community of developers, is also in the works. As well, more details about the Versawriter-8 program and its source code is coming soon.
Feel free to ask me any questions, and I hope this project is of interest to the community.
Play it here: Mystery House (Remodeled) by Christopher Drum
Source code: GitHub - ChristopherDrum/mystery_house_remodeled: A ground-up recreation, for the Pico-8, of the first graphic adventure game.
