I was informed by @tayruh that basically all of the browser-playable versions of my games were using an outdated version of Quixe, one that does not play nice with certain mobile browsers or operating systems or something. So I spent a rainy afternoon and evening updating as many games as I could to Quixe 2.1.7. These include:
Ryan Veeder’s Authentic Fly Fishing has now been updated to 2.1.7 too, plus I fixed a bunch of little bugs that have been on my list for months, plus I implemented @jmac’s suggestion about the issue of people getting lost in the woods that he brought up back in JANUARY, good grief.
I’m going to wait until after the Ectocomp judging period to mess around with the Castle Balderstone games.
I tried to run Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder but after the intro and game banner, all I get is “You can no longer see the figurehead through the murky water.”
Either something’s wrong, or this game (which I haven’t played before) is a lot harder than I was led to believe.
When I posted, I had tried Firefox on Linux and Chrome on an Android phone.
Since your reply, I’ve also tried Chromium on Linux. Then I went to Windows 10 (on a different computer) and tried Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Edge, all with the same result:
If I download the .gblorb file from IFDB and run it in a standalone interpreter, it works fine. Though that’s apparently a different version because it says:
Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder
An account of the wreck of the Feckless by Ryan Veeder
Release 1 / Serial number 131003 / Inform 7 build 6G60 (I6/v6.32 lib 6/12N)
Identification number: //E4AEBEE7-5B50-4CE1-B0E5-4308EE994826//
Interpreter version 1.3.5 / VM 3.1.2 / Library serial number 080126
Standard Rules version 2/090402 by Graham Nelson
Shipboard Directions version 1/110709 by Samuel Byron
While the Web version says:
Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder
An account of the wreck of the Feckless by Ryan Veeder
Release 1 / Serial number 201110 / Inform 7 build 6M62 (I6/v6.34 lib 6/12N)
Identification number: //52C7B20D-44B8-4411-9318-A3C1BE674F5E//
Interpreter version 2.1.7 / VM 3.1.2 / Library serial number 080126
Standard Rules version 3/120430 by Graham Nelson
I guess they’re built from the same version of the source code (“Release 1”), but the serial numbers are different and they were built with different versions of Inform and the Standard Rules.
I can also confirm the issue on my version of android chrome 87.0.4280.101. It looks identical to the screenshot where it skips the room description and displays the murky water message. Typing anything (“inv”, “x me”, etc) also responds with the murky water message.
I downloaded the story file from IFDB and can also confirm it plays fine using Fabularium on Android.
I was wrong, I totally do reproduce the issue. I was misreading your post as saying that you didn’t get a command prompt, (that you couldn’t type) but I can type, and the game just says “You can no longer see the figurehead through the murky water.” in response to whatever I type.
The log is as follows
PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE PRESS ANY KEY
TO CONTINUE PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE
You can’t help thinking this could have been avoided.
“I know what you’re thinking, lad. And you’re right, this is all your fault. But you can’t exactly blame yourself, either.”
The captain makes a pained clicking noise. “You did your best, and it wasn’t good enough. All we can do now is make the best of a bad situation.”
He allows himself a moment of silence. Then he fixes you with a beady black eye:
“You think you maybe oughta get to work?”
TO CONTINUE PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE
PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE PRESS ANY KEY
Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder
An account of the wreck of the Feckless by Ryan Veeder
Release 1 / Serial number 201110 / Inform 7 build 6M62 (I6/v6.34 lib 6/12N)
You can no longer see the figurehead through the murky water.
>aft
You can no longer see the figurehead through the murky water.
>get book
You can no longer see the figurehead through the murky water.
Hi guys, thanks for the heads up. I haven’t had a chance to investigate the issue quite yet. When I was re-releasing the game in 2.1.7, I was (as far as I know) recompiling the same old source code, so there’s no immediately obvious reason for the game to break so badly. Pretty creepy message, though!
I’ll look into it and I’ll get back to you when it’s fixed.
In the meantime, I want to point something out to @eriktorbjorn or anyone who hasn’t noticed this before: The serial number of an Inform game is the date it was compiled! 201110 means 20/11/10, as in, 10 November, 2020. This can be very useful information when comparing different versions of games written by authors who can’t be bothered to update a project’s release number.
Before doing something other than examining the figurehead:
if the location is in the currently sinking deck:
now the going nowhere boolean is true;
say "You can no longer see the figurehead through the murky water." instead;
[...]
Of course, “doing something other than examining the figurehead” applies to every single other action, including the implied >LOOK that happens when the game begins. What you want to say here, to prevent the player from doing anything with the figurehead, is “before doing something other than examining with the figurehead:”
Or, that’s what you should do in the syntax of Inform 7 build 6M62. Apparently 6G60 understood things differently.
Thank you all for your assistance in diagnosing and treating Captain Verdeterre’s Plunder, which I am pretty sure is completely fixed and perfect now.
Yup, the sensible way of writing dates. Sorry, Americans! That was one of the reasons I assumed it was a recompiled version of the same source code.
Fun fact: The ZTools utilities for disassembling and extracting information from Z-Machine games use the serial number as part of the heuristic for determining if a game is an Infocom game or not, since some of the information is stored using different formats depending on which compiler was used.
Which is probably why those tools don’t always play nice with games compiled with ZILF…
Thanks, this looks like a much more interesting game than the previous version!
I’ve noticed a glitch in the opening of current version of this current web version of Nautilisia (“Release 3 / Serial number 201110 / Inform 7 build 6M62 (I6/v6.34 lib 6/12N)”). I’m guessing it’s from rebuilding the source with a newer version of Inform, although it looks like it pre-dates this update.
Spoilery detail and affected versions
The opening room description, before the player has typed any commands, looks like:
Stately Mansion
Okay, so you start out in this stately mansion. It’s like stately Wayne manor, in that it’s on top of a hill, and it’s very expansive and full of expensive things, but there’s no labyrinthine cave system underneath it.Well okay, I guess actually there turned out to be a labyrinthine cave system underneath it, sorry to disappoint you.
I’m pretty sure the last sentence isn’t supposed to appear until later.
The .gblorb on that page, which is a bit older (“Release 3 / Serial number 170228 / Inform 7 build 6M62”), does the same thing.
The zblorb on the IF Archive (“Release 2 / Serial number 130422 / Inform 7 build 6G60”) omits this sentence, as I think is correct.
Same with the older Playfic web version (“Release 2 / Serial number 120511 / Inform 7 build 6G60”), and the .z8 downloadable from there.
So I guess it’s the 6G60->6M62 transition wot done it.
I haven’t played through at all, so I don’t know what else might be lurkening.
Thanks for pointing that out. The error seems to have been a plain old typo, not an Inform version thing. I can’t imagine how it was introduced! But it should be fixed now.
That was one of the reasons I assumed it was a recompiled version of the same source code.