Forums > Game Forums > Varicella > platforms for z-code games

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eXo (346) on 4/9/2015 10:02 PM · Permalink · Report

This game, and several others like it, are simply z-code. They do not inherently run on any platform but they can be run on any platform that has a z-code interpreter.

In this case, it appears the most common ports of frotz were listed as platforms for the game, however the reality is frotz and other z-code compatible interpreters have been ported to tons of devices and platforms.

That said, I can run several adventure games on a multitude of platformns using scummvm, but that doesn't mean those platforms should be listed on the game. Dosbox has been ported to a few different devices, including a verison that runs in a browser, yet that doesn't suddenly make all DOS games browser games.

So I tend to disagree with z-code games having frotz platforms listed. Thoughts?

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Pseudo_Intellectual (66274) on 4/13/2015 11:35 PM · Permalink · Report

This is traditionally a prickly problem for MG. I was always a booster of these games and thwarted at attempts to document them, due to their general failure to adhere to the limited "platform" paradigm. This is one way to attempt to do so, with some obvious problems. Back in the Corn Popper days, his solution was to delete the game's entry, so I learned to kept my yap shut about matters of technical inaccuracy such as this when I found them.

There was another backdoor to legitimate documentation, and that would be if the game's author ever distributed game data bundled with an interpreter set to automatically run the game when executed. These days we have another backdoor, filing them as "browser" games thanks to the existence of the Parchment plugin -- but this results in all games having wildly misleading release dates.

The perfect solution is to have a z-machine platform; the closest I've seen to a solution we're lilkely to see in this lifetime is a "platform independent" platform category here.

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eXo (346) on 4/15/2015 12:21 PM · Permalink · Report

Simply deleting them seems like a poor solution for a website whose goal is to document games.

I would have done the same as you had I seen that sort of thing happening.

Z-Code is a valid platform considering folks specifically design z-code games these days and it isn't just a simple port of a preexisting game.

eg: ScummVM is an interpreter for pre-existing games, but no games have ever been developed specifically for ScummVM. Frotz plays z-code games (which for a while were just ports of various proprietary IF games), however now there are yearly competitions to specifically design z-code games. So it is a platform that folks develop for.

I suppose browser works just to get them documented, but it is misleading at best.

Considering the wide variety of solutions that exist to play older games or re-interpret games to new platforms

I just checked Tyrion 2000 for example, and found that the GoG release is listed as a Windows and Macintosh release respectively, with GOG simply being mentioned in the comments.

There really ought to be some sort of tag for this. I've seen it mentioned elsewhere in regards to Steam.

Tags for GOG, Origin, Steam, PS NOW, GRID, and other streaming/digital release platforms could easily go hand in hand with data that tags games as being re-released using ScummVM, DOSBox, Z-Code, Scott Free (all the Scott Adams games), etc...

It's probably best to just leave it be though... I have found my suggestions on these boards tend to back fire.

Luckily trixter, hargle, myself, and a few others are looking at standing up our own game database that actually fits this criteria. It won't compete with mobygames or anything, but since hargle and myself will be able to actually import our databases to it it will start out day 1 being exponentially more accurate in regards to DOS releases (including notations on which ones were released for GOG, Steam, Z-Code, etc...)

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Pseudo_Intellectual (66274) on 4/15/2015 12:52 PM · Permalink · Report

A games database started by Trixter? Wow really, tell me more!

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eXo (346) on 4/16/2015 4:25 PM · Permalink · Report

he might not call it that yet, but it is where we are heading.

It doesn't compete with an entity like MG simply because it is not designed to catalog all games (well, not at this stage).

The breakdown here is that hargle and myself both maintain our own DOS game database. And then I have my win3x database as well. Hargles database tracks DOS games, but as you likely know, it also tracks individual game releases. eg: multiple versions of the same game.

My database forgoes the tracking of individual releases versions, but like moby, it does denote different media releases (cd & floppy for example).

My database has some games hargles is missing and vice versa. To determine who is missing what though means we have to rectify our databases.

The goal is to then post this rectified database in an online place where people can reference it. Between our two projects it will easily be the most accurate DOS database available. The goal is to have each title flagged with whether or not it exists within either of our projects (or both).

At this stage the basic forums are being setup as hargle, trixter, myself, and a few others would like a place to collaborate on our projects without the threat of all of our work going down because of something like the site we are using disappearing .

The short of it is, this new database will be the best online source for DOS game info. What it will look like is totally unknown right now, but my guess is it will essentially be a DB table with a few report functions. Nothing like moby here with individual game pages. Hope that clarifies things.