| Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #88959] |
Mon, 01 September 2003 06:54  |
Glenn P.,
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Can anyone recommend any good book titles available Out There for creating
Text Adventure Games on the C64 or C128? Thanks...
--_____ _____
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #88977 is a reply to message #88959] |
Mon, 01 September 2003 17:11  |
Peter Karlsson
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Glenn P.,:
> Can anyone recommend any good book titles available Out There for
> creating Text Adventure Games on the C64 or C128? Thanks...
The only one I've read is a book by Mike Grace, which in Swedish
translation is called »"Äventyrsspel" vic64 (adventures)«. I don't know
the original title. In it is the full sources for a game called "Nightmare
planet", plus a wealth of information on how the game is built up.
Unfortunately, the listing in the Swedish translation is missing two vital
lines. I was a bit disappointed at the program not working after typing
all of it in (it is quite big). It wasn't until I found a complete English
version later on that I could get it running properly (changing all the
texts over to the Swedish version as from the book)...
--
\\//
Peter - http://www.softwolves.pp.se/
Rösta ja till euron den 14 september - http://www.jatilleuron.se/
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #88980 is a reply to message #88959] |
Mon, 01 September 2003 17:46 |
jimbo
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OnMon, 1 Sep 2003 06:54:18 -0400, "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net>
wrote:
> Can anyone recommend any good book titles available Out There for creating
> Text Adventure Games on the C64 or C128? Thanks...
I can't recommend it as "good", but Compute! published a book called
"Compute!'s Guide to Adventure Games" ( 1984 ).
Here's a list of the chapters:
1 Stories in Software
2 What makes a good adventure?
3 Infocom Adventures
4 Scott Adams Adventures
5 Sierra On-line Adventures
6 More Adventures
7 Action Adventures
8 A Field Guide for Frustrated Adventurers
9 How Yhey Work
10 Doing your Own
11 Tower of Mystery : A Simple Adventure Program
12 The Edge of the Future
Note that they spend a lot of time reviewing the then-contemporary
games before spending any time attempting to teach how to write a game
yourself.
A much better book ( IMHO ) was Frank Dacosta's "Writing BASIC
Adventure Programs for the TRS-80" ( 1982 )
While each of these will certainly provide some boilerplate code that
might allow you to build some adventures, both texts stick to BASIC as
an implementation language. The only real problem I had back in those
days trying to digest these books is that often, the BASIC code is
constructed in a manner that simulates another language ( such as
Pascal ) for the data-structures necessary to ease game development.
Sometimes, for instance, a data-structure might be implemented as a
series of parallel array variables, so that each array element indexed
by a given number corresponded to a single record of a given
user-defined data-type.
As someone who didn't know anything about data-structures or anything
outside the realm of BASIC at the time, I couldn't figure out why they
built these programs the way they had done.
Another problem (again, IMHO) often plaguing these kinds of adventures
is that often, the room and object descriptions would first appear in
DATA statements, then they'd be redundantly copied to arrays. A
"computed restore" can be of help here so that you can restore a fixed
line of DATA for a room and read it into a set of work variables all
in one fell swoop.
Jim Lawless
jimbo@radiks.net
http://www.radiks.net/~jimbo
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #88986 is a reply to message #88959] |
Mon, 01 September 2003 19:27 |
Larry Anderson
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Here are ones I can think of right off hand:
Golden Flutes and Great Escapes: How to Write Adventure Games for the
Commodore 64 by Delton T. Horn (Can't locate mine, it but it's pretty
good at getting a gist of all the bases you need to cover)
Creating Adventure Games on You Computer by Tim Hartnell (Tim Hartnell
is probably the most prolific author of BASIC games books, and most of
his games are great)
And there was also a cool series of articles in COMPUTE! on adventure
writing, It might be in that book Jim Lawless suggested.
Many of the books cover a simple parser using the 'verb noun' syntax (GO
WEST, TAKE LAMP, EAT CHEESEBURGER, etc.) There have been also writeups
in other classic computer magazines like BYTE which talked about Zork's
interpreter and such (I miss those magazines that actually tought you
stuff instead of trying to sell you stuff).
Larry
"Glenn P.," wrote:
>
> Can anyone recommend any good book titles available Out There for creating
> Text Adventure Games on the C64 or C128? Thanks...
--
01000011 01001111 01001101 01001101 01001111 01000100 01001111 01010010 01000101
Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (209) 754-1363
300-14.4k bps
Set your 8-bit C= rigs to sail for http://www.portcommodore.com/
01000011 01001111 01001101 01010000 01010101 01010100 01000101 01010010 01010011
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #88997 is a reply to message #88959] |
Tue, 02 September 2003 03:51 |
Linards Ticmanis
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Glenn P., wrote:
> Can anyone recommend any good book titles available Out There for creating
> Text Adventure Games on the C64 or C128? Thanks...
This might not help you personally, but there were (at least) two 64er
special editions that had long Adventure design articles in German,
written by Michael Nickles (sp?). The first of those was, I think, the
second-ever special edition and thus should be 2/1985 I assume. The next
one, with a much improve design system using Relative files for most of
the actual text of the game, would be late 1986 or early 1987 I think.
But then again, all of the things suggested here are quite crappy
compared to something decent like Inform. Inform games can run on a
Commodore 64, although a little slow, by using the original Infocom
runtime code. They also work on all imaginable other systems, from Palm
to Supercomputer. However to develop them you need to use a somewhat
larger computer, but even a decent Amiga or a low-end 386 PC should be
enough.
The Inform Beginner's Guide can be downloaded from here in PDF format:
> http://www.inform-fiction.org/manual/download_ibg.html
It is also sold through Amazon.com in printed form if you prefer that.
The same site also hosts the Inform Designer's manual, 4th edition,
which would be the thing to read for more complex stuff than what is
found in the Beginner's Guide.
--
Linards Ticmanis
The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows the
preparation of the plain ground."
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #88998 is a reply to message #88980] |
Tue, 02 September 2003 05:01 |
Glenn P.,
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On 01-Sep-03 at 9:46pm -0000, <jimbo@radiks.net> wrote:
> I can't recommend it as "good", but Compute! published a book called
> "Compute!'s Guide to Adventure Games" ( 1984 ).
Have it. I actually typed in "Tower Of Mystery", but it didn't seem to
work properly, nor could I figure out what was wrong or how to fix it.
This was years ago, so I don't remember what the exact problem was, but
at any rate if anyone Out There has a working copy of "Tower Of Mystery",
I'd love to have a copy...
Otherwise, well.... "Next suggestion?" :/
> A much better book ( IMHO ) was Frank Dacosta's "Writing BASIC
> Adventure Programs for the TRS-80" ( 1982 )
Aha! Thanks!
Hmmmmm... That's not Commodore, but I'm kinda desparate. Is it
readily available, do you know? And if so, from where?
> ...often, the BASIC code is constructed in a manner that simulates
> another language ( such as Pascal ) for the data-structures necessary
> to ease game development.
> Sometimes, for instance, a data-structure might be implemented as a
> series of parallel array variables, so that each array element indexed
> by a given number corresponded to a single record of a given
> user-defined data-type.
Forgive me, but I didn't understand that. Could you be more specific?
> Another problem (again, IMHO) often plaguing these kinds of adventures
> is that often, the room and object descriptions would first appear in
> DATA statements, then they'd be redundantly copied to arrays.
Well, yes...
> A "computed restore" can be of help here so that you can restore a
> fixed line of DATA for a room and read it into a set of work variables
> all in one fell swoop.
The "read-into-array" technique seems to be pretty standard, due to the
"random access" capabilities of arrays. The "computed restore" is a nice
idea, but it is not a standard feature of Commodore BASIC (except, I think,
in C128 mode -- it's been so long since I've programmed in native C128
mode that I honestly forget). Including an ML routine to implement this
feature on the C64 would not only have improved the GAME, but lots of
other programs as well! :/
Personally, in my opinion, the "best" way of implementing room descriptions
would be to pull them in from disk. That would leave lots of room for
coding the adventure itself (since all that text no longer occupies program
memory) but it would be a LOT more inconvenient to implement.
-- _____ %%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%% _____
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------ {~._.~}
_( Y )_ "Uncle Glenn, your shoe's untied." _( Y )_
(:_~*~_:) "Well now, that's a nice try, Jay, (:_~*~_:)
(_)-(_) but my shoes use Velcro." (_)-(_)
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #88999 is a reply to message #88986] |
Tue, 02 September 2003 05:07 |
Glenn P.,
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On 01-Sep-03 at 11:27pm -0000, <foxnhare@bigvalley.net> wrote:
>> Can anyone recommend any good book titles available Out There for
>> creating Text Adventure Games on the C64 or C128? Thanks...
> Golden Flutes and Great Escapes: How to Write Adventure Games for the
> Commodore 64 by Delton T. Horn (Can't locate mine, it but it's pretty
> good at getting a gist of all the bases you need to cover)
Have it. :)
> Creating Adventure Games on You Computer by Tim Hartnell (Tim Hartnell
> is probably the most prolific author of BASIC games books, and most of
> his games are great).
Have this, too. :)
Any others???
-- _____ %%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%% _____
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------ {~._.~}
_( Y )_ "Uncle Glenn, your shoe's untied." _( Y )_
(:_~*~_:) "Well now, that's a nice try, Jay, (:_~*~_:)
(_)-(_) but my shoes use Velcro." (_)-(_)
========= ------------------------------------------ =========
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89001 is a reply to message #88959] |
Tue, 02 September 2003 05:49 |
Glenn P.,
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REPOSTING, due to formatting error...
On 01-Sep-03 at 10:11pm +0100, <petekarl@online.no> wrote:
> The only one I've read is a book by Mike Grace, which in Swedish
> translation is called "ventyrsspel" vic64 (adventures). I don't
> know the original title. In it is the full sources for a game
> called "Nightmare Planet", plus a wealth of information on how
> the game is built up.
I have this book already, in English version; thanks anyway!
That said, if you -- or anyone else -- havee typed in this program (in
English) -- do you still have it??? I'd LOVE it if you'd E-Mail me a
copy...! It would save me a world of trouble, as there is no "all-in-one"
listing; the program's segments are scattered all throughout, and typing
it all in would be one monumental Pain.
Apart from that, "Next suggestion!", I'm afraid.
-- _____ %%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%% _____
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------ {~._.~}
_( Y )_ "Uncle Glenn, your shoe's untied." _( Y )_
(:_~*~_:) "Well now, that's a nice try, Jay, (:_~*~_:)
(_)-(_) but my shoes use Velcro." (_)-(_)
========= ------------------------------------------ =========
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89002 is a reply to message #89000] |
Tue, 02 September 2003 06:07 |
Glenn P.,
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On 02-Sep-03 at 11:36am +0200, <ticmanis@coli.uni-sb.de> wrote:
:> This might not help you personally, but there were (at least) two 64er
:> special editions that had long Adventure design articles in German,
:> written by Michael Nickles (sp?)...
> It's special edition 4/1986. This one:
> http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=304455 8276&category=3543
This points to the German division of Amazon.COM, which makes sense since
you already said the thing was in German.
Unfortunately, I do not know any German. :(
I sincerely hope that the link is helpful to someone else; it would be
a terrible shame if the obvious effort you put into finding that link
went completely to waste! :/
Anyone know if there was a version in English???
-- _____ %%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%% _____
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------ {~._.~}
_( Y )_ "Uncle Glenn, your shoe's untied." _( Y )_
(:_~*~_:) "Well now, that's a nice try, Jay, (:_~*~_:)
(_)-(_) but my shoes use Velcro." (_)-(_)
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89031 is a reply to message #88998] |
Tue, 02 September 2003 19:21 |
jimbo
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On Tue, 2 Sep 2003 05:01:11 -0400, "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net>
wrote:
>> A much better book ( IMHO ) was Frank Dacosta's "Writing BASIC
>> Adventure Programs for the TRS-80" ( 1982 )
>
> Aha! Thanks!
>
> Hmmmmm... That's not Commodore, but I'm kinda desparate. Is it
> readily available, do you know? And if so, from where?
It's long been out of print. You'd have to scan Ebay or Half
or post a message on comp.sys.tandy to see if anyone would be
willing to give it up. It certainly has its own quirks, but
I liked it better than the Compute! book.
>
>> ...often, the BASIC code is constructed in a manner that simulates
>> another language ( such as Pascal ) for the data-structures necessary
>> to ease game development.
>
>> Sometimes, for instance, a data-structure might be implemented as a
>> series of parallel array variables, so that each array element indexed
>> by a given number corresponded to a single record of a given
>> user-defined data-type.
>
> Forgive me, but I didn't understand that. Could you be more specific?
Sure. Let's say you'd like to represent a room as having the
following
attributes:
A description.
A Northbound room #.
An Eastbound room #.
A Westbound room #.
A Southbound room #.
A room-is-lit indicator
A list of objects that could be in the room.
In C, we might represent this data-structure as :
struct room_t {
char *desc;
int n_room;
int e_room;
int w_room;
int s_room;
char roomIsLit;
struct object_lst_t *list;
} rooms[40];
This would give me an array of 40 rooms ,,, once I dereference any
particular room, the attributes are readily accessible. i.e ...
struct room_t *work_room;
....
work_room=rooms+20; // get room 20 info
printf("%s\n",work_room->desc);
printf("%d\n",work_room->n_room);
....etc.
In most dialects of BASIC, the array of data-structures would be
implemented as multiple arrays:
dim desc(40)
dim n_room%(40)
dim e_room%(40)
dim w_room%(40)
dim s_room%(40)
...not going to implement object list...
So the aggregated data-structure that makes logical sense ( and
consumes only one address computation to locate the entire
aggregated structure ) is broken apart into multiple arrays
to simulate the same sort of thing. ... not that there's anything
wrong with that ... it took me a while to digest.
>> A "computed restore" can be of help here so that you can restore a
>> fixed line of DATA for a room and read it into a set of work variables
>> all in one fell swoop.
>
> The "read-into-array" technique seems to be pretty standard, due to the
> "random access" capabilities of arrays. The "computed restore" is a nice
> idea, but it is not a standard feature of Commodore BASIC (except, I think,
> in C128 mode -- it's been so long since I've programmed in native C128
> mode that I honestly forget). Including an ML routine to implement this
> feature on the C64 would not only have improved the GAME, but lots of
> other programs as well! :/
You might do a groups.google.com lookup on the words "lawless computed
restore" and read through that thread. I implemented a computed
restore with some BASIC and a BASIC-ROM routine. Another more
portable method is to add all of your DATA statements as REM's
and poke the DATA token into the line # you want to read, then
do a RESTORE ... since it's the only DATA statement, you can
then read that line...
>
> Personally, in my opinion, the "best" way of implementing room descriptions
> would be to pull them in from disk. That would leave lots of room for
> coding the adventure itself (since all that text no longer occupies program
> memory) but it would be a LOT more inconvenient to implement.
I don't know that it would truly be more inconvenient. In fact, I
think that if you had a separate editor that managed all rooms,
objects,
and players it might make game implementation easier. I guess I'd
want to add a few ML-fortified routines to the BASIC code to make
loading and accessing this data occur more quickly.
( Maybe you wouldn't even need an editor ... just put together
some macros with a decent macro assembler that would allow you
to define various rooms, objects, players and their attributes
and assemble it into one big data blob. )
Jim Lawless
jimbo@radiks.net
http://www.radiks.net/~jimbo
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89052 is a reply to message #88959] |
Wed, 03 September 2003 07:10 |
Linards Ticmanis
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MagerValp wrote:
>>>> >>"JL" == Jim Lawless <jimbo@radiks.net> writes:
>
>
> JL> struct room_t *work_room;
> JL> ...
> JL> work_room=rooms+20; // get room 20 info
>
> Unless you're on an architecture with 8-bit pointers, you probably
> want to use rooms[20] instead.
>
Why? It might be more readable, but it should always be equivalent
according to the rules of the C language. IIRC pointer arithmetics rules
take care of internally multiplying the added integer by the pointer size.
--
Linards Ticmanis
The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows the
preparation of the plain ground."
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89060 is a reply to message #88959] |
Wed, 03 September 2003 16:17 |
Glenn P.,
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On 02-Sep-03 at 1:12pm +0200, <ticmanis@coli.uni-sb.de> wrote:
> I don't think the articles were ever translated, but I could send you
> the BASIC code as D64 images; you'd have to make sense of it yourself,
> though. Since the parser is not terribly complex (more than two words,
> but no pattern matching) I think only little modification would be
> necessary for using it with an English vocabulary file.
> Mail me if interested (the mail adress works without modification.)
I've E-Mailed my request under separate cover. :)
-- _____ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%
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(_)-(_) --C. S. LEWIS: "Fern-Seed And Elephants".
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89061 is a reply to message #89005] |
Wed, 03 September 2003 16:20 |
Glenn P.,
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On 02-Sep-03 at 5:21am -0700, <anoneds@netscape.net> wrote:
> "Creating Adventure Games On Your Computer" (Tim Hartnell, 1983) is on
> atariarchives.org at:
> http://www.atariarchives.org/adventure/index.php
I have the C64 version in hardcopy, thanks. I'd love it if they had that
same version on the web, I'd be able to copy-&-paste the program listing
and convert it to a tokenized program! Unfortunately, the version on the
web is an ATARI program, and wouldn't work on the C64 without modification.
:( :( :(
-- _____ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------------------------ --
_( Y )_ "I am a sheep, telling shepherds what only a sheep can tell
(:_~*~_:) them. And now I start my bleating."
(_)-(_) --C. S. LEWIS: "Fern-Seed And Elephants".
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89062 is a reply to message #89024] |
Wed, 03 September 2003 16:26 |
Glenn P.,
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On 02-Sep-03 at 5:23pm +0100, <petekarl@online.no> wrote:
>> I have this book already, in English version; thanks anyway!
> What's the English title of it, for reference? My Swedish copy doesn't say.
"Commodore 64 Adventures: A Guide To Playing And Writing Adventures", by
Mike Grace, (C) 1983, Pub. by Sunshine Books, ISBN 0946408114.
>> I'd LOVE it if you'd E-Mail me a copy...!
> Yup. I have it, both in Swedish and English versions. I'll transfer and
> upload it.
Where are you uploading it???
-- _____ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------------------------ --
_( Y )_ "I am a sheep, telling shepherds what only a sheep can tell
(:_~*~_:) them. And now I start my bleating."
(_)-(_) --C. S. LEWIS: "Fern-Seed And Elephants".
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89064 is a reply to message #89031] |
Wed, 03 September 2003 16:49 |
Glenn P.,
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On 02-Sep-03 at 11:21pm -0000, <jimbo@radiks.net> wrote:
> dim desc(40)
> dim n_room%(40)
> dim e_room%(40)
> dim w_room%(40)
> dim s_room%(40)
> ..not going to implement object list...
That's silly! All you need to do is implement a single, dual-dimensioned
"access" array, for example, DIM RM%(20,12) for a twenty-room adventure
with twelve directions.
The first element is the Room Number; the second is the Direction Number.
The value located at a particular index is the number of the room travelled
to when going # direction from room #.
For example, let's say the directions are 1=north, 2=northeast, 3=east,
4=southeast, 5=south... to 9=up, 10=down, 11=in, 12=out.
Then if RM%(10,5)=6, we know that going south (south=5) from room 10 will
take us to Room 6. Were that value 0 instead, "You Can't Go That Way."
(Extending the room array is a good way to hold information about the
rooms themselves, too -- such as whether they are lit, or have been visited
before.)
Similarly, you only need a single-dimensional array to track objects.
The index is the Object Number, and the value tells the location of the
object -- -1 for "nowhere/destroyed/not yet created", 0 for "in the
player's inventory", and any other value being a room number. For
example, if there are 16 objects in the game, OB%(8)=12 tells the
game that Object #8 (whatever that is) is located in room #12 (wherever
that is).
> [A more] portable method is to add all of your DATA statements as
> REM's and poke the DATA token into the line # you want to read, then
> do a RESTORE ... since it's the only DATA statement, you can then
> read that line...
Oooo! Self-modifying code! The ultimate no-no! Eeek! :/
-- _____ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% "Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> %%%%%%%%%%%%%%
{~._.~} ------------------------------------------------------------ --
_( Y )_ "I am a sheep, telling shepherds what only a sheep can tell
(:_~*~_:) them. And now I start my bleating."
(_)-(_) --C. S. LEWIS: "Fern-Seed And Elephants".
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89320 is a reply to message #89313] |
Thu, 04 September 2003 07:58 |
Maciej Witkowiak
Messages: 85
Registered: July 2003
Karma: 0
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Jim Lawless wrote:
>> Unless you're on an architecture with 8-bit pointers, you probably
>> want to use rooms[20] instead.
>
> You mean, &rooms[20] ? ...No, I'd use rooms+20. If I was on a
> system with 8-bit pointers, I doubt I'd be able to write a decent
> adventure. ;-)
System with 8-bit pointers? You mean something with 256 bytes of address space?
ytm
--
Najlepsza sygnatura to brak sygnatury.
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89358 is a reply to message #88998] |
Thu, 04 September 2003 19:05 |
marc
Messages: 48
Registered: May 2013
Karma: 0
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"Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> wrote in message news:<Pine.LNX.4.44.0309020443250.3233-100000@Oswego.FoxValley.net>...
> On 01-Sep-03 at 9:46pm -0000, <jimbo@radiks.net> wrote:
[snip]
>> A "computed restore" can be of help here so that you can restore a
>> fixed line of DATA for a room and read it into a set of work variables
>> all in one fell swoop.
[snip]
> mode that I honestly forget). Including an ML routine to implement this
> feature on the C64 would not only have improved the GAME, but lots of
> other programs as well! :/
I've seen a computed restore routine in at least one type-in text
adventure game - it may have been in Commodore Computing
International, or Your Commodore. It's a good idea that does not seem
to have been used much.
Marc Walters
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89570 is a reply to message #89064] |
Sat, 06 September 2003 14:37 |
Anton Treuenfels
Messages: 105
Registered: December 2011
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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True But.
You'll notice that (in this case) 20*12 = 240, which is less than 256. Which
means, in turn, that it's possible to store the entire map in a 240
character string, rather than a 480-byte array. That's 240 bytes you might
like to have on a small machine.
If you limit yourself to eight directions, you can store 31 rooms and where
you go when leaving one in any direction in a 248 character string.
Shoot, with proper encoding you could do even better. 31 rooms needs five
bits per room number, so it takes only 40 bits to store eight directions.
That's five bytes, so you could pack it all into a 155-char string. Harder
to decode, of course.
"Glenn P.," <C128User@FVI.Net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.44.0309031630470.25196-100000@Oswego.FoxValley.net...
> That's silly! All you need to do is implement a single, dual-dimensioned
> "access" array, for example, DIM RM%(20,12) for a twenty-room adventure
> with twelve directions.
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| Re: Books About Creating "Text Adventure Games" For C64 Or C128? [message #89674 is a reply to message #89570] |
Mon, 08 September 2003 19:00 |
Linards Ticmanis
Messages: 253
Registered: April 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Anton Treuenfels wrote:
> True But.
>
> You'll notice that (in this case) 20*12 = 240, which is less than 256. Which
> means, in turn, that it's possible to store the entire map in a 240
> character string, rather than a 480-byte array. That's 240 bytes you might
> like to have on a small machine.
>
> If you limit yourself to eight directions, you can store 31 rooms and where
> you go when leaving one in any direction in a 248 character string.
>
> Shoot, with proper encoding you could do even better. 31 rooms needs five
> bits per room number, so it takes only 40 bits to store eight directions.
> That's five bytes, so you could pack it all into a 155-char string. Harder
> to decode, of course.
The decoding could easily eat up more memory than what is saved by such
methods. Not to mention that it is hackish beyond redemption. ;-)
--
Linards Ticmanis
The Master said, "The business of laying on the colors follows the
preparation of the plain ground."
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