Subject: Announcing: Fyleet, Crobe, Sangraal Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:30:11 +0100 From: Graham Nelson Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction,rec.games.int-fiction Announcement: Three lost games restored: Fyleet, Crobe, Sangraal ---------------------------------------------------------------- The central computer of Cambridge University, England, an IBM mainframe usually called "Phoenix" after its operating system, was one of those to receive "Advent" (a.k.a. "Colossal Cave") and "Zork" (a.k.a. "Dungeon") in the late 1970s. Two graduate students, Jon Thackray and David Seal, began a game called "Acheton" in 1978-9: with the aid of Jonathan Partington it expanded for another two years. Possibly the first game written outside America, by 1981 it seems likely that it was also the largest in the world (it has 403 locations). "Acheton" was written with a game assembler contemporary with Infocom's proprietory "ZIL": unlike ZIL, Seal and Thackray's game assembler was available for public use, the public in question being all users of Phoenix c. 1980-95. "Acheton" and a number of other titles migrated to commercial releases: some by Acornsoft for the BBC Micro, the local Cambridge-built microcomputer; some later by Topologika for a wide range of systems, so that these games are often called "the Topologika games". However, not all the Phoenix games had a Topologika release, nor vice versa. Under the long shadow of "Acheton", the Phoenix games tend to be large cave exploration games with treasures in the traditional style, with well over 100 rooms each ("Sangraal" has 170 and "Fyleet" is not far behind). As was normal in games of the period, they have a two-word parser, but it is a good one, supporting "take all" and "drop all". The three restored here make a loose trilogy of cave games by Jonathan R. Partington, now Professor of Mathematical Analysis at Leeds University. (Jonathan has been unfailingly generous with his time but we would ask players to get in touch with us rather than emailing him directly: see below.) These games can be played in any order and do not refer to each other, but belong together in style and atmosphere, which is why we began with them. Rather than re-implementing the design in a modern system, we used a translator (a Perl script called "Phoenix") to compile these games directly from their original source code into Z-machine assembly language, which (supplemented with a small routine library) was then compiled by Inform into story files. They do not include the Inform library, and so don't have the Inform world model or parser -- instead they have the original, two-word parser and include their own implementations of standard actions. If our restorations work properly, all responses and messages are identical to the originals (with only tiny exceptions, e.g., the arrangements for saving and restoring games are more modern and not specific to Phoenix). The translator is still new. We have tested these three games, and think they're at least mostly correct, but wouldn't be too surprised to receive the odd bug report. Please send all feedback to Adam Atkinson (ghira@mistral.co.uk). "Fyleet" (1985): You are in the ruins of the ancient fortress of Fyleet. Around you lies a thick pine forest, which appears to have been cleared a bit to your west; there are also paths to the east and north, while to the south some steps lead down into the ground. > down You proceed down the steps, which twist and turn as they descend several hundred feet into the ground. Eventually you come out into a small room. You are in a small square room. Light streams in from an archway to the south. There are steps leading up to the north, and a closed door to the east. There is a bullseye lantern here, which is off. There is a piano-accordion here. There is an empty bottle here. "Crobe" (1986): Beneath the cliffs of the seaport of Crobe are caves presided over by the cordial, if not directly helpful, Warden of Crobe, and home also to Karg, king of a band of trolls. But it's far from easy even to find your way in. "The Quest for the Sangraal" (1987): A cheering crowd urges you to go out to certain death on a quest for the Sangraal (the Holy Grail), as have many knights before you. A game making much greater use of landscape, memorable for its wry puzzles on goodness versus sin. These three games are available as Fyleet.z5, Crobe.z5 and Sangraal.z5 at "ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive/", and -- like all Z-code story files -- can be played using Frotz, MaxZip and many other interpreters. We intend next to release "Nidus", "Xenophobia", "BrandX" (later better known as "Philosopher's Quest") and "Parc", four rather different games by four different authors. 22 August 1999 Graham Nelson (writing translator program) Adam Atkinson (testing and restoring source code) Gunther Schmidl (seeking and clearing rights to source code) -- Graham Nelson | graham@gnelson.demon.co.uk | Oxford, United Kingdom