Random IF Games

graeme

Distinguished
Apr 29, 2002
105
0
18,680
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

I was thinking of playing some tandem IF games with a gaming newbie
friend, by feeding them cut and pasted commands and letting them read along
(similar to Zork GI's wonky Linked Play option).

Problem: Most IF games have some kind of random element in them, which
would mean that two people playing the same game and inputting exactly the same
moves may NOT be seeing the same thing. In a game that has no random elements,
you should be able to create a movelist that can play the entire game from
beginning to end from a pre-set move list, and make it to the end successfully
every time.

Unfortunately, there are very few games like that. Plundered Hearts is
one of them. Hollywood Hijinx is 99% fixed (the only random element being the
song that gets played on the piano). Most other games have random elements

What I want is a way to play the same game on two different computers in
different locations, and guarantee that both games are outputting the same
results to the same commands. One way of doing this might be setting the -s
switch to 1 in Frotz, but the help file seems to indicate that that only
affects random events set up before the game begins, not ones that take place
during the game. Another option is to use the Alt-S function to set the number
of possibilities in a random choice to 1.

I'm thinking that by combining these two (-s 1, and Alt-S 1), on both systems,
I can guarantee that both games will produce the same output. Is there anyone
who's tried this, and can confirm that it will work?
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Graeme wrote:
> I was thinking of playing some tandem IF games with a gaming
> newbie friend, by feeding them cut and pasted commands and letting
> them read along (similar to Zork GI's wonky Linked Play option).

You might like to check out Zinc
http://www.bits.bris.ac.uk/zinc/

although I haven't used the multi-player option myself (yet).

> What I want is a way to play the same game on two different
> computers in different locations, and guarantee that both games are
> outputting the same results to the same commands. One way of doing
> this might be setting the -s switch to 1 in Frotz, but the help file
> seems to indicate that that only affects random events set up before
> the game begins, not ones that take place during the game. Another
> option is to use the Alt-S function to set the number of
> possibilities in a random choice to 1.

Sounds like Alt-S should work so long as you use the same seed number.

CK
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

If you have screen and ssh on one of the systems (e.g. a linux box), you
can play in a screen session and both people see the same thing, down to
the last keystroke. If your setup is like that I can give more details.

Graeme wrote:
> I was thinking of playing some tandem IF games with a gaming newbie
> friend, by feeding them cut and pasted commands and letting them read along
> (similar to Zork GI's wonky Linked Play option).
>
> Problem: Most IF games have some kind of random element in them, which
> would mean that two people playing the same game and inputting exactly the same
> moves may NOT be seeing the same thing. In a game that has no random elements,
> you should be able to create a movelist that can play the entire game from
> beginning to end from a pre-set move list, and make it to the end successfully
> every time.
>
> Unfortunately, there are very few games like that. Plundered Hearts is
> one of them. Hollywood Hijinx is 99% fixed (the only random element being the
> song that gets played on the piano). Most other games have random elements
>
> What I want is a way to play the same game on two different computers in
> different locations, and guarantee that both games are outputting the same
> results to the same commands. One way of doing this might be setting the -s
> switch to 1 in Frotz, but the help file seems to indicate that that only
> affects random events set up before the game begins, not ones that take place
> during the game. Another option is to use the Alt-S function to set the number
> of possibilities in a random choice to 1.
>
> I'm thinking that by combining these two (-s 1, and Alt-S 1), on both systems,
> I can guarantee that both games will produce the same output. Is there anyone
> who's tried this, and can confirm that it will work?