Beyond Zork and Winfrotz

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I've been playing my Masterpieces games on Winfrotz, since I find it
infinitely preferable to whatever it is they've bundled them with on the
CD. But when I try to play Beyond Zork, it tells me it can't find the
special font, and the map comes out all fugly. Of course, the .exe file
works fine, but it would be nice to be able to play all the games on one
interpreter.

Is there any way I can get Beyond Zork to work properly on Winfrotz?

Dave Doty

 

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David Doty wrote:

> I've been playing my Masterpieces games on Winfrotz, since I find it
> infinitely preferable to whatever it is they've bundled them with on the
> CD. But when I try to play Beyond Zork, it tells me it can't find the
> special font, and the map comes out all fugly. Of course, the .exe file
> works fine, but it would be nice to be able to play all the games on one
> interpreter.
>
> Is there any way I can get Beyond Zork to work properly on Winfrotz?
>
> Dave Doty

It works on my system. However, I just did a Google search and there
may be a solution here: http://www.latz.org/games/beyondzo/beyondzo.shtml

Asa

 

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"David Doty" <davedoty@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns9540D0DBFC344dsdoty@38.119.71.33...
> I've been playing my Masterpieces games on Winfrotz, since I find it
> infinitely preferable to whatever it is they've bundled them with on
the
> CD. But when I try to play Beyond Zork, it tells me it can't find the
> special font, and the map comes out all fugly. Of course, the .exe
file
> works fine, but it would be nice to be able to play all the games on
one
> interpreter.
>

The special font is beyzork.fon, right? It looks like WinFrotz should
come with the file -- check files.txt in the WinFrotz folder. (Although
I tried it with that, and the map still leaves something to be desired.
Horizontal spaces show up between lines of characters.)

The map looks perfect on Windows Frotz 2002, though.

 

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"Kevin Y." <mrxlz@hotmail.com> wrote in news:k7WRc.1603138$Ar.1163249
@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com:

> The special font is beyzork.fon, right? It looks like WinFrotz should
> come with the file -- check files.txt in the WinFrotz folder. (Although
> I tried it with that, and the map still leaves something to be desired.
> Horizontal spaces show up between lines of characters.)

Ah, thanks. I've been shuttling Winfrotz from computer to computer for so
long, I think it's gotten separated from the files it came with. However,
it's probably moot because...



> The map looks perfect on Windows Frotz 2002, though.

I've been using Winfrotz because I haven't had any problem with it, and I'm
resisitant to upgrading programs just to upgrade, even if they're free.
But it looks like I've found a genuine reason to want to upgrade now, so
I'll probably try the newer one out.

Thanks,

Dave

 

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"Asa Rossoff" <asaATlovetour.info@x.x> wrote in message
news:10hgcrja1orfsc2@corp.supernews.com...
>
> It works on my system. However, I just did a Google search and there
> may be a solution here:
http://www.latz.org/games/beyondzo/beyondzo.shtml
>

Okay, this brings up a question that I have: the above link also led to
a download which contained the graphics file beyondzo.mg1. Evidently
this is just a title screen, but I'd like to get it to work
nevertheless.

I have placed the file in the same directory as beyondzo.dat, but none
of the interpreters I have tried (DOS Frotz, WinFrotz, Windows Frotz,
and the interpreter on Masterpieces). WinFrotz (set to MCGA mode) comes
closest, displaying a blank screen where the title screen should be.
Windows Frotz offers the solution of downloading a customized Blorb
file, but I'm really hoping to make the original file work.

 

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Kevin Y. wrote:
> "Asa Rossoff" <asaATlovetour.info@x.x> wrote in message
> news:10hgcrja1orfsc2@corp.supernews.com...
>
>>It works on my system. However, I just did a Google search and there
>>may be a solution here:
>
> http://www.latz.org/games/beyondzo/beyondzo.shtml
>
>
> Okay, this brings up a question that I have: the above link also led to
> a download which contained the graphics file beyondzo.mg1. Evidently
> this is just a title screen, but I'd like to get it to work
> nevertheless.
>
> I have placed the file in the same directory as beyondzo.dat, but none
> of the interpreters I have tried (DOS Frotz, WinFrotz, Windows Frotz,
> and the interpreter on Masterpieces). WinFrotz (set to MCGA mode) comes
> closest, displaying a blank screen where the title screen should be.
> Windows Frotz offers the solution of downloading a customized Blorb
> file, but I'm really hoping to make the original file work.
>

I haven't tried that download, and I have no title screen in WinFrotz,
so I can't comment on that...

There's not really any advantage to using the original title screen
file. The one in the blorb will appear identical, not a pixel different.

Between WinFrotz and Windows Frotz to play the Infocom games, in general
-- They each pros and cons --


Windows Frotz is more modern, and I like it quite well for playing
almost all games. A couple of Infocom games let you use the mouse
(Beyond Zork -- clicking on the map to move, and Journey come to mind).
WinFrotz supports the mouse but Windows Frotz doesn't yet. The games
play the same otherwise. Saved game files in Windows Frotz are in a
modern standard format, which means that you can use the same saved game
files in other interpreters that use that format... a plus for the newer
interpreter.

Asa

 

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Kevin Y. wrote:
> Windows Frotz offers the solution of downloading a customized Blorb
> file, but I'm really hoping to make the original file work.

WF2002 won't display the .mg1 file. The .blb file contains an identical
image in a modern format.

David

 

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Asa Rossoff wrote:
> WinFrotz supports the mouse but Windows Frotz doesn't yet.

It doesn't? It should, and it works for me. What version of Windows Frotz
2002 are you using? What are you doing to test whether the mouse works or
not?

David

 

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Asa Rossoff <asaATlovetour.info@x.x> wrote in message news:<10hgl5klsbb4qf0@corp.supernews.com>...
> Windows Frotz is more modern, and I like it quite well for playing
> almost all games. A couple of Infocom games let you use the mouse
> (Beyond Zork -- clicking on the map to move, and Journey come to mind).
> WinFrotz supports the mouse but Windows Frotz doesn't yet.

You have some other problem. I can play both Journey and Beyond Zork
using the mouse in Windows Frotz 2002.

/Fredrik

 

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David Kinder wrote:
> Asa Rossoff wrote:
>
>>WinFrotz supports the mouse but Windows Frotz doesn't yet.
>
>
> It doesn't? It should, and it works for me. What version of Windows Frotz
> 2002 are you using? What are you doing to test whether the mouse works or
> not?
>
> David


Sorry for the misinformation. I just tried it and it does work fine.
I haven't played those games in a while, and was going from memory.
Possibly an experience with an older version of WF2002.

Thanks everyone for correcting me

Asa

 

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"Kevin Y." <mrxlz@hotmail.com> wrote:

> the above link also led to
> a download which contained the graphics file beyondzo.mg1. Evidently
> this is just a title screen, but I'd like to get it to work
> nevertheless.

With DOS Frotz works. You must be sure that the *.z5 and the *.mg1 files
have the same base name: for example you could rename the two files to
bzork.z5 and bzork.mg1

--
Paolo Vece - pvece@mclink.it - http://www.vece.net

 

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"Asa Rossoff" <asaATlovetour.info@x.x> wrote:

> WinFrotz supports the mouse but Windows Frotz doesn't yet.

Windows Frotz 2002 supports the mouse.

--
Paolo Vece - pvece@mclink.it - http://www.vece.net

 

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"Paolo Vece" <pvece@mclink.it> wrote in message
news:MPG.1b82f85d75a0b44b9897c1@news.individual.net...
> "Kevin Y." <mrxlz@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > the above link also led to
> > a download which contained the graphics file beyondzo.mg1. Evidently
> > this is just a title screen, but I'd like to get it to work
> > nevertheless.
>
> With DOS Frotz works. You must be sure that the *.z5 and the *.mg1
files
> have the same base name: for example you could rename the two files to
> bzork.z5 and bzork.mg1
>

It didn't work for me, even though I had already renamed the files.

However, WinFrotz is able to display the title screen properly; it turns
out I had to select "use full color" under display options. Without this
option turned on, Win98 displayed a monochromatic title screen, while
WinXP just displayed a blank screen. With it turned on, however, both
systems displayed the title screen perfectly.

And, of course, the Blorb option worked as well, albeit it's slightly
"dumb"; using the .mg1 file allowed WinFrotz to resize the title screen
to fit the game window, which didn't happen with the .blb file on
Windows Frotz.

Nevertheless, I'll admit it's not really worth the effort; setting "use
full color" breaks all the Infocom .z6 games, and WinFrotz doesn't
display the map properly anyway.

 

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Kevin Y. wrote:

> However, WinFrotz is able to display the title screen properly; it turns
> out I had to select "use full color" under display options. Without this
> option turned on, Win98 displayed a monochromatic title screen, while
> WinXP just displayed a blank screen. With it turned on, however, both
> systems displayed the title screen perfectly.
>
> And, of course, the Blorb option worked as well, albeit it's slightly
> "dumb"; using the .mg1 file allowed WinFrotz to resize the title screen
> to fit the game window, which didn't happen with the .blb file on
> Windows Frotz.
>
> Nevertheless, I'll admit it's not really worth the effort; setting "use
> full color" breaks all the Infocom .z6 games, and WinFrotz doesn't
> display the map properly anyway.

Yeah, the nice looking map in Windows Frotz 2002 is a plus. However, my
WinFrotz is always set to "use full color" and works fine the version 6
games. Do you have the v6 options set to use MCGA graphics? If not,
that might be the problem, as a guess. MCGA is the highest quality of
the formats.

In any case, I guess there's not much reason to avoid using WF2002. At
one time I found that some games worked better on one interpreter than
another, but possibly not any more. WF2002 seems to handle everything
I've tried recently just great, whereas there are definitely some
features of the other Windows interpreters that don't work quite as they
should.

Asa

 

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"Asa Rossoff" <asaATlovetour.info@x.x> wrote in message
news:10hi90efikmh88c@corp.supernews.com...
> Kevin Y. wrote:
>
> > Nevertheless, I'll admit it's not really worth the effort; setting "use
> > full color" breaks all the Infocom .z6 games, and WinFrotz doesn't
> > display the map properly anyway.
>
> Yeah, the nice looking map in Windows Frotz 2002 is a plus. However, my
> WinFrotz is always set to "use full color" and works fine the version 6
> games.
>

Mine is inexplicably working now, too. Never mind about that, then.

> In any case, I guess there's not much reason to avoid using WF2002. At
> one time I found that some games worked better on one interpreter than
> another, but possibly not any more. WF2002 seems to handle everything
> I've tried recently just great, whereas there are definitely some
> features of the other Windows interpreters that don't work quite as they
> should.
>

Certainly. I basically keep WinFrotz around for compatibility with certain
historical oddities.