Level 9 Programming Language

[Guest]

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

Hi Folks,

Infocom, as we are all aware, used its own Z-Machine interpreter, which has
been nicely rendered by Mr. Nelson and Inform, my question is has anyone
managed to create an interpreter for Level 9 games - not just at a text
level, but also including the graphic elements.

The reason I ask is that we can, via Inform, create a good text adventure in
the style of Zork, but is there a programming language where I can write a
game in the style of Knight Orc, or The Worm in Paradise?

I like text and graphic adventure games (maybe more than pure text! ;-)) so
I would like to experiment with creating a game like Level 9 did - does such
a language exist???

J

 

[samwyse]

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

On or about 4/3/2005 5:00 PM, Jerry Drake did proclaim:

> Hi Folks,
>
> Infocom, as we are all aware, used its own Z-Machine interpreter, which has
> been nicely rendered by Mr. Nelson and Inform, my question is has anyone
> managed to create an interpreter for Level 9 games - not just at a text
> level, but also including the graphic elements.

The ifarchive has some interpreters.

> The reason I ask is that we can, via Inform, create a good text adventure in
> the style of Zork, but is there a programming language where I can write a
> game in the style of Knight Orc, or The Worm in Paradise?
>
> I like text and graphic adventure games (maybe more than pure text! ;-)) so
> I would like to experiment with creating a game like Level 9 did - does such
> a language exist???

I don't know of any.

 

[Guest]

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

Jerry Drake wrote:
> my question is has anyone managed to create an interpreter for Level 9 games
> - not just at a text level, but also including the graphic elements.

There is an interpreter, called (not very originally) Level9:
http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-archiveXlevel9XinterpretersXlevel9.html

This supports the line drawn graphics (like Worm in Paradise) but not the
bitmap graphics (like in Knight Orc). For that you'll have to wait for v4.0
of the interpreter, out (fairly) soon.

> but is there a programming language where I can write a game in the style
> of Knight Orc, or The Worm in Paradise?

There's nothing that acts as a compiler for Level 9's A-code format.

What do you mean by "in the style of"? Assuming you mean the layout with
graphics above and text below, you could do it with Inform by compiling to
either the Z-code V6 or Glulx formats and setting up a suitable display.
I expect you could also do this with HTML TADS, but I'll let someone who
knows more about TADS than me answer definitively.

David

 

[samwyse]

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

On or about 4/3/2005 5:03 PM, samwyse did proclaim:
> On or about 4/3/2005 5:00 PM, Jerry Drake did proclaim:
>> I like text and graphic adventure games (maybe more than pure text!
>> ;-)) so I would like to experiment with creating a game like Level 9
>> did - does such a language exist???
>
> I don't know of any.

OK, half-a-second after posting that...

I don't know of any compilers that target the Level 9 VM. However,
TADS, Hugo, and Inform all allow the creation of games that combine text
and graphics.