Source:The Domain of Zenoqq notes
| This page is a verbatim reproduction of original source material and should not be edited except for maintenance. | |
| Description |
Author's notes, comments, and hints for Eamon adventure #233, The Domain of Zenoqq. |
|---|---|
| Source |
The text file "AUTHORS.NOTES" from the original game disk |
| Date |
Late 1994 |
| Author | |
| License |
The use of this item is permitted on the grounds that it's free or in the public domain. |
Author's Notes for The Domain of Zenoqq
The original was written back in the "dark ages" of the early 1980's, and (of course) was set up in DOS 3.3, 40 columns, and uppercase only. It was what is now called Version 4. Although my friends got a chance to play it, I never made any effort to distribute it.
Now, fast forward to late 1994, when I discover that Eamon is alive and kicking, and has even been updated several times. I decide to go ahead and release my old adventure (dusting it off, first :). But first, I figure I might as well convert it to ProDOS, and while I'm at it, go ahead and make it an 80-column, mixed-case adventure. This note is mainly concerned with that conversion.
First, anybody who decides they want to look at the long descriptions / effects (in the Eamon.Desc file), should be aware that, because I use a machine language routine to input those descriptions, they can contain characters which will cause problems for the AppleSoft INPUT statement (such as the double quote). For this reason, and because the strings may be up to 255 characters long, the standard "Dungeon Edit"-type programs will NOT work correctly, so DON'T EVEN TRY IT! For the curious, a "normal" Eamon.Desc file contains a double quote, the long description string, and a closing double quote, while my format just has the description string with no delimiters (except the terminating CR).
As already noted, I use a ML input routine in DoZ to input the long descriptions. I also use an upcase routine (which makes a string all uppercase), and a "Title Case" routine, which makes a string all lowercase, except for the first letter of each word (like a Title :).
In the process of converting DoZ, I combined some of the code from the current, Version 7.1 main program with the old code (which is Version 4). This was mostly in the areas of starting and quitting (and the SAVE command I added), as well as some of the main loop, in order to interface with the ProDOS Main Hall, and to take advantage of some of the enhancements added to the program since the original was written. I also implemented the "Fast.Start" VAR file (with it's Make.Fast.Start program).
In terms of actual enhancements, I implemented the "prefix string" matching for commands, so, for example, you can type A for the Attack command. I also use the ML fast array search routine in the main loop, although there're probably a few other places in the code which could benefit from it. As mentioned, I added the Save command. While I was doing the converting, I noticed that, even with Version 7.1, I would have to keep the names of monsters, artifacts, and commands all uppercase, which I wasn't too happy with. So, I went ahead and made all of those names Title Case, and used the aforementioned Title Case ML routine to change the user's input to match (giving nice, pretty text :). The player's weapons and his/her name is also made Title Cased, just to make everything look consistent. When returning to the Main Hall, all of the weapons the player leaves with are uppercased, so other Eamons won't have trouble. The original player name (in whatever case it happened to have been in) is preserved for when the player returns to the Main Hall. Not that anyone would notice, but I also did a little fine-tuning of the old code while I was at it.
Bob Claney