Re: Announcing: Fyleet, Crobe, Sangraal

[Crispin Boylan <viewtronix@easynet.co.uk>]

Hi
Any chance of Kingdom Of Hamil, Quondam and Acheton itself?
I'd love to play the full Hamil - or are their copyright problems?

Great job with the others though!
Cheers
Cris

Graham Nelson wrote:

> 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