Text adventure updated

Mini text adventure ‘Ultimate Nightmare’ has now been updated to v1.2 and is available to download from my website here: http://loftcatsoftware.×10host.com

It’s a game I originally wrote way back on the Acorn Electron in the early 1990s, but since I’ve discovered Risc OS the game’s undergone a bit of a refresh.

Not sure if there’s much appetite for text adventures these days, but any useful feedback is welcome.

Having been zipped on a Mac, it’s lost its BASIC filetype.

Just corrected the download file – should be okay now :)

Unfortunately, it’s still not right.

The file is downloading as plain text, but appears mangled. It’s not recognised as a zip file if I set its type to that, and looking at it, it contains some obvious text, mixed in with control characters – but it’s not recognised as BASIC.

Unfortunately, it’s still not right.

The download arrives here as !Ultimate.dms, where the filetype dms appears to be an Amiga compressor.

The first download, zipped on a Mac, was OK-ish, only the BASIC filetype was lost, however once corrected the game does run on the Titanium.

The problem may be that Tony does not have RISC OS, if so I can provide a (proper RISC OS) zip.

Thanks for the game BTW, I am looking forward to trying my luck with it.

edit The (first download) BASIC is OK-ish, it runs. Oddly every other BASIC line is blank!!

edit2 CRUNCH 16!

I travel a lot for work so don’t always have access to Risc OS on my Pi. I have been editing the text file on my Macbook, so the only thing I can think is the text file has become corrupted somehow. I’ve temporarily disabled the download link for now.. I’ll retest back on my Pi soon and hopefully get it properly sorted.

Run CHUNCH 16 this morning and sorted the line number issue. Still not entirely sure how the blank lines got in there, possibly during transition between text editors.
I’ve uploaded a new version to my website, I’ve tested downloading it to my Raspberry Pi and it does work, but you have to change the type from text to BASIC. If anyone’s got any tips how to prevent that, advice appreciated (I’m still very new to RISC OS!). I uploaded the !Ultimate121 file using !FTPc on RISC OS to my webspace. I’m guessing maybe files always need to be zipped before transferred from RISC OS to another machine type to prevent the “!” being lost at the front?

You’re on the right track; you need to zip it under RISC OS to avoid losing the file type. SparkFS is the “gold standard” for making zip files, but it’s not free. I believe that there’s a free alternative, but as I’m a SparkFS owner I’ve never needed to investigate and therefore can’t really give you any details.

The ! is not required for self-contained BASIC code, only for apps with multiple files.

You’re on the right track; you need to zip it under RISC OS to avoid losing the file type. SparkFS is the “gold standard” for making zip files, but it’s not free. I believe that there’s a free alternative, but as I’m a SparkFS owner I’ve never needed to investigate and therefore can’t really give you any details.

SparkFS user myself but still look at other stuff which includes InfoZip – latest appears to be 24 July 2012 so I don’t know how that gets on with the zero page changes and any deprecated instructions in later processors.

InfoZip works with the ARMX6

InfoZip works with the ARMX6

That’s the zero page issues ticked off then, the question is whether there’s any stray bits that upset a Pi3. If not then Robert is indeed your mothers brother.