Starting a new game by providing a filename¶

Just give the filename of the story file at the end of the command line.

Sound Support¶

fizmo-sdl2 supports sound playback. Sound files are either read from a blorb file, or, old-infocom-style-wise, from separate *.snd files which have to be stored in the same directory as the game file. At the moment, only AIFF sounds can be read from a blorb file. When the game requests a sound, fizmo uses the sound from the current blorb file. If no blorb file is given or the sound cannot be found in it, fizmo tries to locate a file with the format “GAMFIL00.SND” where GAMEFIL symbolizes the game filename shortened to a maximum of six characters, the sound number—eventually padded by a leading zero so it has always a length of two characters—and a “.SND” suffix. Both upper- and lowercase filenames are attempted. That means you can directly use the sounds from the IF-archive at “/if-archive/infocom/media/sound”.

List of files¶

$HOME/.config/fizmo/config

May contain user configuration parameters. In case $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is defined and contains an absolute path, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fizmo/config is used, in case of a relative path $HOME/$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/fizmo/confg is read.

($XDG_CONFIG_DIRS)/fizmo/config

$XDG_CONFIG_DIRS may contain a colon separated list of config directories to search. In case $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS is not set or empty /etc/xdg is used instead. Every directory is searched for a subdirectory named fizmo containing a file config, which will be searched for configuration parameters.

/etc/fizmo.conf

Global configuration parameters.

Option names for config files¶

The following section lists the config-file's equivalents for the command lines options. For a detailed description of these options, see the “Options” section. Options have to start at the beginning of the line without any leading whitespace. Comments start with a '#' at the beginning of the line.

background-color = <color-name>
foreground-color = <color-name>
transcript-filename = <filename>
command-filename = <filename>
cursor-color = <color-name>
font-search-path = <colon-separated-directory-names>
font-size = <font-size-value>
i18n-search-path = <colon-separated-directory-names>
locale = <language-code>
savegame-path = <directory-name>
random-mode = <random or predictable>
save-text-history-paragraphs = <number of paragraphs to store in savegames>
z-code-path = <colon-separated-directory-names>
z-code-root-path = <colon-separated-directory-names>
disable-sound = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
quetzal-umem = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
set-tandy-flag = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
start-command-recording-when-story-starts = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
start-file-input-when-story-starts = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
start-script-when-story-starts = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
disable-stream-2-hyphenation = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
disable-stream-2-wrap = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
stream-2-line-width = <line-width>
stream-2-left-margin = <margin-size>
sync-transcript = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
left-margin = <number-of-columns>
right-margin = <number-of-columns>
disable-hyphenation = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
force-8bit-sound = <any value means yes, empty no>
enable-xterm-title = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
max-undo-steps = <maximum number of stored undo steps as numerical value>
history-reformatting-during-refresh = <any value means yes, empty no>

Font options for config files¶

regular-font = <ttf or otf file>
italic-font = <ttf or otf file>
bold-font = <ttf or otf file>
bold-italic-font = <ttf or otf file>
fixed-regular-font = <ttf or otf file>
fixed-regular-font = <ttf or otf file>
fixed-bold-font = <ttf or otf file>
fixed-bold-italic-font = <ttf or otf file>
regular-font = <ttf or otf file>
italic-font = <ttf or otf file>
bold-font = <ttf or otf file>
bold-italic-font = <ttf or otf file>

Scrolling back¶

You can use the PageUp and PageDown keys (some terminals may require holding down shift) anytime to review text which was scrolled above the current window border.

Refreshing the screen¶

CTRL-L will refresh the current display.

Redrawing the screen¶

CTRL-R will redraw the current display. Contrary to CTRL-L, which refreshes the screen based on the current layout, CTRL-R will reconstruct the latest output based on the output history. This will help to display output which is hidden in case a game clears the screen, writes some text into the top line and then turns on the score line which then overlays the topmost line.

Resizing the screen¶

In general, resizing the screen works best for game versions 3 and before, which is unfortunate since this encompasses only a part of the old Infocom games and none of the modern ones. For all others—including Seastalker—the upper window (which means mostly the status bar) cannot be resized and will remain fixed.

Undocumented Infocom commands¶

Here is a list of commands that some of Infocom's games seem to support, although I never saw them menitioned in a manual or reference card.

$verify, $ve, $ver

Verifies if the game file is correct (essentially executes the “verify” opcode). “$ve” works in almost all original Infocom games, “$ver” works in AMFV, Beyond Zork, Bureaucracy, Nord and Bert, Sherlock, Trinity and Zork Zero.

$refre

Refreshes the screen. Works in AMFV, Arthur, Bureaucracy, Nord and Bert, Sherlock, Shogun, Trinity and Zork Zero.

$id

The “$id” command gives information about the interpreter. Works in Border Zone, Bureaucracy and Trinity.

$credi

Shows a credit screen in Trinity and Beyond Zork.

#comm, #command

This will read your input from a file. Works in AMFV, Ballyhoo, Bureaucracy, Enchanter, Hollywood Hjinx, Leather Goddesses, Lurking Horror, Plundered Hearts, Shogun, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Stationfall, Trinity and Zork Zero.

#rand <int>

Seeds the random generator with the given value. May be used in AMFV, Ballyhoo, Border Zone, Bureaucracy, Enchanter, Hollywood Hijinx, Leather Goddesses, Lurking Horror, Plundered Hearts, Shogun, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Stationfall and Zork Zero.

#reco, #record

This will record your commands into a file. Works in AMFV, Ballyhoo, Bureaucracy, Enchanter, Hollywood Hjinx, Leather Goddesses, Lurking Horror, Plundered Hearts, Shogun, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Stationfall and Zork Zero.

#unre, #unrecord

Stops recording commands into a file. Used in AMFV, Ballyhoo, Bureaucracy, Enchanter, Hollywood Hijinx, Leather Goddesses, Lurking Horror, Plundered Hearts, Shogun, Sorcerer, Spellbreaker, Stationfall and Zork Zero.

ITF — The InfoTaskForce¶

All the people who worked on the Z-Machine Specification, in alphabetical order: Chris Tham, David Beazley, David Fillmore, George Janczuk, Graham Nelson, Mark Howell, Matthias Pfaller, Mike Threepoint, Paul David Doherty, Peter Lisle, Russell Hoare and Stefan Jokisch. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InfoTaskForce for more information.

The Frotz authors¶

When I got stuck I peeked into the frotz source. Thanks to Stefan Jokisch, Galen Hazelwood and David Griffith.

Mark Howell¶

For the pix2gif code which is used in libdrilbo to parse the infocom .mg1 image files.

People helping with bug fixes, extensions, packaging, translations and more¶

in alphabetical order: Andrew Plotkin, B. Watson, Michael Baltes, David Batchelder, David Leverton, Eric Forgeot, irb, Jared Reisinger, Lewis Gentry, Michael Dunlap, Mikko Torvinen, Nikos Chantziaras, Patrick Matthäi, Samuel Verschelde, Stephen Gutknecht, Zachary Kline and the people at MacPorts.