Starting a new game by providing a filename¶

This is the most direct way to get a game running. Just give the filename of the story file at the end of the command line.

Starting a new game by providing its title¶

If the game you want to play is stored in the list of known games, you can simply start it by providing the title instead of the full filename. Example: "fizmo sorcerer" will run the game “Sorcerer”, no matter if it is stored in the current directory or somewhere else.

Starting a game from the list of story files¶

Without any filename given, fizmo will display the list of the currently known story files it has indexed so far. Everytime fizmo is started and no story-name is provided, fizmo will update the list of stories by indexing the directories listed in ZCODE_PATH or INFOCOM_PATH.

Restoring a game from the command line¶

If you give the name of a quetzal save-game file at the end of the command line, fizmo will use its story file list to locate the story file the saved game originates from to directly restore the game.

Sound Support¶

fizmo-ncursesw supports sound via the SDL multimedia library which is available for most unix flavors and Windows. 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”.

Story-Metadata / IF Bibliography¶

fizmo-ncursesw is able to read metadata-files as defined in the “Treaty of Babel”. It will try to read the metadata from all files ending in .iFiction which are found in the $HOME/.config/fizmo directory. Fizmo will re-build the story list once the metadata files have been changed. For this purpose, the timestamps for the metadata-files are stored in the file $HOME/.config/fizmo/babel-timestamps. For more information about the treaty, see http://babel.ifarchive.org/.

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.

$HOME/.config/fizmo/story-list.txt

Contains the current list of story files known. In case $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is set the path is altered as described above.

$HOME/.config/fizmo/*.iFiction

Fizmo treats all files with a suffix of .iFiction in the $HOME/.config/fizmo directory as sources for story metadata. For more info, see section “Story-Metadata / IF Bibliography” above. In case $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is defined, see above.

$HOME/.config/fizmo/babel-timestamps

A list of .iFiction-files and their respective timestamps as they were found when the story list was last built (knowing if the babel info has changed speeds up the update process). $XDG_CONFIG_HOME will alter the directory as described before.

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>
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>
disable-color = <any value means yes, empty no>
force-8bit-sound = <any value means yes, empty no>
enable-xterm-title = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
dont-udpate-story-list = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
max-undo-steps = <maximum number of stored undo steps as numerical value>
enable-xterm-graphics = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>
display-x11-inline-image = <no value or “true” means yes, otherwise no>

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, George Janczuk, David Fillmore, 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, Jared Reisinger, irb, Lewis Gentry, Michael Dunlap, Mikko Torvinen, Nikos Chantziaras, Patrick Matthäi, Samuel Verschelde, Stephen Gutknecht, Zachary Kline and the people at MacPorts.