Text adventures on the DS: GLK POGO v1.0

Posted Dec 3, 2006 at 4:15PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Nintendo DS Tags: GLK POGO, Google, homebrew community, SASQ

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Before the age of graphics, old-school computer games used to be text-based, prompting users to figure out the basic words they'll need to command their character through the game they've chosen to play. It seems strange in this day and age to try something like that, but then again, that's exactly what programmers and the homebrew community are for, right?

GLK POGO">SASQ, who also made Dungeon Crawl, decided to compile a bunch of different  text-based game interpreters and found a way to make them work on the DS. The collection, GLK POGO v1.0, plays interactive fiction from different developers of the period, though you'll have to find the actual games through Google (for free, of course). More interestingly, there's even a function that lets you use the stylus to input the letters through a virtual keyboard, and there's even some instruction on using the touch screen to gesture out letters like a PDA.

Here are the four interpreters, and a quick notice of what they do:

• Frotz
• Plays new and old (Infocom) zcode format adventures. Currently the only interpreter confirmed to handle load/save correctly.
• Includes games like Zork, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, etc.
  

• Level9
• Plays old Level9 adventures.
• Includes Knight Orc, Snowball, etc.

• Magnetic
• Plays Magnetic Scrolls adventures. Graphics are not handled correctly at the moment so avoid copying over the GFX-files.
• Includes The Pawn, Guild of Thieves, etc

• Nitfol
• Another interpreter for zcode.
• Is actually more modern then FROTZ, but the GLK-versions have problems with the titlebar & fixed width window.

A bit of hunting led us to find the code for Guild of Thieves and it works quite well with the Magnetic interpreter. Of course, learning how to play a game that uses specific text commands to get you to do something is a little tougher because of our lack of experience in that kind of thing, but an interactive story and game is pretty hard to beat when you've grown bored with the usual tales and gameplay experiences of 21st century play.

For the most part, enjoy downloading this compilation, and remember to read the download to make playing the games and understanding the stylus gesture inputs a whole lot easier. Enjoy!

Download: [GLK POGO v1.0]

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Comments 

 

# Nice — Guest 2006-12-03 21:00

A good start, definitely. I'd like to see the Glulxe interpreter done next (although I can see where it might have a few difficulties), and Inform would be another good candidate...



In fact, I think I have something I did in Inform lying around. Yeah, do that one first. Inform FTW, etc.

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