MoonBase Escape - Rev2!

[LordVaderUK]

During lockdown I've been working on a new, improved version of my text adventure - MoonBase Escape, and it's now ready for you to try / break! It's the same story as the original game, but with an expanded map and some new puzzles. It even has a couple of cheesy sound effects (type SFX to toggle these on/off).

The parser is a bit more sophisticated too, you can have compound instructions, like OPEN LOCKER THEN GET TORCH AND TURN IT ON, as well as multi word commands like "PUT BATTERY IN SATCHEL".

Other improvements include a VERBOSE command (to shorten room descriptions) as well as code improvements to load times. In theory the disk will only be accessed if it is really, really necessary - which will hopefully have speeded gameplay up.

It has been a bit of a struggle getting it to run in 32K, however it should run on a BBC B, and hopefully will also run on an Electron (can someone please try it and let me know?!).

Please do give it a try and let me know what you think. I've played it through several times and it can be completed with a 100% score, and without falling over! If however you find any bugs, or have suggestions for improvements, please let me know and I will aim to fix / implement as quickly as I can.

[fuzzel]

Hi LordVaderUK, I'm looking forward to playing this when I get a few moments. Just the small matter of my own game to finish first...
Great work on improving the parser although my own personal preference is to keep things very simple. Anything beyond <VERB> <NOUN1> + optional <PREPOSITION> <NOUN2> is a bit too much for me. For me the bigger improvement is reducing disc access during gameplay. When, inevitably, I have to start the game again and get to a certain location I get frustrated having to suffer a slow disc drive chugging away whilst my typing gets further and further ahead. Another great idea a la Infocom is the BRIEF / VERBOSE command if you've already visited a location and don't want to read the text again. For your next challenge I recommend you have a go at writing an assembly language game, even if it's a conversion of MoonBase to start with. You'll find as I did that it's a great way of learning the language and you don't have to worry about "out of memory" messages. If you write it in Beebasm which I didn't discover until I was miles down the road with my game it makes development much, much easier, a pleasure even. I started about a year ago with a simple input routine which split the input into verb and noun and took it from there. If you decide to go ahead let me know if you need any pointers.
btw, have you ever played Five Spheres of Goliath by Kansas? I loved that game bitd, it had a great loading tune and was rather atmospheric. looking at it now it's very Scott Adamsy but definitely worth a play.

[LordVaderUK]

For your next challenge I recommend you have a go at writing an assembly language game, even if it's a conversion of MoonBase to start with. You'll find as I did that it's a great way of learning the language and you don't have to worry about "out of memory" messages. If you write it in Beebasm which I didn't discover until I was miles down the road with my game it makes development much, much easier, a pleasure even. I started about a year ago with a simple input routine which split the input into verb and noun and took it from there. If you decide to go ahead let me know if you need any pointers.

My first job on leaving school several decades ago was writing code in Z80 assembler... so although I have forgotten pretty much everything, maybe it's still in there somewhere! So I accept the challenge, and I'll give it a go when time allows.

btw, have you ever played Five Spheres of Goliath by Kansas? I loved that game bitd, it had a great loading tune and was rather atmospheric. looking at it now it's very Scott Adamsy but definitely worth a play.

I'll add it to my list of things to do!

[EdwardianDuck]

For no particular reason (and, yes, I know there's no real point) attached is a rough port to Inform6/PunyInform. I started this quite some time ago for reasons which are no longer relevant and being at a loose end project wise, I decided to finish it off.

Note that it is a basic port. I have resisted the temptation to "improve" it beyond what was sensible to get it to work. So, by Inform standards it will feel a little under implemented. For example, it still refers to things in room descriptions that do not exist, even as scenic elements, in the actual code.

It's running under Ozmoo.

I've attached the source, a walkthrough and a transcript along with the SSD, in case anyone finds these useful.

Jeremy

[Cybershark]

Is this a revisit to an earlier Moonbase or, in the grand naming scheme of things, does that make this "Moonbase Gamma"?

[EdwardianDuck]

Hard to say, it's not my game, but if such a sequence exists, then one would have to consider skipping "Moonbase Theta" as that's someone else's current IP.