Is there a Z-machine interpretor (Interactive Fiction) available that runs on uConsole?

uConsole
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I think uConsole would be a great platform for Interactive Fiction games (text adventures). Frotz is/was one of the most popular interpreters for the z-machine or z-code files (the actual games).

I’ve seen there is a fork of Frotz for PicoCalc, but nothing about this kind of app that will run on uConsole.

Do any of you lovely people know of any apps that fit the bill please? I’m wanting z-machine or z-code compatibility if possible.

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uconsole is just "keywords" linux arm64

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Thank you white-round-square, I’ve searched for ages online and drew a blank! :grin:

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seems like there is even a core for retroarch/retropie!

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I’d seen the RetroPie fork of Frotz, but had no idea I could put RetroPie on uConsole. If I’m reading it right, I need to install the image onto an SD card and boot from that.

Thank you, once again! :+1:

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if you have no-emmc CM4/CM5 you can just switch sd cards, yes.

but I personally would prefer to run it from cli, too much hustle for text based games.

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Thanks, I didn’t know Rex had created a RetroPie image too. Crikey Rex, where do you find the time? :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

My second uConsole arrived today and I do have quite a few SD cards spare after struggling to get the CM5 image working initially.

So, I’ll build the new one with a CM4 and install this image to play with. Should keep me out of mischief for a few hours, at least :rofl:

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I was playing around with the Ncurses version last night and it runs well with just CLI. So, that’s going to stay on the CM5 uConsole and RetroPie is going to be on the CM4 version with loads of emulated games. I doubt I’m going to get much done learning Python at this rate! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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i highly recommend to flash QMK keyboard firmware for gamepad mode.

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This is why i love niche projects and their forums. I completely forgot i played “Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy” back in the days on the Atari ST. Only issue was, i was 9, English was not my first language, never read the books, and hardly had any idea what i was doing :laughing:

Will be nice to revisit. Is there also a list somewhere with all games made for the Z-machine? (and if any are open sourced, a download source perhaps?)
Trying to google, but finding a lot of unrelated stuff, and more lists of interpreters, not actual games.

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This is probably the best source right now:

I started on the ZX Spectrum 48k with text adventures and yes, I am that old :rofl:

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That seems to be a must from what I have been reading. Thank you :+1:

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Ah, we had a ZX Spectrum too! But at that time i was about 4 or 5 years old, and could just about enter the commands to start the games :stuck_out_tongue:
Edit: No idea WHAT i was typing ofc, but even a 4 year old can remember a button sequence if they see it often enough :wink: And the games themselves were just left, right, action.

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There’s also Lectrote, an electron-based interpreter for z-machine and a bunch of others:

Or check out the whole list here, most if not all of the Linux ones will work:

Also want to give a shout-out to IF Comp 2025, still running for decades and live right now with new games to be played and voted on: https://ifcomp.org/

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so you had a full immersion!

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ghehe yeah for sure. But it was really a bit too early i think :wink: Have not played through the game yet (and dont spoil it yet please) but if its anything as crazy as the books, thats a bit much for a pre-teen child to comprehend, hahaha

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After you’d waited 5 minutes for the loading screens to finish :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: I have so many fond memories of the Spectrum. It isn’t lost on me that the uConsole has similar rubber keys!

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I saw that Wiki list of Linux interpreters the other day and sat wondering how many might work on Bookworm. This is another good excuse to learn more about the way Linux installs work for different distros.

One game I never finished on my Spectrum and that I really want to load up is Planet of Death. There was no Internet back then and being stuck on a game was often a brick wall you couldn’t get past. I spent a long time trying to complete the game and never did. I still remember one puzzle I was stuck on that I found out much later you needed to type the same thing in three times (iirc) to solve it.

The Pawn and Guild of Thieves were two other games I’d like to revisit, along with a few titles by Infocom. That’s before I begin looking through the IF Comp titles since I last looked a few years ago.

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bookworm is just a codename for previous debian release.

ditros (debian, arch, etc) are more or less interchangeable and you can install missed depencies or do some magic in most cases. I often unpack debian’s package and run it on arch just because why not if it works.

the problem you are looking is architecture: amd64 vs arm64. and still you can run software compiled for amd64 on arm64 via virtual machines or translators like box64. Or if it’s an opensource – you can recompile it for amd64.

in the end the only question – how much free time and insanity will do you have.

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ghehe, looooong ago i even recompiled some open source Linux stuff from x86 to arm for a different “niche console” (the OpenPandora). Certainly possible with some googling, and im in no way an expert.

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