Unofficial port of Frotz (interactive fiction)

PicoCalc
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41

Wishbringer is next on my list!
Just a side note. With this port on my PicoCalc using pico 2w the writing is really snappy and only very rarely I have the issue of the keyboard not recognizing my key press. Definitely much better than other uf2 that I have tried!

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42

I am really enjoying Wishbringer so far.

That is interesting about the snappy display. These are my unoptimised screen routines that I was going to make run faster, but I liked the vintage feel of the text scrolling in, so I left it as it was.

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43

I am releasing v0.6 of Frotz for the PicoCalc today. This release upgrades the Pico-series C/C++ SDK to v2.2.0 to allow loading with uf2loader.

1 Like
44

I did not see this explained in the README but why is the list of stories limited to 24? Is this a memory limit or just a menu design limitation?

45

Finally got my first taste of this when dabbling with the uf2loader. It’s excellent!

There was one game in particular I was interested in trying. It’s a more recent game (a .z8) that I stumbled onto a few years ago. I’ll avoid spoilers, but a big part of it is the surprise you finally get to, which is the main source of fun in the game. (Getting there is a bit of a slog though, but I believe it’s worth it.) Seems to work perfectly on the PicoCalc too!

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46

It was a lazy design limitation to what would fit on the screen at once. I was thinking, people would copy no more than a couple of dozen stories they were interested in reading out of their collection onto the SD card.

I guess I have found that person who views 24 as a limit!

47

Thank you for the reading suggestion! I’ve added it to my list!

48

I would like to take a stab at fixing this. Would you prefer that I fork the repo or contribute to your repo?

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49

Please contributed so we can share it with other future updates.

50

I have returned to Frotz and now have it in shape for a v1.0 release.

What’s Changed

  • New title screen with story selector
  • Recognises up to 256 stories that can be chosen
  • Font and phosphor can be changed and saved per story
1 Like
51

So, I was just about to check in some changes that I made to support up to 256 stories and scrolling story list. I will compare mine to yours. :wink: . Are you open to me just checking into the repo or would you prefer diffs to review?

52

You should commit to a branch to create a pull request.

53

Using a Pico 1 if I try frotz v1.0 using the uf2loader v2.2 i just get a blank screen. v0.6 works fine.

54

Could you do me a favour? Can you see if it will start on a Pico 1 not using uf2loader?

55

I get a blank screen without using the loader as well.

56

Ok, now I know that uf2loader is not involved!

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3 Likes
58

At long last, I am releasing v1.1. This release includes the first community contribution by @Johnathon!

What’s Changed

  • Scrolling list with highlighting and scroll arrows by @Johnathon
  • Minor updates
  • Upgraded Frotz and the Starter Kit to the latest versions
1 Like
59

Thanks for your continued work on this project. It’s been a lot of fun to use. Unfortunately I’m unable to get this release working on a Pico 1.

I tried:

  1. Using the UF2 loader v2.3
  2. Clearing the Pico 1 with flash_nuke.uf2 and then flashing the frotz uf2 directly to the Pico.

In both cases I just get a blank screen.

60

I am going to put a pico 1 into my my PicoCalc to get to the bottom of this.